Chapter 3 - Sixty Thousand DollarsMy brother arrived thirty-five minutes later.
By then two police officers had already taken Lily’s statement with Rachel present. They photographed the mark around her wrist and collected the purse, documents and flash drive after Patricia called the police herself and claimed I had stolen her belongings.
That decision did not help her.
Officer Greene, a calm woman in her forties, looked at the forged documents and asked Patricia over the phone if she wanted to come retrieve her property while officers were present.
Patricia declined.
“I’ll speak through my attorney.”
Officer Greene ended the call and raised an eyebrow.
“Interesting.”
Matthew pulled into my driveway while the officers were still there.
He looked terrible.
My younger brother was usually the polished one.
Thirty-six, successful, expensive haircut, shirts that looked ironed even after ten hours at work.
Now his collar was open and his eyes were bloodshot.
“What happened to Lily?”
I blocked the doorway.
“Answer my question first.”
He saw the officers.
His shoulders fell.
“I screwed up.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“Daniel.”
“How did Patricia get access to our company?”
Matthew glanced at Rachel.
“She contacted me in November.”
“Why?”
“She said she’d noticed irregular transactions.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
“You gave someone access to company accounts because she claimed she noticed something?”
“She had documents.”
“What documents?”
“Vendor payments. Wire transfers. A bunch of invoices.”
I stared at him.
Our company, Keller Landscaping and Development, was not enormous, but it was successful. My father started it with one truck. Matthew and I had grown it into a forty-person operation handling commercial landscaping and property maintenance throughout the county.
I managed crews and contracts.
Matthew handled most financial operations.
Which meant what he said next nearly knocked the wind out of me.
“There’s been money disappearing for about eighteen months.”
“How much?”
“I don’t know exactly.”
“Estimate.”
He hesitated.
“Maybe four hundred thousand.”
Rachel gasped.
I stared at him.
“Four hundred thousand dollars disappears and you don’t tell me?”
“I was trying to figure out where it went.”
“For eighteen months?”
“I thought I could fix it.”
“You thought?”
His voice rose.
“Yes, I thought! Dad built that company, Danny. You think I wanted to tell you I might’ve allowed someone to rob us?”
One of the officers stepped closer.
“Gentlemen.”
I backed away.
Matthew rubbed both hands over his face.
“Patricia said she knew an investigator.”
“Who?”
“She never gave me his full name.”
“You handed over our records to a mystery investigator?”
“Read-only access.”
“That’s still access!”
“I know.”
“What about the sixty thousand?”
He stared at the floor.
“My mortgage was in trouble.”
I felt something inside me crack.
“You told me the house was paid down.”
“I lied.”
“Why?”
“Because I’d borrowed against it.”
“For what?”
No answer.
“Matt.”
“Investments.”
“What investments?”
“Crypto. Options. Whatever.”
I almost laughed.
Not because it was funny.
Because I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
“You gambled your house?”
“I was trying to get ahead.”
“And Patricia gave you sixty thousand dollars.”
“As a loan.”
“In exchange for our financial records.”
He didn’t answer.
That was answer enough.
Rachel suddenly looked toward the stairs.
“Lily said Mom was putting papers into my desk.”
We went upstairs.
The police followed.
Rachel opened every drawer.
Nothing.
Then she pulled one completely out.
Behind it sat a blue folder.
Exactly as Lily had described.
Inside were bank statements.
They showed transfers from Keller Landscaping into an account bearing Rachel’s name.
Twenty thousand.
Fifteen thousand.
Thirty thousand.
Again and again.
The total was $417,300.
Rachel sank onto the bed.
“I never opened this account.”
Officer Greene examined the paperwork.
“Is this your Social Security number?”
Rachel looked.
“No.”
I did.
The last four digits belonged to someone else.
The account was designed to look like Rachel’s from a distance.
But whoever created it had not expected anyone to inspect carefully.
Matthew stared at the documents.
“This is what Patricia showed me.”
I turned.
“She showed you these?”
“Copies.”
“And you didn’t tell us?”
“She said Rachel was stealing.”
Rachel looked like he had slapped her.
“You believed her?”
“No.”
“You took sixty thousand dollars from my mother after she accused me of stealing from your family?”
“I didn’t know what to believe!”
“You could have asked me!”
“I was ashamed.”
Rachel stood.
“You let her investigate me behind my back.”
“I’m sorry.”
“That doesn’t even begin to cover it.”
Officer Greene interrupted.
“Whoever created these accounts may have committed multiple financial crimes.”
Matthew nodded.
“I know.”
“Who actually received the funds?”
“That’s what I couldn’t figure out.”
I remembered the safe-deposit key.
The police had photographed it but had not yet seized it because they were still determining whether the contents of Patricia’s purse were connected to a crime.
“Maybe the box tells us.”
Officer Greene nodded.
“We’ll need to handle that correctly.”
The flash drive turned out to be encrypted.
That night, after police left, Rachel put Lily to bed in our room.
She refused to sleep alone.
I didn’t blame her.
At eleven, I sat downstairs with Rachel.
Neither of us spoke for several minutes.
Then she said:
“My mother has always controlled people.”
I looked at her.
“She controlled my father. She controlled me. She tried to control our wedding, our house, Lily’s school.”
“You pushed back.”
“Eventually.”
She stared at the dark window.
“But you don’t understand how far she goes when she thinks she’s losing.”
I thought about Lily on the floor.
“I’m starting to.”
Rachel swallowed.
“When I was sixteen, Dad was going to leave her.”
I had met Rachel’s father only twice before he died.
Quiet man.
Gentle.
Always seemed exhausted.
“What happened?”
“He changed his mind.”
“Why?”
“Mom showed him documents proving he’d stolen money from his employer.”
My skin prickled.
“Had he?”
“No.”
“How do you know?”
“Because three years later, when I was in college, Dad told me she fabricated everything.”
I stared at her.
“Why didn’t he leave then?”
“Because she told him the evidence would go to police if he did.”
The room felt suddenly colder.
Rachel looked upstairs.
“My mother doesn’t just lie, Daniel.”
“She builds cages.”
At 11:43 p.m., my phone rang.
Unknown number.
I answered.
“Mr. Keller?”
“Yes.”
“This is Detective Aaron Brooks with Financial Crimes.”
My pulse increased.
“We’ve reviewed the material collected from your home.”
“And?”
“There’s something you need to know.”
He paused.
“The account in your wife’s name wasn’t created eighteen months ago.”
“When was it created?”
“Seven years ago.”
I stared at Rachel.
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“It gets stranger.”
He continued.
“The first deposit wasn’t from your business.”
“Then where?”
“From the estate of Thomas Monroe.”
Rachel’s father.
The man who had been dead for seven years.
“How much?”
“Two hundred eighty thousand dollars.”
Rachel’s face drained of color when I repeated the amount.
May you like
Then Brooks said:
“Mr. Keller, according to probate records, that money was supposed to go to your wife.”
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