Thomas placed his phone on the table and enlarged the attachment again.
Four hundred twelve thousand six hundred dollars.
The figure was not exact.
That almost made it worse.
It was close enough to show knowledge, but rounded enough to suggest someone had assembled it from several different sources.
Mark shook his head. “That can’t be right.”
“Why?” Thomas asked.
“Mom never discusses her finances.”
He looked at me.
“Do you?”
“No.”
Raymond and I had been old-fashioned about money. We did not discuss balances at dinner. We did not announce investments to relatives. We believed privacy prevented both envy and unsolicited advice.
Even Mark knew only fragments.
Thomas scrolled through the document.
The house valuation was there.
Approximately correct.
My savings balance was close.
My retirement account was disturbingly close.
Then I saw something that made me lean forward.
One account was listed at roughly eighty-six thousand dollars.
I had not mentioned that account to Mark since Raymond died.
Perhaps not even then.
Thomas noticed my expression.
“That one?”
“Yes.”
“Accurate?”
“Close.”
“How close?”
“Close enough that whoever prepared this knew more than they should.”
Mark looked from the screen to me. “Who knew about it?”
“Raymond.”
He waited.
“And Thomas.”
Thomas nodded. “I had access to the information when we organized Raymond’s estate.”
Mark frowned.
“Anyone else?”
I thought.
Our accountant had records.
The bank obviously did.
But Alicia did not have access to either, as far as I knew.
Then I remembered a winter afternoon two years earlier.
Mark and Alicia had come over because my printer had stopped working.
Mark spent an hour wrestling with the machine while Alicia helped me sort papers on the dining table.
Tax papers.
Insurance statements.
Bank envelopes.
Nothing unusual had happened.
At least nothing I had noticed.
I felt suddenly cold.
“Two years ago,” I said, “Alicia helped me organize financial papers.”
Mark’s expression changed.
Thomas asked, “Was she ever alone with them?”
“I don’t know.”
That answer irritated me.
Not because I should have remembered every minute.
Because Alicia had spent the morning using ordinary lapses as evidence that I was incapable.
Now I found myself instinctively afraid to admit I could not remember whether a woman had been alone in my dining room two winters ago.
Thomas seemed to understand.
“Not remembering an unremarkable detail from two years ago tells us nothing except that it was unremarkable at the time.”
I gave him a grateful look.
Mark sat down again.
“Could she have photographed statements?”
“Yes.”
Thomas pointed to the asset inventory. “But that wouldn’t necessarily explain current balances.”
He zoomed farther down.
There were dates beside some entries.
Recent dates.
One was less than two months old.
I felt the air leave my lungs.
“That account statement came in the mail.”
Mark looked at me.
“You still get paper statements?”
“For that account.”
“Where do you keep them?”
“In the desk.”
Thomas asked, “Locked?”
“No.”
There had never been a reason.
My own house had once been the place where I did not need locks.
The missing spare key changed the meaning of that.
Bruce had entered when I was absent.
Alicia had access.
Someone could have opened drawers.
Photographed documents.
Closed everything carefully.
I thought about all the times I had walked through my rooms without knowing another person had been there.
That frightened me more than the valuation photographs.
A photograph stole an image.
Opening a desk stole privacy.
Mark looked sick.
“Bruce could have done it.”
“Possibly,” Thomas said. “We don’t assume.”
“Who else?”
“We establish facts first.”
His phone vibrated again.
Another message from Bruce.
Thomas read it.
“What?”
“He says the asset inventory was already attached when Alicia sent him the October ninth email.”
Mark swore softly.
Thomas continued reading.
“Bruce says he never requested it.”
“Do you believe him?” I asked.
“I believe we should preserve what he says and compare it with the documents.”
Mark paced toward the window again.
“Call Alicia.”
“No,” Thomas said.
Mark turned.
“Why?”
“Because right now we have information she may not realize we possess.”
I almost smiled.
Thomas and I had reached the same conclusion from different directions.
Information was useful before the other person knew you had it.
My grocery notepad remained beside me.
Nineteen minutes.
Still hidden.
Mark noticed me looking at it.
“What’s that?”
“Notes.”
“About this?”
“Some.”
He accepted the answer.
Thomas returned to the financial inventory.
At the bottom, beneath the total, was another notation.
Not typed.
Handwritten.
The writing looked unfamiliar.
Estimated total available: $412,600.
Available.
Not worth.
Not assets.
Available.
I pointed to the word.
“That bothers me.”
Thomas nodded.
“Me too.”
Mark leaned closer. “Why?”
“Because whoever wrote it wasn’t simply calculating Dorothy’s net worth.”
Thomas tapped the page.
“They were thinking about what could be accessed.”
Mark went pale again.
I sat back.
Alicia had lost seventy-three thousand dollars.
My house was valued at roughly one hundred eighty-five thousand.
Yet somebody had inventoried more than twice that amount.
If the goal was merely replacing the twins’ college money, the house alone was more than enough.
So why list my retirement accounts?
Why my insurance?
Why savings?
Why calculate everything?
The question settled over the kitchen.
Thomas voiced it.
“If Alicia needed seventy-three thousand dollars, why prepare an inventory of more than four hundred thousand?”
Mark shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
Neither did I.
But I remembered Alicia’s words during the accidental call.
That’s everything.
At the time, I had assumed she meant everything they wanted.
Now I wondered whether she meant everything I owned.
Eleanor finally spoke from the doorway.
“Dorothy.”
I turned.
She had been so quiet that I had nearly forgotten she remained there.
“You asked me to watch the driveway.”
“Yes.”
“I did.”
Something in her tone made Thomas straighten.
“What did you see?”
“Not this morning.”
She looked uncomfortable.
“I mean before.”
“When?”
“Last week.”
Mark stepped closer.
“What happened last week?”
Eleanor looked at me rather than him.
“I didn’t think anything of it at the time.”
“What?”
“Bruce’s car.”
My pulse quickened.
“At my house?”
“Across the street.”
She shook her head.
“He parked there for maybe ten minutes. Then Alicia arrived.”
Mark went still.
“Here?”
Eleanor nodded.
“You weren’t home, Dorothy.”
I tried to remember.
Last week.
Then I did.
Tuesday morning.
Dental cleaning.
Afterward I had gone to the grocery store.
I had been away nearly three hours.
“What did they do?”
“Alicia walked to your side door.”
“With Bruce?”
“He stayed in the car at first.”
“At first?”
Eleanor nodded slowly.
“Alicia went inside. A few minutes later, Bruce followed.”
Thomas picked up his pen.
“How long were they inside?”
“Twenty minutes. Maybe twenty-five.”
Mark stared at her.
“Did you see them leave?”
“Yes.”
“Were they carrying anything?”
Eleanor thought.
“Bruce had a folder.”
My eyes moved toward Thomas’s briefcase.
Another folder.
Thomas asked the obvious question.
“Did Alicia use a key?”
“Yes.”
The missing spare.
Alicia had claimed Bruce entered three times.
Apparently there had been at least one visit recent enough that even the latest account balance might have been available.
Thomas wrote down the date as Eleanor remembered it.
Then he looked at me.
“Your locks get changed today.”
“They do.”
“And until we understand this, financial documents should go somewhere secure.”
“I agree.”
Mark rubbed both hands over his face.
“I can’t believe she did this.”
I looked at him.
“You believed I should leave my house.”
He lowered his hands.
The words hurt him.
I did not regret saying them.
“I know.”
Thomas closed the asset document.
“We need to contact Silver Meadows. We need copies of anything submitted in Dorothy’s name. We need to secure her financial records and notify the relevant institutions that no authority has been granted to Mark, Alicia, Bruce, or anyone else.”
Mark nodded.
Then stopped.
“Wait.”
Thomas looked at him.
“If Alicia thought she had that authority already…”
He looked toward the forged-looking document.
“…what else could she have tried to do?”
That question changed the room.
Thomas immediately reached for his briefcase.
I felt a slow pressure building behind my ribs.
We had been thinking forward.
December eighteenth.
December twenty-seventh.
Silver Meadows.
The future.
But the false signature was dated October eighth.
Weeks ago.
The asset inventory was already prepared.
Bruce had already entered my house.
Alicia had already submitted information about my supposed incapacity.
Perhaps they had not been preparing to act.
Perhaps they had already acted.
I stood.
“Thomas.”
He looked at me.
“I want to know whether anyone has touched my money.”
He nodded once.
“We find out now.”
Mark pulled out his phone.
Thomas stopped him.
“Not from your account.”
Mark frowned.
“Why?”
“Because your joint account is listed as the destination for proceeds from Dorothy’s property.”
My son stared at him.
For the first time, I saw him understand that being ignorant of Alicia’s full plan did not mean his name had been absent from it.
Thomas looked at me.
“Use your phone.”
I retrieved it from the counter.
My hand was steady until I opened the banking application.
Then it trembled.
The checking account looked normal.
Savings looked normal.
I opened the older account.
The one Alicia should not have known existed.
For several seconds, the screen loaded.
Then the balance appeared.
I stared at it.
Thomas noticed my expression.
“Dorothy?”
I did not answer.
I was looking at a transaction I had never made.
Not seventy-three thousand dollars.
Not yet.
A smaller amount.
Small enough, perhaps, to be overlooked.
Exactly $1,000.
Transferred three days earlier.
The destination was unfamiliar.
Thomas came beside me.
“Did you authorize that?”
“No.”
Mark moved closer.
“What is it?”
I enlarged the transaction.
There was a reference number and an abbreviated recipient name.
Thomas read it.
His expression hardened.
“Don’t touch anything else.”
I looked at him.
“Why?”
“Because this may tell us whether somebody was testing access before attempting something larger.”
The words chilled me.
A test.
One thousand dollars.
Small enough to see whether the door opened.
I thought of my missing house key.
Then of the other kind of doors Alicia had apparently been trying.
My medical history.
My legal authority.
My finances.
Mark whispered, “Mom, who got the money?”
Thomas enlarged the recipient information.
The abbreviation resolved into a business name.
I had never seen it before.
But Mark had.
I knew because his face changed before he said a word.
“What?” I asked.
He stared at the screen.
Then at the front door through which his wife had just left.
“That’s the company Daniel Cross uses.”
The man who had taken the twins’ college money.
And three days earlier, someone had begun sending him mine.
Click here to continue reading: PART 9: The Thousand-Dollar Transfer Looked Like a Test, but the Bank’s Access Log Revealed Someone Had Been Practicing for Weeks
For Nineteen Minutes, My Son and His Wife Forgot the Woman They Were Discussing Could Hear Every Word
Part 8 of 27
