Chapter 4 - What His Mother’s Name Was Worth
Naomi returned to the print shop after closing to retrieve the backup drive she had hidden behind a cabinet.
Elaine advised Abigail not to enter the building, so the three women met afterward in Elaine’s office.
The drive contained years of customer files: restaurant menus, school banners, funeral programs, real-estate brochures, and church newsletters.
It also contained a folder labeled MCC-47.
Inside were letters bearing Abigail’s name.
Dear friends, as many of you know, my son Spencer is facing a long and uncertain medical battle.
The letters described experimental treatments, transportation costs, and possible organ damage. They asked recipients to contribute to the Riley Family Medical Fund.
At the bottom was Abigail’s scanned signature.
“I never wrote this,” she said.
Naomi nodded. “He asked you for the church mailing list last fall.”
“For thank-you cards.”
“That’s what he told me, too.”
Elaine opened a spreadsheet. More than two hundred donations had been recorded. Some were twenty-five dollars. Several were five thousand. Most came from older church members who trusted Abigail from years of pancake breakfasts, funeral luncheons, and food-pantry drives.
The total exceeded one hundred eighty-six thousand dollars.
Spencer had routed the money through an old joint checking account Abigail had opened when he was in college. She had forgotten the account existed. Her name remained on it, making the transfers appear authorized.
Abigail felt something colder than grief.
The forged invoices had stolen her savings. The donation letters had stolen her reputation.
“Why did he need this much?” she asked.
Naomi showed her the shop ledger. Spencer had lost a major school-district contract after failing to deliver an order on time. Rather than close the business, he used customer deposits to cover older jobs, then used Abigail’s money to replace those deposits.
Each lie had financed the one before it.
“There’s more,” Naomi said.
She opened an audio file from a routine bookkeeping meeting recorded automatically by the shop’s conference software. Elaine stopped her before she played it.
“We don’t need a dramatic recording,” the attorney said. “We need records with clear origins.”
Naomi closed the file and instead produced email chains, deposit slips, printing logs, and postage receipts.
They showed that Spencer had mailed the donation letters himself.
Elaine turned to Abigail. “You have a choice. We can approach the bank and church quietly while we investigate. Or we can make a formal report now.”
Abigail looked at the letters carrying her name.
“If I stay quiet, he’ll say I knew.”
Elaine did not disagree.
May you like
Abigail straightened the stack of forged appeals.
“Then we report all of it.”
