Chapter 6 - Seventy-Two HoursThe man in the SUV was identified the next morning.
Lily’s old dollhouse.
Specifically, beneath the removable floor of the miniature bedroom.
“When did you put it there?” I asked.
“Three weeks ago.”
The folder was thick.
Inside were photocopies.
Bank statements.
Property records.
Handwritten notes.
Copies of my signature.
I felt my pulse beating in my ears.
“Where did you get these?”
“Your mother left them on the kitchen table.”
“All of them?”
“No.”
Maya sat down.
“I found the folder after she went out one afternoon. Lily had spilled juice on a chair and I was cleaning under the table.”
The blue folder had fallen behind a sideboard.
Maya opened it because she saw my name.
What she discovered frightened her enough that she photographed every page.
Then my mother caught her.
“That was the first time she grabbed me,” Maya said.
My fists clenched.
“She told me it was none of my business.”
“What did you say?”
“That anything with your signature was my business.”
My mother accused her of snooping.
Then she told Maya that I knew everything.
“And you believed her?”
“For a few hours.”
That answer hurt.
“Why?”
Maya looked at me.
“Because she had copies of your driver’s license.”
I went cold.
“My Social Security number?”
“On one page.”
I stood.
“How did she get that?”
Maya didn’t answer.
I already knew.
My mother had kept old tax documents from when I was in college.
She had copies of records I never thought to reclaim.
I had trusted her with the kind of information people only realize is dangerous after it’s abused.
The folder contained three loan applications.
One credit card.
One business registration.
And a preliminary document titled:
BENNETT FAMILY REVOCABLE TRUST — AMENDMENT DRAFT.
I frowned.
“What is this?”
Maya pointed to the second page.
My name appeared.
So did Rachel’s.
But the wording described us as beneficiaries only after repayment of “family obligations.”
“What family obligations?”
Maya shook her head.
Then I found my mother’s handwriting.
Daniel — $286,000
Rachel — $191,000
I stared.
Those numbers were absurd.
“What are these?”
“I think she calculated what raising you cost.”
I laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
Tuition.
Housing.
Vacations.
Medical insurance.
Birthday gifts.
Even food.
My mother had apparently spent months assigning a dollar value to motherhood.
At the bottom she had written:
Amount owed before inheritance distribution.
I sat down.
My father had left my mother financially secure.
More than secure.
The estate had been worth roughly $2.7 million.
Where had it gone?
Marcus answered that question partially.
Two days later, he arrived with records.
“Your mother’s finances are a disaster.”
Mortgage debt.
Credit lines.
Unpaid taxes.
Private loans.
The estate money had steadily disappeared.
Some through luxury spending.
Some through questionable investments.
And approximately $600,000 through transfers connected to Richard Hale.
“Is he stealing from her?” Rachel asked.
Marcus leaned back.
“Possibly.”
“Possibly?”
“Your mother may also be participating.”
My stomach tightened.
Marcus pointed to several transactions.
“Richard receives money. Then a portion gets transferred back to accounts controlled by Evelyn.”
“So they’re cycling funds.”
“Looks that way.”
“For what?”
“That’s the million-dollar question.”
The answer arrived sooner than we expected.
Detective Ortiz called that afternoon.
Richard Hale had been arrested.
Not in Chicago.
In Las Vegas.
He had been stopped at an airport gate while preparing to board a flight to Costa Rica.
Federal agents found multiple identification documents in his luggage.
Two were fake.
One belonged to a deceased man.
Ortiz asked us to come to the station.
When we arrived, she showed us a photograph.
Richard looked younger.
Maybe fifteen years younger.
But it was him.
“His legal name is Richard Halpern.”
“Okay.”
“He has prior fraud convictions.”
Maya inhaled sharply.
“What kind?”
“Investment fraud. Identity theft. Elder exploitation.”
Rachel covered her mouth.
“What about Mom?”
Ortiz folded her hands.
“That’s complicated.”
“How?”
“Your mother appears to have met him approximately two years ago.”
A year earlier than Rachel had thought.
“She invested with him.”
“How much?”
“Initially? About three hundred thousand.”
I closed my eyes.
“Your father’s money,” Rachel whispered.
Ortiz nodded.
“When the investment failed, Richard convinced her she could recover the losses by bringing in additional investors.”
“A Ponzi scheme.”
“Essentially.”
My mother had introduced friends.
Relatives.
Neighbors.
Then, when they demanded returns, she borrowed more.
And more.
Eventually she began stealing.
From me.
Possibly others.
Rachel cried quietly.
I expected to feel satisfaction.
I didn’t.
All I felt was grief.
Because my mother’s cruelty was real.
But so was something else.
She had been manipulated too.
That did not excuse what she had done.
It made it more tragic.
“Where is she?” I asked.
Ortiz paused.
“We don’t know.”
“What?”
“She left her attorney’s office yesterday and hasn’t returned home.”
My pulse accelerated.
“Is she running?”
“We’re trying to determine that.”
Then Ortiz slid another photograph across the table.
Security footage.
My mother at a gas station outside Milwaukee.
Yesterday evening.
Standing beside a dark SUV.
A man sat behind the wheel.
Not Richard.
“Who is that?”
“We don’t know.”
Maya leaned closer.
Then her face changed.
“I do.”
I turned.
“Who?”
She pointed.
“That man came to our house.”
“When?”
“The night you left for Seattle.”
I felt cold.
“What did he want?”
Maya swallowed.
“He told your mother she had seventy-two hours.”
“For what?”
“She wouldn’t tell me.”
The station suddenly felt too small.
Seventy-two hours.
My conference was supposed to last four days.
My mother had planned the luncheon.
The loan was awaiting final verification.
Richard was preparing to leave the country.
And another man was collecting something.
This had not been a random week.
It had been a deadline.
I looked at Ortiz.
“What happens when the seventy-two hours are up?”
She didn’t answer immediately.
May you like
Then she said:
“That’s exactly why we need to find your mother.”
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