Chapter 5 - THE MAN MY FATHER TRUSTED
Samuel Price was seventy-one years old and living thirty miles outside the city.
Rebecca texted me an address.
I stared at it while Anna slept between contractions.
My instinct was to drive there immediately.
I didn’t.
For the first time in my life, I was done leaving my wife alone to solve a problem created by my family.
So Rebecca went.
She called from Samuel’s driveway two hours later.
“You want me to put you on speaker?”
“Yes.”
A man’s voice came through.
Older.
Rough.
“Nathan Carter?”
“Yes.”
“You sound like Daniel.”
The words hit harder than expected.
“You knew my father?”
“For twenty-six years.”
“How?”
“I handled accounting for Carter Development before your father sold the company.”
I looked at Anna.
“Why have I never heard your name?”
Samuel laughed once.
“No offense, son, but that would be a better question for your mother.”
Rebecca asked him about the letter.
Samuel became quiet.
“Daniel actually wrote it.”
“You knew?”
“I told him to.”
My stomach twisted.
“Why?”
Samuel sighed.
“Your mother was stealing from the company.”
There it was.
Simple.
Ugly.
Almost disappointing in how ordinary it sounded.
“How much?”
“At first? Small amounts.”
“What does small mean?”
“Five thousand. Eight thousand. Twelve.”
“Then?”
“Then she got ambitious.”
Samuel said my mother had created vendor accounts connected to businesses controlled by friends.
Invoices were inflated.
Payments diverted.
Expenses buried.
My father discovered irregularities two years before his death.
“He confronted her?”
“Not immediately.”
“Why?”
“Because he loved her.”
That sentence hurt.
My father and I had made the same mistake.
We confused love with refusing to see.
Samuel continued.
“Daniel wanted proof before destroying forty years of marriage.”
“How much was missing?”
“At least nine hundred thousand dollars.”
Rebecca swore.
I couldn’t speak.
Samuel said my father had planned to transfer certain assets away from Evelyn’s control and create trusts for Rebecca and me.
“Did he?”
“Some.”
“What happened to the rest?”
“Daniel died.”
My father had suffered what we were told was a massive heart attack.
He had hypertension.
A family history of cardiac disease.
Nothing suspicious.
At least, nothing that felt suspicious until this conversation.
I hated where my mind went.
“Samuel.”
“Yes?”
“Do you think my mother had anything to do with my father’s death?”
Silence.
Anna opened her eyes.
Rebecca stopped breathing.
Samuel finally answered.
“I never had evidence of that.”
Not no.
Evidence.
“Did you suspect it?”
“I suspected everything after Daniel died.”
My hands went cold.
“Why?”
“Because the day after his funeral, your mother entered his office and emptied two filing cabinets.”
Rebecca whispered,
“Jesus.”
Samuel said he contacted us after the funeral because Daniel had left instructions.
“But Evelyn told me you wanted nothing to do with your father’s unfinished business.”
“She lied.”
“I figured that out eventually.”
“Why didn’t you find us?”
“I tried.”
I laughed bitterly.
“We lived in the same city.”
“Your mother threatened litigation. Accused me of harassment. Then I had a stroke.”
The story sounded impossible.
Except I had watched my mother turn my own wife into a frightened shadow while I slept twenty feet away.
Impossible was losing its meaning.
Samuel told me he still had copies of several company records.
“Would you give them to us?”
“They belong to you.”
My phone buzzed.
A text from the detective.
Evelyn had been released after questioning.
No arrest yet.
The investigation was continuing.
My jaw tightened.
Then another message arrived.
Our home security system had been disconnected.
I opened the app.
Every camera was offline.
I called the neighbor across the street.
“Mr. Jenkins, is my mother home?”
He looked out his window.
“No.”
“Her car?”
“Gone.”
“Did you see her leave?”
“About twenty minutes ago.”
“Was she carrying anything?”
He hesitated.
“Boxes.”
I stood.
“What kind of boxes?”
“File boxes.”
My father’s office.
I called Rebecca.
“Mom’s clearing the house.”
Samuel heard me.
“Then there’s something there she’s afraid you’ll find.”
I kissed Anna’s forehead.
“I need to stop her.”
Anna caught my wrist.
“No.”
I looked at her.
“You need to be here when your son is born.”
The truth of that sentence held me in place.
Rebecca said,
“I’ll go.”
“Don’t confront her.”
“I won’t.”
“Call police if she’s there.”
Rebecca drove to the house with an officer we had requested for a civil standby.
By the time they arrived, my mother was gone.
The study door was open.
Drawers empty.
Cabinets stripped.
But she had missed one thing.
Rebecca found it behind the desk.
A black ledger wedged between the wall and baseboard.
She opened it.
Twenty minutes later, she called me.
Her voice sounded strange.
“Nathan.”
“What?”
“I think Dad kept his own records.”
“Of what?”
“Payments.”
“To who?”
She read several names.
I recognized none.
Then she stopped.
“What?”
“There’s one name repeated every month.”
“Who?”
Rebecca whispered it.
“Dr. Harold Klein.”
My father’s cardiologist.
May you like
And next to the final payment, dated six days before my father died, Daniel had written three words.
Ask why Evelyn paid.
