my brother framed me for theft to get my inheritance, and now hr is in on it

I (29F) work at a small accounting firm in Brisbane. My brother Marcus (33M) and I have been estranged for years, mostly because of our father Peter, who walked out when we were kids. Our grandmother passed away six months ago, and her will left me a share of her estate—but only if I’m employed at the time of distribution. Marcus gets the rest, and he’s always resented that I was named in the will at all.

Last Thursday, Marcus showed up at my office unannounced. He said he was in the area and wanted to grab coffee. I was busy, so I told him to wait in the lobby. He stayed maybe ten minutes, then left. I didn’t think anything of it.

The next morning, my boss called me into his office. He said $4,000 had gone missing from the petty cash drawer. The security footage allegedly showed me near the safe at 6:45 PM—after everyone else had gone home. I told him I left at 5:30 that day, same as always. He didn’t believe me. He suspended me pending an investigation.

I tried to piece things together. Marcus has a key to the office—he used to temp here years ago, and they never changed the locks. I remembered he’d been acting weird at lunch that day, asking about my shifts and who had access to the safe. Then my dad called. I hadn’t spoken to him in three years, but he said Marcus had told him I was in debt and desperate. Peter claimed he saw me with a wad of cash at a pub last week. That was a lie—I haven’t seen him since 2021.

The investigation was handed to Lynette, an HR consultant the firm hired. She seemed professional at first. Then she called me in and said she’d found an email on my work computer—one that supposedly offered to sell client data to a competitor. I’ve never sent anything like that. The timestamp was wrong, the phrasing didn’t match my writing style, and the recipient was a random Gmail address I’d never seen. But Lynette presented it as proof.

I reached out to a friend from my extended friend group, a forensic accountant named Tom. He looked at the security footage and spotted a three-minute gap in the timestamps—just enough time to edit the video. I went to Lynette’s office and confronted her. I showed her the discrepancy and asked why she’d been so quick to believe Marcus.

She broke. She admitted Marcus had pressured her—he’d promised her a cut of the inheritance if she helped get me fired. She altered the footage and planted the email. She said she was sorry, but it didn’t feel real.

I took everything to my boss and the police. Marcus is now charged with fraud, and Lynette is being investigated for collusion. My job might be salvageable, but I’m still shaken. My brother tried to destroy my career for money. Would you put up with that kind of betrayal? Am I overreacting for going to the police?