Chapter 2 - The Money Taken From My Children
My attorney, Evelyn Shaw, did not use dramatic language.
That was one of the reasons I trusted her.
She was fifty-two, wore dark suits regardless of the weather, and had the unnerving ability to deliver terrible information as calmly as someone reading grocery prices.
At nine the next morning, she placed three pages on the conference table.
“Before I explain this,” she said, “I need you to understand that we're still verifying everything.”
I nodded.
The offices of Shaw & Beckett overlooked downtown Richmond, but I barely noticed the city outside the windows.
My attention stayed on the three numbers Evelyn had circled.
$104,000.
$108,000.
$100,000.
Three transfers.
All made during the previous two years.
All originating from an education investment account Ethan and I had established for Lily and Noah.
And all going to the same destination.
MJM Events LLC.
Melissa Jane Hayes.
My sister.
“No.”
It was the only word I could manage.
Evelyn folded her hands.
“Did you know your father had access to these accounts?”
“Yes. Sort of.”
“Explain.”
“My father spent thirty years in financial planning. Ethan hated dealing with investment paperwork, and Dad offered to manage a few things for us.”
“You signed authorization?”
“I must have.”
“Do you remember what it covered?”
I shook my head.
Back then, I had trusted him.
That was the part I could not stop thinking about.
Trust made fraud easier.
You signed where someone pointed.
You handed over passwords.
You believed that the person sitting across the table loved you more than they loved money.
Evelyn slid another document toward me.
“This is the agreement your father showed you yesterday.”
I looked at Ethan's copied signature.
“It's fake.”
“We don't know that yet.”
“I know Ethan's signature.”
“Claire.”
“I was married to him for eleven years.”
“I understand. But in court, knowing something and proving something are different.”
I pressed my fingertips against my temples.
“So Dad took money from the children's account, transferred it to Melissa, then created a document saying Ethan borrowed it?”
“That is one possibility.”
“What other possibility is there?”
“Your father may argue Ethan authorized the transfers.”
“He didn't.”
“Then we'll establish that.”
My chest tightened.
“Lily used to ask Ethan if she could go to Stanford.”
Evelyn stayed quiet.
“She was seven,” I continued. “She didn't even know where Stanford was. She heard someone say it on television and decided it sounded important.”
My voice broke.
“Noah wanted to buy a dinosaur.”
Evelyn's expression softened.
“A real one?”
“He was four.”
I laughed once through the tears.
“He thought college money could buy anything.”
Then I looked at those transfers again.
My father's money.
Melissa's wedding.
Melissa's company.
Birthday dinners.
New coats.
That diamond ring.
“How much is left?”
“About eighty-six thousand.”
I felt sick.
Ethan's parents had contributed generously after each child's birth. Ethan and I added money every month.
It wasn't just cash.
It was birthdays.
Christmas gifts.
Years of planning.
A future.
A future my children would never use.
And somehow my family had stolen pieces of it before that future disappeared.
My phone buzzed.
Mom.
Then again.
Dad.
Then Melissa.
I turned it facedown.
Evelyn watched me.
“Do not talk to any of them about this yet.”
“I wasn't planning to.”
“Good. Also, don't block them.”
I looked at her.
“Why?”
“Because people get careless when they think they're winning.”
As if summoned by the sentence, another message appeared.
This one from Melissa.
Please don't make Dad angry. He only wants what's fair.
I stared at it.
Evelyn leaned forward.
“Screenshot everything.”
I did.
Then another message arrived.
I didn't know where the money came from.
My hand stopped.
Evelyn saw my face.
“What?”
I showed her.
She read it twice.
“Interesting.”
“How could she possibly know what we're looking at?”
Evelyn's eyes narrowed.
“Exactly.”
I called Melissa.
Evelyn immediately raised one finger.
“Speaker.”
Melissa answered on the first ring.
“Claire?”
“Where did the money come from?”
Silence.
“Claire, I can explain.”
“Then explain.”
“Dad said it was a family investment.”
“In your company?”
“Yes.”
“Three hundred and twelve thousand dollars?”
She inhaled.
“I didn't know the exact number.”
“That money belonged to Lily and Noah.”
The silence that followed was so complete I could hear traffic thirty floors below.
“What?”
I closed my eyes.
“Don't.”
“Claire, I swear—”
“Don't pretend you didn't know something was wrong.”
“I didn't.”
“You texted me before I told you.”
“Dad called this morning.”
Evelyn wrote something quickly on a yellow legal pad and turned it toward me.
Ask what he told her.
“What did Dad say?”
Melissa began crying.
“He said you were trying to destroy us.”
I looked at Evelyn.
“Why would he say that?”
“He said your lawyer was digging through old accounts.”
My blood ran cold.
“How would he know?”
Another pause.
Then Melissa whispered, “Because he got a call.”
“From whom?”
“I don't know.”
“Melissa.”
“I don't know!”
She sounded genuinely frightened now.
“He just called and said everything was getting out of control.”
“What is everything?”
“I don't know.”
“Then tell me what you do know.”
Her breathing trembled over the speaker.
“Dad invested in my business two years ago.”
“With Lily and Noah's money.”
“I didn't know that.”
“You accepted three hundred thousand dollars and never asked where it came from?”
“He told me he had liquidated an investment.”
“Whose investment?”
“He didn't say.”
“And that was good enough?”
“I trusted him!”
The words hit me with bitter familiarity.
“So did I.”
Melissa went quiet.
I looked out at the city.
“Did Ethan know?”
Another silence.
This one was different.
My fingers tightened around the phone.
“Melissa.”
“I think so.”
I stopped breathing.
“What do you mean, you think so?”
She started speaking too fast.
“There was an argument.”
“When?”
“Last summer.”
Four months before the crash.
“Who argued?”
“Ethan and Dad.”
“About what?”
“I wasn't supposed to hear.”
My heart began pounding.
“Tell me.”
“They were in Dad's office. Ethan was furious.”
“What did he say?”
“I don't remember exactly.”
“Try.”
Melissa sniffed.
“He said Dad had crossed a line.”
Evelyn stopped writing.
I gripped the phone.
“What else?”
Melissa hesitated.
“He said something about putting the money back.”
The conference room suddenly felt too small.
“And Dad?”
“He told Ethan it was temporary.”
I closed my eyes.
Of course.
Temporary.
The favorite word of people caught stealing.
Temporary loan.
Temporary problem.
Temporary misunderstanding.
“What did Ethan say?”
Melissa's voice dropped.
“He said if Dad didn't fix it, he was going to tell you.”
I opened my eyes.
“When?”
“I don't know.”
“Melissa.”
“I swear.”
“Why didn't Ethan tell me immediately?”
“I don't know.”
But I did.
Because Ethan knew what my family did to me whenever I challenged them.
They closed ranks.
They called me emotional.
Sensitive.
Difficult.
Melissa was the easy daughter.
I was the one expected to adjust.
Ethan had spent eleven years telling me I deserved better.
Maybe he had wanted proof before putting me through another war.
“Did Dad threaten him?”
Melissa didn't answer.
“Did he?”
“Not exactly.”
“What does that mean?”
“I heard Dad say, ‘You should think carefully about what you're doing to this family.’”
My skin prickled.
“What did Ethan say?”
“I couldn't hear.”
“Was Mom there?”
“Yes.”
Of course she was.
“And what did she do?”
Melissa whispered, “Nothing.”
My eyes burned.
Nothing.
My mother's greatest talent.
Nothing while my father lied.
Nothing when I begged for my family at the funeral.
Nothing now.
Evelyn pointed at the phone, then wrote:
Ask if there are messages.
“Did Dad ever text you about the money?”
Melissa hesitated too long.
“Maybe.”
“Don't delete anything.”
“Claire—”
“Do not delete anything.”
My voice sharpened.
“If you destroy messages now that attorneys are involved, you could make this much worse for yourself.”
She began crying harder.
“I don't want to be part of this.”
“You already are.”
I ended the call.
For several minutes, neither Evelyn nor I spoke.
Finally, she said, “We need a forensic accountant.”
“Get one.”
“We'll also need the full records on those accounts.”
“Get them.”
“And Claire?”
I looked at her.
“We may want to delay announcing the foundation's first major grant.”
That hurt.
The foundation was the one thing I had built out of the wreckage.
The Lily & Noah Road Safety Foundation.
Our first grant was supposed to fund fatigue-monitoring technology and family transportation programs.
“Why?”
“Because your family may try to claim you're improperly moving settlement assets.”
“It's my settlement.”
“I know.”
“Then why should they get to stop anything?”
“They shouldn't.”
Her voice was steady.
“But if your father is willing to forge documents, I want to know what else he's willing to do.”
My phone buzzed again.
This time it was an unknown number.
I opened the message.
A photograph appeared.
Ethan.
Alive.
Standing in my father's office.
The timestamp was four months before the crash.
On the desk between them lay the same blue folder my father had brought to my house.
Below the photograph was one sentence.
Ask your husband why he signed it before you accuse your father of stealing.
I showed Evelyn.
She stared at the picture.
Then her eyes narrowed.
“Who took this?”
I didn't know.
But I noticed something Evelyn hadn't yet.
Behind Ethan, reflected faintly in the glass cabinet door, was another person.
A woman holding a phone.
May you like
My mother.
And whatever had happened in that office, she had been there for all of it.
