Chapter 4 - The Domain With One Extra LetterBy evening, police were coordinating with investigators in New York. Bianca gave them photographs of the guardianship papers, screenshots from Tobias's laptop, and names of neighbors who'd heard arguments inside the apartment.
Nathan found something else. The fake emails supposedly from me had come from an address that looked almost identical to mine — one extra letter added to the domain. Renata had created it, using details from my genuine messages to make the fakes sound convincing.
That was how they'd separated us. Tobias convinced Bianca I believed she was mentally unwell. Renata convinced me Bianca wanted distance. Each of us waited for the other to reach out, while Tobias controlled her phone, her paycheck, her identification, and her bank cards.
Two days later, New York investigators searched the apartment. They found Bianca's original phone locked inside Tobias's desk, along with unsigned power-of-attorney forms, drafts of the guardianship petition, and a spreadsheet labeled "Laura funds."
The spreadsheet explained the money. Renata had secretly run up nearly $190,000 in debt after a failed online retail business. I knew the business had closed. I didn't know she'd been keeping it alive on credit cards and personal loans.
Tobias knew. According to messages recovered from his computer, he'd offered Renata a deal — help him isolate Bianca and support the claim that she couldn't manage her own finances. If Tobias gained control, they planned to request large trust distributions for supposed medical treatment, housing, and childcare. Renata would get $120,000. Tobias would keep the rest.
The baby, they believed, made the plan easier — ordinary exhaustion after childbirth, repackaged as proof Bianca couldn't safely run her own life.
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But Bianca found the papers before they filed the final petition. She left. Tobias followed the tracker to Dallas.
Renata's final mistake was the message telling me not to let Nathan call the police.
