Sixty year old Ruby Nickerson arrived at Mercy General Hospital in Sacramento with a winning lottery ticket worth twenty million dollars inside her purse. She intended to secure the financial future of her thirty four year old son Mason but stopped outside room twenty two when she overheard him talking on speakerphone. Mason was openly admitting to his business manager Serena that he routinely exaggerated his medical condition to manipulate his mother into paying his personal debts. Hearing her only child plan to exploit her finances completely shattered her perspective. Instead of sharing her incredible news, Ruby returned to her home in the Pinecrest neighborhood and began to question the entire foundation of their relationship. Soon after, Serena contacted Ruby directly to warn her about deeply concerning financial irregularities involving Mason, proving that the hospital conversation was just the beginning of a massive deception.
Meeting Serena at a local diner confirmed her worst fears when Ruby was presented with official bank statements and loan applications featuring her forged signature. Mason had fraudulently secured six hundred and eighty thousand dollars in commercial loans using her identity. Ruby quickly hired asset protection lawyer Carson Wickham to establish an irrevocable medical trust that would cover the health care of her son directly without giving him access to cash. When confronted in his hospital bed, Mason admitted to the forgery but accidentally revealed a text message from a corrupt local attorney named Garrett Stone. The message exposed a sinister plot to draft a fraudulent power of attorney document. Mason and Garrett planned to use normal moments of exhaustion to have Ruby declared mentally incompetent, allowing them to seize control of her newly acquired multi million dollar fortune before she could protect herself.
