I read the page three times.
The account was in my name.
I had never opened it.
The first deposit had been made three years earlier.
The amount was twenty thousand dollars.
My hands began to shake.
“Where did this come from?”
My mother looked at me.
“I don’t know.”
“You put it in this envelope.”
“Yes.”
“So you know something.”
“I know your father was afraid someone would discover it.”
“Who?”
She looked down.
“Evan.”
I stared at her.
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“It will.”
Evelyn leaned forward.
“Diane, start at the beginning.”
My mother took a slow breath.
“Your father began helping Evan financially after Evan lost his job. At first, it was ordinary. Rent. Food. Car payments.”
“And then?”
“Evan started asking for larger amounts.”
“Why?”
“He said he had debts.”
“What kind?”
My mother shook her head.
“I never knew.”
I looked at the account statement again.
“Why was money put in my name?”
“He used your identity.”
The room seemed to tilt.
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“No.”
She looked directly at me.
“I expect you to believe that I was afraid.”
I wanted to hate her.
It would have been easier.
Instead, I saw the tremor in her fingers.
“You should have told me.”
“I know.”
“You should have protected me.”
“I know.”
“And Lily.”
My mother began to cry.
“I know.”
I pushed the envelope back.
“What does this have to do with Madison?”
My mother looked at Evelyn.
Then she looked at me.
“Madison saw Evan taking something from your father’s office.”
“What?”
“A ledger.”
“What ledger?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why would a twelve-year-old see that?”
“Because Evan met her father.”
I stared.
“Madison’s father?”
My mother nodded.
“They knew each other through the warehouse.”
Evelyn wrote something down.
“What did Evan want?”
“I never knew.”
I stood.
“Then what do you know?”
My mother wiped her eyes.
“I know your father paid someone to make a problem disappear.”
The room went silent.
“Whose problem?”
“Evan’s.”
“Was it Madison?”
“No.”
“Then whose?”
My mother shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
That answer was becoming unbearable.
I left the courthouse with the envelope.
Outside, the sky was gray.
Grant was waiting beside the car.
“What happened?”
I handed him the account statement.
He read it.
“Claire.”
“I never opened this.”
“I know.”
“How much did you know about my finances before we married?”
He looked startled.
“Almost nothing.”
“What about after?”
“Claire, what are you asking?”
I showed him the date.
He frowned.
“That was right before you filed for divorce.”
“Yes.”
He looked at me.
“I thought your father gave you money.”
“He never told me about this.”
Grant studied the statement.
“Could someone have used your information to move money through your name?”
“That’s what Evelyn thinks.”
We drove to her office.
She had the documents copied and sent them to a financial crimes investigator.
Then she asked me a question.
“Did your father ever ask you to sign anything after the divorce began?”
I thought.
“Yes.”
“What?”
“Something about insurance.”
“When?”
“Two weeks after I moved out.”
“Did you sign it?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I was angry.”
Evelyn nodded.
“That may have saved you.”
That night, Madison’s aunt called.
Teresa sounded frightened.
“Claire, Madison wants to talk to you.”
My heart tightened.
“When?”
“Tomorrow.”
I asked if she knew what Madison wanted to say.
“She keeps asking whether you remember the warehouse.”
“I’ve never been there.”
“She says you have.”
I sat down.
“I’ve never seen her before that night.”
“She insists you have.”
The call ended.
I could not sleep.
At four in the morning, I remembered something.
A photograph.
Years earlier.
My father had taken Lily to a company picnic at the warehouse.
I had gone because he asked me to.
Madison had been there.
Not as an employee.
As a child.
Her father had brought her.
She had been sitting on a loading dock with a red balloon.
I remembered now.
She had dropped it.
I had tied the string around her wrist.
That was why she had looked at me in the basement as though she recognized me.
I had met her.
I had simply forgotten.
The next afternoon, Madison spoke to me through the hospital room door.
She looked exhausted.
But her eyes were clear.
“You tied my balloon.”
I began to cry.
“I remember.”
She nodded.
“Evan remembered too.”
“Why?”
“He said you were the reason he couldn’t finish something.”
I looked at Bell.
“What did he mean?”
Madison stared at the blanket.
“He said your father had hidden something.”
“What?”
She swallowed.
“A book.”
“What kind of book?”
“A black notebook.”
I felt the same cold sensation I had felt when Bell first showed me the photograph.
“Where?”
Madison looked toward the hallway.
“Your mother knows.”
I turned to Bell.
“Does she?”
He nodded slowly.
“We haven’t found it.”
Madison reached beneath her pillow.
She pulled out a small folded piece of paper.
“I found this before they took me.”
I unfolded it.
There was one sentence written in Evan’s handwriting.
Your sister cannot know what happened to the ledger.
My sister.
I looked at Madison.
“What ledger?”
She whispered, “The one that proves your father wasn’t the only person taking money.”
Click here to continue reading: PART 8: The Missing Ledger Turned the Case in a New Direction, and I Finally Understood Why My Mother Had Been Terrified of the Basement
I Thought Moving Back Home Would Be the Hardest Part of Starting Over, Until I Heard a Child Crying Beneath My Bedroom Floor
Part 7 of 12
