Chapter 5 - The Consultation and the Trap
Marcus Vance—no relation, thankfully—sat at my kitchen table two nights later, surrounded by color-coded printouts, bank routing slips, and Belle’s public social media archive. He adjusted his wire-rimmed glasses, pushed the certified hospital statement aside, and looked up at Tessa and me with a grim, professional expression.
“From a legal standpoint, this is textbook wire fraud and deceptive charitable solicitation,” Marcus said, tapping his pen against the notepad. “When you launch a public campaign explicitly stating funds are earmarked for specific medical bills, diverting those funds for personal use crosses the line from a messy family dispute into a felony.”
“Can she actually face jail time for this?” Tessa asked, leaning forward.
“If the platform records match what we suspect—that large chunks of those donations were funneled into personal accounts, Venmo handles under aliases, or spent on non-medical expenses—yes, absolutely,” Marcus confirmed. “Platforms like GoFundMe and similar crowdfunding sites have strict compliance teams. Once subpoenaed, they hand over IP logs, bank transfer destinations, and withdrawal histories without hesitation.”
“I don’t necessarily want to send my sister to prison if we can avoid it,” I murmured quietly, staring out the window at the Raleigh streetlamps flickering on. “I just want the remaining funds frozen, the page shut down, and every single donor refunded or-re-routed to my actual medical account.”
Marcus shook his head gently. “Elena, people like your sister don't stop when you ask nicely. If you give her an easy out, she will spin a new narrative framing you as the ungrateful thief who tried to sabotage her charity work. You have to trap her legally before she has time to scrub the digital paper trail.”
We spent the next two hours mapping out our next move. Marcus drafted a formal legal demand letter on official law firm letterhead, giving Belle exactly forty-eight hours to provide a full financial disclosure and transfer control of the fundraiser dashboard to a neutral third-party escrow account.
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At the same time, we initiated formal preservation-of-evidence requests directly through the crowdfunding platform’s legal compliance portal, freezing all active withdrawals on Belle’s campaign before she could touch the remaining balance.
The trap was officially set. All we had to do was wait for her to walk right into it.
