EXPLOSIVE NEW TWIST: Annie Guthrie’s car has been seized and searched, and police reportedly found a receipt for medication, medical bandages, and…

Neighbors watched the drama unfold with jaws on the floor. “It was like a movie set,” gasped Carla Jenkins, 45, peering from her Willow Creek window with binoculars in hand. “Cops towed the car away on a flatbed, Annie’s boyfriend Alex looking like a ghost as he handed over the keys. We’ve seen that Mercedes zipping around for months – Annie driving the kids to school, Alex off to ‘meetings.’ But now? Knowing what was inside? It makes my skin crawl. Nancy was spotted on their security cam the night before she vanished, looking distressed. Was the car the getaway vehicle?”

Let’s rewind to the roots of this tangled web. Annie Guthrie, once the golden child of Nancy and late husband Robert, built a life of apparent glamour: Successful real estate career, two adorable kids, and that whirlwind romance with Alex Rivera after her secret split from Italian hubby Tommaso Cioni. But beneath the gloss? Cracks galore. Financial woes – bankruptcy shadows, gambling whispers – and family feuds over Nancy’s nest egg, a tidy $500,000 from life insurance and savings. Insiders say Annie borrowed chunks to fund her lavish lifestyle, including that $650,000 mansion buy last March. “Nancy was wary,” confided family friend Marjorie Ellis, 70, over tea in her kitchen. “She loaned the money but with strings – ‘Pay it back or no more.’ Annie resented it, called her mum ‘controlling’ in heated calls we overheard.”