Chapter 4 - The Decision Monica Couldn’t Undo
Monica had surgery Thursday morning.
By Friday afternoon, she had signed two documents that changed her relationship with her family permanently.
The first was a request for a protective order against Austin.
The second authorized her lawyer to provide Detective McBride with every message, family document, photograph, and financial record Monica possessed that could help establish Kathleen’s history.
It was not revenge.
It still felt like betrayal.
Family had trained Monica to confuse those things.
Amanda called from an unfamiliar number that evening.
“You’ve caused enough damage.”
Monica almost hung up.
Then she decided to listen.
“My son is sitting in jail because you couldn’t keep your mouth shut.”
“He attacked me.”
“You provoked him.”
“With a marriage record?”
Amanda’s voice sharpened.
“You have no idea what Kathleen did to him.”
“Then tell me.”
Silence.
“What did she do?”
“She was unstable.”
“Why is she in rehab?”
“That accident had nothing to do with us.”
“I didn’t say it did.”
Amanda stopped speaking.
Monica caught the mistake.
People tell you what they fear by what they deny before you accuse them.
“I want to talk to Kathleen,” Monica said.
“No.”
The speed of the answer mattered.
Amanda recovered.
“She’s cognitively impaired. You’ll confuse her.”
“You’re not her doctor.”
“I am the person who has kept her life functioning while everybody else judged.”
There it was.
Not concern.
Ownership.
Rachel advised Monica not to engage further.
The investigation took its first active step when Kathleen’s court file was located.
There had been no guardianship.
No conservatorship.
Instead, Austin had used a durable power of attorney Kathleen signed eleven months before the crash.
The document allowed him to manage limited household and financial matters during travel or incapacity.
That could be legitimate.
What mattered was scope.
Kathleen’s Pacific Beach property transfer had been executed under that power.
So had the liquidation of an investment account worth $186,000.
And the change directing disability insurance payments into an account Austin controlled.
The POA did not automatically make those actions criminal.
But it meant the secret marriage mattered financially.
Austin had a legal relationship he never dissolved because that relationship gave him authority.
Naomi’s canceled wedding now looked different too.
If Austin married Naomi without divorcing Kathleen, the marriage itself could have created a legal disaster.
Why risk it?
Because Naomi’s family wealth might solve something.
Monica remembered Amanda’s words at the birthday dinner.
Your brother lost a rich wife because of you.
Not a woman he loved.
A rich wife.
Rachel requested an independent review of Kathleen’s financial records through the appropriate civil process.
Then Detective McBride called with something simpler.
Kathleen’s rehabilitation facility had agreed, with Kathleen’s current treatment team and patient-rights advocate, to allow law enforcement to ask whether she wanted contact with Monica.
Kathleen understood the question.
Her answer was immediate.
“Yes.”
Then she asked something that made Monica grip the edge of her hospital bed.
“Did Monica find the blue folder?”
Monica had never heard of any blue folder.
May you like
Amanda apparently had.
Because according to facility notes, every time Kathleen asked for it over the previous two years, Amanda told staff it was part of her confusion.
