“All right.”
“No softening things because I’m seventy.”
“You’re sixty-nine.”
“My birthday is next month.”
“Then I still have thirty days.”
I almost smiled.
That helped more than he knew.
By eight o’clock, we were inside Henry’s downtown office with his attorney, Maria Santos, and a financial investigator named Evan Price.
They showed me numbers.
Transfers.
Loans.
Emails.
Signatures.
The story assembled itself slowly.
David’s first store had indeed been profitable.
His second had bled money almost immediately.
Instead of closing it, he borrowed.
When those loans became dangerous, he borrowed again.
When the bank refused further financing, a document bearing my signature appeared.
But there was something strange.
The document had not been emailed from David’s business account.
It had been uploaded remotely from a home computer.
“Can you tell whose?” I asked.
Evan looked at Henry.
“We can tell where the account credentials were used.”
He turned the laptop toward me.
The login originated from David’s home address.
At 11:43 p.m.
A Tuesday.
I remembered Tuesdays.
David coached Peter’s youth basketball team.
He usually returned after midnight.
Emily stayed home.
I stared at the screen.
“Can that prove she did it?”
“No,” Evan said. “Not by itself.”
“What would?”
“The original digital file would help. Metadata. Drafts. Scan history.”
“And the money?”
He opened another file.
The one hundred and forty-eight thousand dollars transferred to Emily’s account had not stayed there.
Most of it had been moved again.
Twenty-five thousand toward credit cards.
Thirty-six thousand to an investment platform.
Another amount to a private account.
Then eighty thousand dollars disappeared into something labeled Larkspur Holdings.
I had never heard of it.
Henry had.
His face hardened.
“What?” I asked.
“Larkspur is a property company.”
“So?”
“It purchased a condominium two months ago.”
I waited.
“Where?”
“Charleston.”
Emily had told me she hated Charleston.
Too humid.
Too touristy.
Too far from her friends.
“Whose condominium?”
Evan turned the screen.
The registered purchaser was Larkspur Holdings LLC.
The manager listed on incorporation records was a man named Thomas Wade.
I had no idea who he was.
Henry did.
Again.
“How?”
Henry leaned back.
“Thomas Wade used to work for David.”
I looked at him.
“Used to?”
“He left eighteen months ago.”
“Why?”
“David accused him of stealing clients.”
Something cold settled in my stomach.
Evan clicked another document.
“We found repeated transfers between Emily’s private account and an account associated with Wade.”
“How repeated?”
“Seventeen transfers over fourteen months.”
I did not ask the obvious question.
I did not need to.
The room remained quiet.
Finally, Maria spoke.
“We don’t yet know the nature of their relationship.”
“Yes, you do.”
She met my eyes.
“You don’t know it legally.”
That was different.
And important.
I nodded.
My son was not merely losing his business.
His wife was preparing another life.
Possibly using money tied to my name to build it.
I wondered whether David knew.
Then I wondered if it mattered.
He had still thrown me out.
He had still allowed Emily to diminish me.
He had still accepted my labor as though motherhood were a debt I owed forever.
My phone rang.
David.
I let it ring.
Again.
Again.
Then a message appeared.
Mom, please call me. Emily is gone.
I looked at Henry.
Another message arrived.
She took the kids.
I stood.
My anger vanished instantly.
“Peter and Alice.”
Henry was already reaching for his jacket.
We drove to the house.
David opened the door before I could knock.
He looked terrible.
Unshaven.
Bloodshot eyes.
Same clothes.
“What happened?”
“She packed overnight.”
“Where did she go?”
“I don’t know.”
“You let her take the children?”
“I was asleep!”
He shouted it, then immediately lowered his voice.
“I’m sorry.”
I stepped inside.
The house looked violated.
Cabinet doors stood open.
Drawers had been emptied.
Emily’s clothes were gone.
So were several electronics.
David followed me.
“She emptied one account.”
“How much?”
“Thirty-one thousand.”
I almost told him about the other money.
Instead, I asked, “Did she take anything from my room?”
He looked confused.
We went upstairs.
My bedroom door was open.
The bed had been stripped.
The drawers emptied onto the floor.
