PART 9 — THE NUMBER ONLY THREE PEOPLE KNEW

I stared at the number.

$412,600.

“That can’t be right,” Mark said.

Thomas looked at him.

“Why?”

“Because Mom never talks about money.”

He was right.

Raymond and I had never believed our finances were anybody else’s business.

Not even our son’s.

Thomas enlarged the attachment.

I recognized the house value.

My savings account was close.

The retirement account was frighteningly close.

Then I saw one particular number.

$86,240.

My stomach tightened.

Thomas noticed.

“What is it?”

I pointed.

“That account.”

“What about it?”

“The balance.”

I looked at Mark.

He seemed genuinely confused.

“That number was correct in August.”

Thomas leaned forward.

“How many people knew that?”

I counted.

“Me.”

One.

“Raymond’s accountant.”

Two.

“And Thomas.”

Three.

Mark frowned.

“Not Dad?”

“Your father has been dead four years.”

“I mean, did he leave records?”

“Old ones. Nothing with that balance.”

Thomas looked again at the document.

“Then somebody obtained relatively recent financial information.”

Mark sat down heavily.

“How?”

I had an idea.

But I wanted to be wrong.

I stood and walked toward the little desk beside the dining-room window.

Inside the bottom drawer was a black binder.

Raymond had started it years ago.

Insurance.

Taxes.

Bank statements.

Everything important.

After he died, I kept using it.

I carried the binder to the table.

Opened it.

Insurance section.

Present.

Property tax.

Present.

Retirement.

I turned another divider.

Then stopped.

The August statement was gone.

Thomas immediately understood.

“Was it normally kept there?”

“Yes.”

I checked September.

Still there.

July.

Still there.

August was missing.

Mark whispered, “Mom…”

I kept searching.

Then I found something else.

My homeowner’s insurance summary.

Gone.

Property assessment.

Gone.

A photocopy of my driver’s license.

Gone.

Three different documents.

Exactly the kind of information someone would need to build the inventory on Thomas’s phone.

Mark stood.

“When could Alicia have gotten those?”

I looked toward the empty hook in the laundry room.

“The same time somebody took my spare key.”

Nobody needed to say Bruce’s name.

Thomas pulled out his phone.

“We don’t assume. We document.”

He photographed the binder.

Then the empty spaces.

Then he asked me to write down everything I knew was missing.

Raymond’s voice returned to me.

Dot, when it matters, write it down.

So I did.

August bank statement.

Homeowner’s insurance summary.

Property assessment.

Driver’s-license copy.

Four items.

Then Mark said quietly:

“There’s something else.”

I looked up.

He was staring at the floor.

“What?”

“Alicia asked me about Dad’s life insurance a few months ago.”

My pen stopped.

“What did you tell her?”

“That I didn’t know.”

“Why did she ask?”

“She said we were updating our estate plan.”

Thomas and I exchanged a look.

“That doesn’t make sense,” he said.

“No,” Mark whispered. “It doesn’t.”

His phone buzzed.

He pulled it out.

A message from Alicia.

He read it.

Then another arrived.

His expression changed.

“What is she saying?” I asked.

He handed Thomas the phone.

Thomas read both messages silently.

Then he handed it to me.

The first said:

Do not let your mother call Silver Meadows.

The second:

And tell Reed to stop contacting Bruce until I get back. There are things none of you understand.

I read that last sentence twice.

Things none of us understood.

Thomas looked at Mark.

“Where did Alicia go?”

“I don’t know.”

Then Mark’s phone rang.

Alicia.

He answered immediately.

“Where are you?”

I couldn’t hear her response.

Mark’s face tightened.

“What do you mean you’re fixing it?”

Another pause.

Then:

“Alicia, do not touch anything else involving Mom.”

His eyes suddenly widened.

“What appointment?”

Thomas stood.

Mark put the call on speaker.

Alicia’s voice filled my kitchen.

“I said I’ll explain later.”

Thomas stepped closer.

“What appointment, Alicia?”

Silence.

Then she realized she was on speaker.

“Thomas?”

“Yes.”

A long breath came through the phone.

Finally Alicia said:

“Dorothy has an assessment scheduled tomorrow morning.”

I felt cold.

“What kind of assessment?”

Nobody answered at first.

Then Alicia said the words slowly.

“A capacity evaluation.”

Thomas’s expression hardened.

Mark looked sick.

I understood only enough to be frightened.

“Capacity for what?”

Thomas answered me.

“To determine whether someone is capable of making their own decisions.”

I looked at the false Silver Meadows report.

Then at the inventory of everything I owned.

Then at the empty spaces in Raymond’s binder.

And suddenly the plan seemed much larger than putting me in a retirement community.

Someone wasn’t simply trying to move me out of my house.

Someone was building a paper trail suggesting I could no longer control my own life.