Chapter 3 - THE FIRST ACCOUNT I DIDN’T RECOGNIZE
Helen did not immediately tell me my son was stealing from me.
That was one reason I trusted her.
She was fifty-one, an elder-law attorney with a practical habit of removing her glasses whenever people became dramatic.
At our first meeting, I said:
“I think Derek is trying to take over my money.”
Helen removed her glasses.
“What has he actually done?”
That question annoyed me.
Then helped me.
We started with facts.
The attempted $48,000 transfer had been stopped.
No loss.
Derek had online access to one household account because I gave it to him after surgery.
Fact.
He was an authorized user on one credit card.
Fact.
He had no current legal power of attorney.
Fact.
Then Helen asked:
“Have you seen the document he believes gives him authority?”
“No.”
“Get a copy without going through his belongings.”
I called the attorney Derek claimed had prepared it.
The man had drafted a power of attorney months earlier.
He remembered me.
“I thought you chose not to execute it.”
“I did.”
“That’s what my file says.”
“Did you ever send Derek a signed copy?”
“There is no signed copy.”
Two days later, my bank told me Derek had submitted one.
That was when Helen became serious.
The signature had been notarized.
Or appeared to be.
The notary information belonged to a woman named Patricia Cole.
She had never notarized anything for me.
Her commission number had been copied from another public document.
The bank suspended Derek’s claimed authority pending review.
I did not confront him.
Helen advised me to preserve evidence and separate immediate safety from emotional satisfaction.
I changed passwords.
Removed his device access.
Opened a new checking account for ordinary expenses.
Canceled his ability to view my brokerage account.
Then I found an external transfer destination I did not recognize.
BRIAR HOLDINGS LLC.
Three transfers.
$12,000.
$18,500.
$21,000.
Fifty-one thousand five hundred dollars total.
The transactions had occurred over five months.
I stared at them until the numbers blurred.
“Can the bank get it back?” I asked Helen.
“Maybe some. Maybe none. First we determine authorization and destination.”
“Derek did it.”
“Maybe.”
“You don't believe me?”
“I believe evidence more than either of us.”
Fair.
Painfully fair.
The bank traced the outgoing instructions to sessions using Derek’s registered device.
That connected him to the access.
It did not yet tell us what Briar Holdings was.
I searched the company name.
Nothing obvious.
Helen ordered legitimate corporate-record searches through channels available to her firm.
That evening, Derek called.
“You changed the banking password?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because it's my account.”
“Mom, we agreed I'd manage things.”
“No. You proposed it.”
“You're confused.”
There.
Again.
The word.
“I’m not confused.”
“You've been forgetting things.”
“What things?”
He couldn't produce one specific example.
Instead he said:
“This is exactly why we need paperwork.”
After we hung up, I added the call to my notebook.
Then another memory surfaced.
Kelsey filming me at Thanksgiving after I misplaced my glasses.
Derek asking whether I remembered taking medication.
Kelsey joking to friends that I was “getting adorably forgetful.”
Small moments.
May you like
Individually harmless.
Together, they made me wonder whether my finances were only half the problem.
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