Chapter 3 - THE PAYMENTS ROBERT DIDN’T RECOGNIZE
Robert showed Rachel the statements in his basement workshop.
Diane hated the room because it smelled faintly of sawdust and machine oil. That was probably why Robert had chosen it.
Sixteen months of checking-account records lay across his workbench.
Rachel was a payroll manager for a regional construction company. She wasn’t a forensic accountant, but she knew how to read transaction histories.
Repeated transfers went to an account ending in 4418.
$1,800.
$2,200.
$3,750.
Then one for $12,000.
“Whose account?”
Robert looked ashamed.
“Vanessa’s.”
Rachel stared at him.
“You’ve been giving her this much?”
“Some.”
That word mattered.
Robert knew about six months of help after Vanessa separated from Colin.
He had agreed to cover Lily’s tuition temporarily and one emergency mortgage payment.
“Your mother said Vanessa needed time.”
“How much did you approve?”
Robert had calculated it.
Roughly $17,000.
The statements showed more than $61,000 had left their accounts.
“Did Vanessa ask for all of it?”
“I don’t know.”
Rachel looked back toward the basement stairs.
“Why didn’t you confront Mom?”
“I did.”
Three weeks earlier Robert asked Diane about the transfers.
She said he had forgotten agreeing to them.
Robert hated that answer.
His memory was not perfect. He sometimes forgot where he put reading glasses or whether he had taken the trash bins in.
But he had not forgotten sixty thousand dollars.
Diane then accused him of becoming paranoid because his older brother had recently been diagnosed with early-stage dementia.
That accusation worked.
Robert stopped asking.
Until Rachel moved in.
She helped him install the bank app on his tablet.
She showed him transaction search.
Suddenly he could see the pattern himself.
“Mom knows I’ve been helping you.”
Robert nodded.
“She hates it.”
Rachel thought of the message.
Handle Emma before Rachel comes downstairs.
“And the adviser?”
“I asked him to come without telling Diane.”
“Dad.”
“I needed someone independent.”
Rachel understood the timing now.
Diane needed Rachel upset.
Preferably gone.
Before ten o’clock.
She looked at her father.
“Mom wanted me out of this house before you showed me the accounts.”
Robert said nothing.
Upstairs, something heavy scraped across the kitchen floor.
Then Diane called down:
“Robert, Vanessa’s leaving.”
Rachel looked at the statements.
May you like
Vanessa was not leaving with only her purse.
She was carrying a document box from Diane’s bedroom.
