By Thursday afternoon, news of the pending eviction had sent my family into a state of absolute, unhinged panic.
My father tried calling my phone twenty-seven times. My mother sent forty-three text messages—alternating between begging for forgiveness, offering to pay “partial rent” starting next year, and accusing me of destroying our family’s honor.
I blocked all three of their numbers and redirected all communications through Sarah Vance’s office.
At 3:00 PM, I met with my forensic accountant, David Miller, in his office downtown.
Because Erin had used the Craftsman house address to register PulsePoint LLC as a commercial entity in Washington State, and because she had listed my name as a “secondary technology advisor” on an early investor deck without my permission, David had executed a full public registry audit of her business filings.
David laid three thick financial folders onto his desk.
“Claire,” David said, his expression grave as he looked across at me. “Your sister hasn’t just been failing at business. She’s been committing active securities fraud.”
I sat up straight in my leather chair. “What do you mean?”
“Eighteen months ago,” David explained, tapping a blue ledger, “Erin raised $120,000 from four private angel investors—friends of your father’s from his old golf club—under the claim that PulsePoint had built a working proprietary fitness algorithm.”
“She doesn’t know how to write a single line of code,” I said.
“Correct,” David nodded. “She listed your software achievements at your corporate job as part of PulsePoint’s technical infrastructure on her pitch deck. She led those investors to believe that you were the lead engineer building her platform.”
A cold shock ran down my spine. “She used my resume to raise money?!”
“She did,” David said. “And out of that $120,000 in investor capital, she spent $45,000 on luxury clothing, $22,000 on personal trips to Cabo and Miami under the guise of ‘market research,’ and $18,000 paying off her personal credit cards. There is no software, Claire. There is no platform. PulsePoint is a empty shell built on stolen technical credentials and misallocated investor funds.”
I leaned back in my chair, my brain processing the absolute staggering magnitude of Erin’s sociopathy.
She hadn’t just slapped me across the face at my grandparents’ table. She had used my hard-earned professional reputation to steal six figures from elderly golf club members, while living rent-free in my house and calling me a “glorified code-monkey.”
“David,” I spoke, my voice dropping into an ironclad register. “Issue a formal Disclaimer of Association and Cease-and-Desist Notice to the Washington State Department of Revenue and the four angel investors immediately.”
“If I file that disclaimer, Claire,” David warned softly, “the state securities division will freeze her business license within twenty-four hours, and her investors will execute a personal debt recall against her.”
“File it, David,” I said cleanly. “It’s time Erin learned what an ‘ambitious female founder’ actually deals with.”
