For several seconds, I couldn’t speak.
“To an account controlled by Jessica?”
“Yes,” Rebecca said.
I gripped the edge of my kitchen table.
“Are you certain?”
“I wouldn’t be calling you if I weren’t.”
I looked toward the window.
Three weeks before William died.
By then, my husband had been weak.
He was still mentally sharp, but there were days when simply walking from our bedroom to the kitchen exhausted him.
“Why would William give Jessica forty thousand dollars?”
“That,” Rebecca said carefully, “is what we need to determine.”
“Was it a gift?”
“I haven’t found anything describing it as one.”
“A loan?”
“Nothing yet.”
“Then what?”
Rebecca paused.
“The transfer originated from the joint investment account you held with William.”
My stomach turned.
“My name was on that account.”
“Yes.”
“And nobody asked me.”
“Did you know about the transfer?”
“No.”
“Did you sign anything authorizing it?”
“Absolutely not.”
Rebecca became very quiet.
“Eleanor, I’m going to ask you something uncomfortable.”
“Go ahead.”
“During William’s final months, did Tyler or Jessica have access to your financial information?”
I thought back.
Tyler had been around constantly.
At the time, I had been grateful.
He drove William to appointments when I was exhausted.
Jessica sometimes picked up prescriptions.
Tyler helped organize paperwork.
He knew where William kept account statements.
He knew our accountant.
He knew our financial advisor.
And he knew I was too overwhelmed to question much of anything.
“Yes,” I whispered.
“How much access?”
“More than I realized.”
Rebecca sighed.
“Then we’re going to be very careful.”
I stood and began pacing.
“Tyler told me Dad authorized it.”
“That may be true.”
“But?”
“But I want documentation.”
“So do I.”
Rebecca promised to keep digging.
After we hung up, I sat alone for almost an hour.
I kept remembering William’s final weeks.
There had been so much happening.
Medication schedules.
Doctors.
Insurance calls.
Hospice discussions.
Family visits.
I barely slept.
Tyler had repeatedly told me,
“Don’t worry about the paperwork, Mom. I’ll help Dad handle it.”
At the time, those words had felt loving.
Now they sounded very different.
At 12:15, Jessica called.
I stared at her name until the ringing stopped.
Then she called again.
And again.
Finally, a text arrived.
We need to talk privately. Without Tyler.
I showed Rebecca.
Her response came almost immediately.
Do not meet her alone.
I replied:
Understood.
Ten minutes later, another message arrived from Jessica.
Tyler told me what he said last night. He doesn’t know the whole story.
Then:
Your husband did.
My pulse quickened.
I wanted to call her immediately.
But I didn’t.
Instead, I forwarded everything to Rebecca.
She called.
“Let her keep texting.”
“What if she stops?”
“Then she stops.”
“But I need to know what happened.”
“And that’s exactly why you shouldn’t rush.”
She was right.
So I waited.
At 1:07, Jessica sent another message.
The $40,000 wasn’t stolen.
I hadn’t accused her of stealing it.
That mattered.
Rebecca thought so too.
“Don’t respond yet,” she said.
At 1:22:
William knew exactly where that money was going.
At 1:36:
Ask Tyler why he needed me to hold it.
I read that sentence three times.
Then I called Rebecca.
“What does she mean, hold it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Can I answer now?”
“Yes. One question.”
I typed:
Hold it for what?
Jessica responded less than a minute later.
For the business.
I wrote nothing else.
Another message appeared.
Tyler couldn’t have the money in the company account then.
Then:
There were creditors.
My heart sank.
Rebecca said, “Screenshot everything.”
I did.
Jessica continued.
The business was in trouble. William was trying to help him save it.
Then came the message that changed the entire situation.
The money was supposed to stay in my account temporarily. Tyler spent some of it.
I called Rebecca.
“Spent it on what?”
“We don’t know yet.”
As if Jessica had heard me, another message appeared.
I told him not to use it for the house.
The house.
I stood so quickly my chair scraped across the floor.
Their sprawling Austin house.
The renovated kitchen.
The heated pool.
The downstairs suite Barbara enjoyed for free.
I remembered Jessica complaining that the renovation was over budget.
“Rebecca.”
“I know.”
“Did my husband’s money pay for their renovation?”
“We need proof.”
But emotionally, I already knew.
I called Raymond.
He began reviewing everything we had.
Less than two hours later, he found another connection.
A payment from Jessica’s account.
$18,600.
Destination:
A residential remodeling company.
The same company Jessica had once proudly told me was handling her kitchen.
I felt physically ill.
My husband had been dying.
And money from our joint account had ended up paying a contractor renovating my son’s house.
I remembered standing in that kitchen months later while Tyler slid a $900 rental agreement toward me.
Everyone needs to pitch in.
The cruelty of it was almost breathtaking.
That evening, Tyler called.
I answered.
“Did you speak to Jessica?” he demanded.
“No.”
“She said you’ve been texting.”
“She texted me.”
“Mom, she’s trying to make this look worse than it was.”
“How could it look worse?”
“You don’t understand what was happening.”
“Then explain it.”
“Dad wanted to save my company.”
“With our money?”
“He believed in me.”
“Did he believe in your kitchen renovation too?”
Silence.
That was my answer.
“How much of the forty thousand did you spend on the house?”
“Mom—”
“How much?”
“It wasn’t supposed to happen that way.”
“How much?”
“Some.”
“Eighteen thousand six hundred?”
Tyler stopped breathing for a moment.
“How do you know that?”
“My attorney knows.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“Did William know?”
Silence.
“Did your father know you spent his money renovating your house?”
“I was going to replace it.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“I needed liquidity.”
“For countertops?”
“It wasn’t just countertops!”
His voice exploded through the phone.
“The business was collapsing! We had contractors threatening liens, payroll coming due, equipment loans, everything! Jess was already halfway through the renovation. If we stopped, we would’ve lost deposits.”
“So you used your dying father’s money.”
“He offered to help!”
“With the business.”
Tyler went quiet.
I lowered my voice.
“And then after he died, you charged his widow rent to live in the house his money helped renovate.”
“That’s not fair.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
“Not fair?”
“You’re making it sound like I planned all this.”
“Did you?”
“No!”
“Then show Rebecca every record.”
He didn’t answer.
“That’s what I thought.”
“Mom, please don’t do this.”
“Do what?”
“Dig through everything.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re going to find things you don’t understand.”
There it was again.
The warning.
The fear.
“What else is there, Tyler?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re lying.”
“I’m not.”
“You followed me to my new house demanding the ownership agreement. You panicked when you learned my attorney had a copy. You told me to ask Jessica about transfers. Now you’re begging me not to examine your records.”
He breathed heavily.
“What else am I going to find?”
He said nothing.
“Tyler?”
Finally, he whispered,
“Dad made me promise you would never know.”
My heart stopped.
“Never know what?”
Tyler immediately seemed to regret saying it.
“Forget it.”
“No.”
“I shouldn’t have said that.”
“What did William make you promise?”
“Mom, leave it alone.”
“My husband is dead. You don’t get to use his name and then tell me to leave it alone.”
“I have to go.”
“Tyler!”
The call ended.
I immediately called Rebecca.
She listened without interrupting.
Then she said,
“We accelerate everything.”
The next morning, Rebecca contacted the attorney who had handled William’s estate.
By afternoon, we were sitting in his office.
His name was Martin Keller.
He was seventy-three and had known William for nearly twenty years.
When I showed him the business agreement, his face changed.
“Where did you find this?”
“In William’s files.”
Martin removed his glasses.
“This wasn’t included in the estate inventory I received.”
“Why?”
“I didn’t know it existed.”
I felt cold.
“William never told you?”
“No.”
Rebecca leaned forward.
“Then somebody failed to disclose an asset.”
Martin looked disturbed.
“Possibly.”
“An asset worth twenty-five percent of an operating business,” Rebecca added.
Martin nodded slowly.
Then he looked at me.
“Eleanor, there’s something else.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
“A few months before William died, he asked me to prepare a document.”
My heart began pounding.
“What document?”
Martin stood and walked toward a locked filing cabinet.
He opened a drawer.
After searching for several seconds, he removed a thin folder.
“I never knew whether he ultimately used it.”
He placed the folder on the table.
William’s signature was visible on the first page.
I reached for it.
Then stopped.
“What is it?”
Martin’s expression was difficult to read.
“A declaration concerning money he’d given Tyler over the years.”
Rebecca immediately sat straighter.
“How much money?”
Martin looked at me.
“Considerably more than thirty thousand dollars.”
My throat tightened.
“How much?”
He opened the folder.
Then he turned the document toward me.
At the bottom of the first page was a total.
I stared at it.
$186,000.
I couldn’t breathe.
“One hundred and eighty-six thousand?”
Martin nodded.
“That was the amount William documented at the time.”
I looked at Rebecca.
“Why would my husband give Tyler that much money without telling me?”
Martin didn’t answer immediately.
Instead, he turned to the second page.
There was a handwritten note attached.
William’s handwriting.
I recognized it instantly.
My hands began trembling as I read the first sentence.
Eleanor must never be held responsible for Tyler’s debts.
Then the second.
If Tyler comes to her for money after I’m gone, show her this.
I looked up at Martin.
“Why didn’t you show me?”
His face went pale.
“Because William never told me he’d died owing you the truth about what happened.”
I looked back at the page.
There was one final handwritten line.
And when I read it, every question I had about Tyler changed.
The $186,000 wasn’t all for Tyler.
Underneath it, William had written one name.
Barbara.
PART 8 — WHY WAS BARBARA’S NAME IN MY HUSBAND’S FILE?
I stared at Barbara’s name until the letters seemed to blur.
“Barbara?”
Martin nodded slowly.
I looked at Rebecca.
Then back at Martin.
“What did my husband have to do with Jessica’s mother?”
“I don’t know the full story,” Martin said.
“You just showed me a document saying one hundred eighty-six thousand dollars wasn’t all for Tyler, and William wrote Barbara’s name underneath it.”
“I understand.”
“No, Martin. I don’t think you do.”
My voice cracked.
“My husband died believing there were things I shouldn’t know. My son has apparently hidden a business interest from me. Money from my joint account went to Jessica. And now I’m finding out Barbara was somehow involved?”
Martin looked genuinely uncomfortable.
“William was very protective of you toward the end.”
“Protective?”
I laughed bitterly.
“Everyone keeps using that word.”
Tyler said he was protecting me.
William apparently thought he was protecting me.
Yet somehow I was the only person who didn’t know what was happening with my own money.
Rebecca touched my arm.
“Let’s read the entire document before we assume anything.”
She was right.
I forced myself to breathe.
Martin turned the page.
Most of the document was a detailed accounting of money William had given or loaned Tyler over several years.
$30,000 for the original business investment.
$22,000 when Tyler needed to replace two commercial mowers.
$14,500 after a client failed to pay a major invoice.
$9,000 for payroll during a slow winter.
Then larger amounts.
$28,000.
$42,500.
$40,000.
I looked at Martin.
“These add up to the one hundred eighty-six thousand?”
“Approximately, yes.”
Rebecca examined the dates.
Then she pointed to one entry.
“What’s this?”
Beside the $42,500 payment, William had written:
B.H. arrangement — Tyler responsible.
My stomach tightened.
“B.H.?”
Nobody had to say it.
Barbara’s last name was Holloway.
Barbara Holloway.
B.H.
Rebecca looked at Martin.
“Do you have supporting documents?”
“I may.”
“May?”
“William brought me several papers, but he asked me not to take action unless Tyler failed to honor the arrangement.”
“What arrangement?” I demanded.
Martin opened another section of the folder.
Inside was a photocopy of a cashier’s check.
$42,500.
Payable to:
Barbara Holloway.
I stared at it.
My husband’s money.
Paid directly to Barbara.
I felt as if someone had struck me.
“When?”
Rebecca asked.
Martin pointed to the date.
Four years earlier.
Long before William became ill.
Long before Barbara moved into Tyler’s house.
Long before I had any reason to pay attention to her finances.
“Why would William give Barbara forty-two thousand five hundred dollars?”
Martin shook his head.
“It doesn’t appear to have been a gift.”
He handed Rebecca another page.
This one wasn’t prepared by an attorney.
It was a simple signed acknowledgment.
Barbara’s signature was at the bottom.
I knew her handwriting.
I had seen it on birthday cards.
Rebecca read aloud.
“Received from William and Eleanor Mercer, forty-two thousand five hundred dollars, to be repaid through Tyler Mercer pursuant to the family property arrangement.”
I almost came out of my chair.
“William and Eleanor?”
“Yes,” Rebecca said.
“I never agreed to that.”
Martin frowned.
“Your signature isn’t on this document.”
“Then why is my name there?”
“I don’t know.”
I felt anger rising.
Not only at Tyler.
At William too.
I loved my husband.
I missed him every single day.
But love didn’t erase what I was seeing.
He had made financial decisions involving our joint assets without telling me.
And now I was left cleaning up the consequences.
Rebecca kept reading.
“What is the ‘family property arrangement’?”
Martin reached for another document.
“I believe this explains part of it.”
It was a property record.
Four years earlier, Barbara had been facing foreclosure on her old house.
I looked up sharply.
“That can’t be right.”
“Why?”
“Barbara told everyone she owned that house outright.”
Apparently she hadn’t.
The records showed multiple loans against it.
One was substantial.
Tyler had helped negotiate with the lender.
William’s $42,500 had been used to stop the foreclosure.
I sat back.
So Barbara had spent years acting like she was financially superior to everyone around her.
She had bragged about investments.
Talked constantly about property values.
Criticized people who “lived beyond their means.”
And my husband had once helped save her house.
“Did she repay William?”
Rebecca asked.
Martin’s silence answered first.
“No.”
I stared at him.
“Not one dollar?”
“Not directly.”
“What does that mean?”
“The arrangement appears to have been that Tyler would repay William because Tyler had asked him to help Barbara.”
Of course.
Tyler.
Again.
“Why would Tyler take responsibility for Barbara’s debt?”
Martin shook his head.
“I can’t tell you.”
Rebecca looked at the business records.
“Could some of the later distributions have been intended as repayment?”
“Possibly.”
Suddenly the $7,500 transfer made more sense.
Maybe Tyler hadn’t accidentally transferred it.
Maybe he’d been making a payment connected to money he owed his father.
And after William died, he realized I didn’t know what the payment was for.
So he asked for it back.
I felt sick.
“How much did Tyler repay?”
Rebecca asked.
Martin flipped through several pages.
“I only have records of two payments.”
“How much?”
“Fifteen thousand total.”
My eyes widened.
“So out of one hundred eighty-six thousand—”
“We shouldn’t assume the entire amount was legally repayable,” Rebecca interrupted carefully.
“But a lot of it was.”
“Yes.”
“And Tyler never told me.”
“No.”
I stood and walked toward the window.
For months after William died, I had worried about Tyler.
I gave him another $20,000.
I paid $900 every month to live in his smallest bedroom.
I bought groceries.
I cooked.
I ran errands.
Meanwhile, there was a possibility my son already owed William’s estate tens of thousands of dollars.
Maybe more.
My phone rang.
Barbara.
The timing was almost absurd.
I showed the screen to Rebecca.
“Answer it,” she said.
“Here?”
“Yes.”
I put the phone on speaker.
“Hello?”
Barbara sounded nervous.
“Eleanor, we need to meet.”
“About what?”
“You know what.”
“I actually know quite a few things now, Barbara.”
Silence.
Then she asked,
“Did Martin give you the file?”
Martin’s face changed.
I looked directly at him.
“How do you know Martin has a file?”
Barbara exhaled.
“William told me.”
“When?”
“Years ago.”
I gripped the phone.
“Did my husband give you forty-two thousand five hundred dollars?”
She didn’t answer.
“Barbara?”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“Tyler asked him.”
“Did you receive the money?”
“Yes.”
The word was barely audible.
“And did you repay it?”
“Tyler was supposed to handle that.”
Of course.
“You signed the acknowledgment.”
“I was under enormous pressure.”
“You were about to lose your house.”
Another silence.
Then Barbara said,
“Jessica doesn’t know.”
That surprised me.
“Jessica doesn’t know her mother almost lost her house?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because it was humiliating.”
I thought about the woman who complained about my body lotion.
The woman who took the best bedroom.
The garage.
The pool.
The woman who stood in Tyler’s kitchen and told me:
Family takes care of family.
Apparently my family had once taken care of her too.
“Barbara, when you moved into Tyler’s house, did you know William had never been repaid?”
“Yes.”
My chest tightened.
“And you still watched Tyler charge me rent?”
She said nothing.
“You lived downstairs for free while I paid nine hundred dollars a month.”
“Those were Tyler and Jessica’s decisions.”
“You ate groceries I bought.”
“Eleanor—”
“You asked me to run your errands.”
“I didn’t force you.”
“You sat in that kitchen while my son told me to find somewhere else to live.”
Her voice sharpened.
“What do you want from me?”
Finally.
The real Barbara.
“I don’t want anything from you.”
“Then why are you digging into this?”
“Because it involves my husband’s money.”
“William is dead.”
The room went silent.
Even Rebecca’s expression changed.
I lowered my voice.
“Yes, Barbara.”
“And that’s exactly why I have to protect what he left behind.”
Barbara immediately tried to retreat.
“I didn’t mean it like that.”
“I think you did.”
“Eleanor, please. Don’t tell Jessica about the foreclosure.”
I almost couldn’t believe her.
That was what frightened her?
Not the money.
Not Tyler’s deception.
Her reputation.
“Why?”
“Because she thinks the house sale gave me enough money for retirement.”
“Didn’t it?”
Barbara hesitated.
That hesitation was enough.
“How much did you actually make when you sold it?”
“That’s private.”
“So is my financial situation, but that didn’t stop everyone from deciding how much rent I could afford.”
“Eleanor—”
“How much?”
She finally whispered,
“About ninety thousand.”
I froze.
Not $400,000.
Not even close.
Jessica had told me Barbara had cleared well over $400,000.
“Where did the rest go?”
“Debts.”
“How many?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“Fine.”
I was about to end the call when Barbara suddenly said,
“Before you start demanding money, you need to understand something.”
“What?”
“Tyler can’t pay you.”
Rebecca looked at me.
“Why not?”
I asked.
Barbara became quiet.
Then she said,
“Because the business isn’t worth what you think.”
My stomach tightened.
“What does that mean?”
“Tyler has been moving money around for years.”
Rebecca immediately leaned closer.
“What money?”
Barbara must have heard another voice.
“Who’s there?”
“My attorney.”
Barbara inhaled sharply.
“Oh God.”
“What money, Barbara?”
“I shouldn’t have called.”
“Don’t hang up.”
But she did.
I stared at the phone.
Rebecca was already writing notes.
“Did you hear that?”
“Every word.”
“What does ‘moving money around’ mean?”
“I don’t know yet.”
Martin looked troubled.
“There may be another document.”
Rebecca stopped writing.
“What document?”
Martin returned to the filing cabinet.
This time, he searched much longer.
Finally, he pulled out a sealed envelope.
My name was written across the front.
ELEANOR — ONLY IF TYLER FAILS TO MAKE THINGS RIGHT
My breath caught.
“That’s William’s handwriting.”
Martin nodded.
“Why didn’t you give me this before?”
“Because until today, I didn’t understand that the condition had been triggered.”
I reached for the envelope.
My fingers trembled as I opened it.
Inside was a single handwritten letter.
Three pages.
I began reading.
The first paragraph was an apology.
The second explained that William had repeatedly helped Tyler because he was afraid our son would lose everything.
Then I reached the third paragraph.
And stopped.
Rebecca noticed.
“What does it say?”
I couldn’t answer.
I handed her the letter.
She read silently.
Then her expression hardened.
“What?”
I whispered.
Rebecca placed the letter on the table.
“William says Tyler’s business wasn’t failing because he couldn’t get enough customers.”
I stared at her.
“Then why was it failing?”
She pointed to one sentence.
I read it myself.
Tyler has been taking money out of the company to support a life he cannot afford.
Below that, William had listed examples.
The house.
The renovation.
Vehicles.
Vacations.
Credit cards.
Then one final item.
I stared at it.
Monthly payments to Barbara Holloway.
I looked at Martin.
“Monthly payments?”
Martin shook his head.
He hadn’t known.
Rebecca continued reading.
Then she stopped.
“Eleanor.”
“What?”
“There’s an amount.”
My throat went dry.
“How much?”
She turned the page toward me.
According to William’s notes, Tyler had been sending Barbara:
$2,500 every month.
For nearly three years.
I did the math in my head.
Then stopped because I didn’t want to believe it.
Barbara hadn’t been living with my son for free.
It was worse.
My son had apparently been paying her.
And while Tyler secretly gave his mother-in-law thousands every month, he had looked his own widowed mother in the eye and demanded $1,200 in rent.
PART 9 — MY SON WAS PAYING BARBARA $2,500 A MONTH
I stared at the number.
$2,500 every month.
“No.”
Rebecca looked up from William’s letter.
“What?”
“That can’t be right.”
I took the pages from her and read the line again.
It didn’t change.
According to William, Tyler had discovered the payments nearly three years earlier.
Barbara called them “family support.”
William called them exactly what they were.
A drain on Tyler’s business.
I looked at Martin.
“Why would Tyler give Barbara thirty thousand dollars a year?”
“I don’t know.”
“She wasn’t even living with them then.”
Rebecca turned to the next page.
“William apparently asked the same question.”
There was another handwritten paragraph.
I read it slowly.
Tyler insists Barbara helped Jessica and him when they bought the house and that he is repaying her. I have asked for proof. None has been provided.
I frowned.
“Repaying her for what?”
Rebecca pointed lower.
William had written:
Barbara claims she provided $75,000 toward the down payment. Tyler believes her. I do not.
My stomach dropped.
Their house.
Everything kept returning to that house.
The same house where Barbara lived for free.
The same house where I paid rent.
The same house renovated partly with money that had come from William.
Rebecca said, “We need the original purchase records.”
Martin nodded.
“Those are public enough to start with.”
I barely heard them.
I was thinking about Barbara.
When I moved in, she had repeatedly referred to the house as if it partly belonged to her.
She chose furniture without asking.
She criticized landscaping decisions.
She told contractors what to do.
Once, when Tyler mentioned replacing the pool equipment, Barbara had said:
“After everything I’ve put into this place, I deserve a heated pool.”
At the time, I thought she meant emotional involvement.
Now I wondered whether everyone had been operating under the belief that Barbara had contributed $75,000.
“Did Jessica know?” I asked.
Rebecca shook her head.
“We can’t know yet.”
I pulled out my phone.
“I want to ask her.”
“Not yet.”
I hated those words.
But Rebecca had been right every time she’d told me to wait.
So I waited.
By the next afternoon, we had the first answer.
Rebecca called.
“I found the closing records.”
“And?”
“There was no seventy-five-thousand-dollar contribution from Barbara.”
I sat down.
“Are you sure?”
“The down payment came from Tyler and Jessica’s joint account, plus a smaller transfer from an account belonging to Tyler.”
“Nothing from Barbara?”
“Nothing I can see.”
“So she lied?”
“Possibly.”
That word again.
Lawyers loved possibly.
I was beginning to hate it.
“Where did Tyler’s portion come from?”
“We’re tracing that.”
An hour later, Raymond called.
His voice was grim.
“Eleanor, I think I know.”
I closed my eyes.
“William?”
“Yes.”
Of course.
Approximately two months before Tyler and Jessica purchased the house, William had transferred Tyler $28,000.
The memo said:
BUSINESS EQUIPMENT.
But Tyler had deposited it into his personal account.
Six weeks later, most of that money went toward the house.
I felt something inside me go quiet.
My husband had believed he was helping his son’s business.
My son had been using the money to build a lifestyle.
Then asking for more.
And more.
And more.
That evening, I received a text from Jessica.
Can I come see you? Alone.
I showed Rebecca.
This time, she surprised me.
“Let her.”
“At my house?”
“No.”
We agreed on Rebecca’s office.
The next morning, Jessica arrived twelve minutes late.
She looked terrible.
No makeup.
Hair pulled into a messy ponytail.
Dark circles beneath her eyes.
For the first time since I’d known her, she didn’t look polished.
She looked frightened.
She sat across from me.
Rebecca remained beside me.
Jessica looked at her.
“Does she have to be here?”
“Yes.”
Jessica swallowed.
Then she looked at me.
“Tyler doesn’t know I’m here.”
“That seems to be a theme in your marriage.”
She flinched.
I didn’t apologize.
“What do you want, Jessica?”
She folded her hands tightly.
“I need to explain my mother.”
“Go ahead.”
“You found out about the payments.”
“Yes.”
Her eyes widened.
“All of them?”
“How many should there be?”
She looked down.
That answer chilled me.
“How much has Tyler been giving Barbara?”
Jessica whispered,
“Two thousand five hundred a month.”
“For three years?”
She nodded.
“Why?”
Jessica took a shaky breath.
“Because Tyler believes we owe her.”
“For the house?”
Another nod.
“She told us she gave us seventy-five thousand toward the down payment.”
“Did she?”
Jessica looked at me.
“I thought she did.”
Rebecca leaned forward.
“Did you ever see the transfer?”
“No.”
“Bank statement?”
“No.”
“Cashier’s check?”
“No.”
“Any proof whatsoever?”
Jessica shook her head.
I almost couldn’t believe it.
“You’ve been paying your mother $2,500 every month based on a contribution nobody can prove happened?”
“It wasn’t supposed to last this long.”
“How long was it supposed to last?”
“Three years.”
“That’s ninety thousand dollars.”
“I know.”
“Twenty-five hundred times thirty-six is ninety thousand, Jessica.”
“I know!”
Her voice cracked.
Then she covered her face.
For a moment, the room went quiet.
When she lowered her hands, there were tears in her eyes.
“My mother said the extra fifteen thousand was interest.”
I stared at her.
“Interest?”
Jessica nodded.
“Tyler agreed.”
I leaned back.
My son had apparently been paying Barbara interest on money she might never have given them.
Meanwhile, he’d charged me rent.
It was almost too absurd to process.
“Did Tyler ever verify her story?”
“I thought he had.”
“And now?”
Jessica’s eyes dropped.
“Now I don’t think so.”
Rebecca asked, “Why are you here?”
Jessica didn’t answer.
“Jessica?”
Finally, she whispered,
“Because I found something.”
She reached into her handbag and removed an envelope.
Inside were copies of bank statements.
She slid them across the table.
“My mother left some boxes at our house when she moved in. After Tyler came back from Eleanor’s place, he and Mom had a huge argument.”
“What about?”
“The business documents.”
I leaned forward.
“What did Barbara say?”
“She told Tyler he was an idiot for letting you find them.”
That sounded like Barbara.
Jessica continued.
“Then Tyler told her that if everything came out, he wasn’t going down alone.”
My stomach tightened.
“What did he mean?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then what happened?”
“My mother started moving papers out of her room.”
Rebecca and I exchanged a glance.
“I checked one of the boxes before she could take it.”
Jessica pointed toward the statements.
“I found those.”
Rebecca began reading.
Her expression changed almost immediately.
“What?”
I asked.
She slid one page toward me.
There was a deposit into Barbara’s account.
$75,000.
My heart jumped.
“So she did have seventy-five thousand?”
“Look at the date,” Rebecca said.
I did.
The deposit occurred four days before Tyler and Jessica closed on their house.
For one second, I thought we’d been wrong.
Then Rebecca pointed to the next transaction.
Two days later:
$75,000 transferred out.
But not to Tyler.
Not to Jessica.
Not to the title company.
The recipient was an investment account in Barbara’s name.
Jessica stared at the page.
“She kept it.”
“Yes,” Rebecca said.
Jessica went pale.
“She showed us the deposit.”
I understood immediately.
Barbara had apparently shown them an account containing $75,000 and allowed them to believe it was being used toward the house.
But the money never went there.
“So why did Tyler think she paid the down payment?”
Jessica whispered,
“Because she told us she’d arranged it directly.”
“And neither of you checked?”
“I trusted my mother.”
The words hit me harder than she intended.
I trusted my son.
Maybe that was how people like Barbara survived.
They didn’t steal trust.
They borrowed it until nobody remembered to ask for it back.
Rebecca continued examining the statements.
Then she stopped.
“There’s another problem.”
“What?”
“These statements show where Barbara got the seventy-five thousand.”
Jessica frowned.
“What do you mean?”
Rebecca pointed to the deposit details.
It hadn’t come from the sale of property.
It hadn’t come from investments.
It had come from a transfer.
An account ending in four digits I recognized.
My heart stopped.
“No.”
Rebecca looked at me.
“You recognize it?”
“Yes.”
It had been one of William’s investment accounts.
I had seen those final four digits hundreds of times.
Jessica stared at me.
“What are you saying?”
I couldn’t answer.
Rebecca did.
“The seventy-five thousand Barbara claimed she contributed toward your house appears to have originally come from Eleanor and William.”
Jessica went completely white.
“No.”
“That’s what these records suggest.”
“No, that doesn’t make sense.”
It made horrible sense to me.
My husband’s money had gone to Barbara.
Barbara had shown Tyler and Jessica the balance.
Then she claimed it was hers.
They believed she had helped buy their house.
And Tyler spent three years paying her $2,500 a month as repayment.
Barbara had potentially been collecting money for lending them money that had never been hers in the first place.
Jessica started crying.
“My mother wouldn’t do that.”
I said nothing.
Because a few weeks earlier, I would have said exactly the same thing about Tyler.
Rebecca kept going through the statements.
Then she suddenly stopped.
Her finger rested on another transaction.
“Eleanor.”
I knew from her voice that I wasn’t going to like it.
“What now?”
“The seventy-five thousand wasn’t transferred by William.”
I stared at her.
“What?”
“The account belonged to you and William jointly.”
“I know.”
“But the authorization record attached to this statement doesn’t list William.”
My mouth went dry.
“Then who authorized it?”
Rebecca turned the paper toward me.
There was a name.
Not William.
Not me.
Tyler Mercer.
For several seconds, I couldn’t understand what I was seeing.
“My son couldn’t authorize transfers from that account.”
“He could if he had power of attorney.”
I shook my head.
“He didn’t.”
Rebecca looked at me carefully.
“Eleanor, are you absolutely certain?”
“Yes.”
Jessica suddenly stopped crying.
She looked terrified.
“Tyler had power of attorney for William.”
“Only for medical matters,” I said.
Jessica shook her head.
“No.”
My stomach dropped.
“What do you mean, no?”
“After William got sick, Tyler told me your husband signed another one.”
The room went completely silent.
“What kind?”
Jessica whispered,
“A financial power of attorney.”
I stood so quickly the chair struck the wall.
“No.”
Rebecca remained calm.
“Jessica, did you see it?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“A few months before William died.”
“Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
Jessica looked at me with tears running down her face.
“I thought you knew.”
I turned toward Rebecca.
“Find it.”
“We will.”
“No. Find it today.”
She nodded.
It took less than three hours.
At 4:18 that afternoon, Rebecca called.
“I found a copy.”
I could barely speak.
“Was Jessica right?”
“Yes.”
My son had been granted financial power of attorney over William’s affairs during his illness.
But that wasn’t the part that made Rebecca sound worried.
“There’s something wrong with it,” she said.
“What?”
“The date.”
I gripped the phone.
“What about it?”
“The document says William signed it on March 14.”
“Yes?”
Rebecca paused.
“According to the medical records Martin obtained for the estate, William was hospitalized that entire day.”
My heart began pounding.
“That doesn’t mean he couldn’t sign something.”
“No.”
“But?”
“The document says it was notarized at Tyler’s landscaping office.”
I stopped breathing.
William couldn’t have been lying in a hospital bed and signing a document across town at Tyler’s office at the same time.
“Rebecca…”
“I know.”
“Who notarized it?”
There was a long silence.
Then she gave me the name.
And suddenly, the $40,000 transfer, Barbara’s secret debt, the $75,000, Tyler’s panic, and Jessica’s fear all seemed to point toward the same person.
The notary was someone I knew.
Someone who had been sitting beside the pool the day my son raised my rent.
Barbara Holloway.
PART 10 — BARBARA WAS THE NOTARY
One Comment on “PART 7 — THE $40,000 SECRET”