Chapter 2
For a moment, I assumed Dad meant Rebecca had gone on another shopping spree.
That would have been bad, but not bad enough to make him drive twenty minutes across Columbus before eight in the morning, still wearing yesterday’s clothes and looking like he had not slept.
“What account?” I asked.
Dad glanced toward the driveway as though he expected Rebecca to appear behind his truck.
“The home-equity account.”
My stomach tightened.
Three years earlier, after retiring from a regional construction company, Dad and Mom had opened a home-equity line of credit. It was supposed to cover emergencies, major repairs, and Mom’s future medical expenses.
Dad once told me nearly eighty thousand dollars was available.
“How could Rebecca empty it?” I asked.
He dragged both hands over his face.
“I added her as an authorized signer six months ago.”
I stared at him.
“Why?”
He looked embarrassed.
“She said she was helping your mother manage bills.”
Of course she did.
Emily appeared behind me in her robe.
“What happened?”
Dad swallowed.
“Seventy-six thousand dollars is gone.”
Emily froze.
“Gone where?”
Dad shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
I had a pretty good guess.
Rebecca and her husband, Tyler, had spent the past year pretending they were doing far better financially than they actually were.
A new SUV.
Resort vacations.
Expensive baseball equipment for Mason.
Designer clothes.
Restaurants almost every weekend.
Tyler lost his sales-management job in August, but Rebecca kept telling everyone he was “consulting.”
I stepped outside and shut the door behind me.
“Call the bank.”
Dad nodded.
“I did.”
“And?”
His jaw tightened.
“They said most of the transfers were authorized online.”
“By Rebecca?”
He nodded.
“She transferred money over the last four months. Small amounts at first. Then yesterday afternoon she transferred twenty-eight thousand.”
Yesterday.
While she sat at Dad’s Thanksgiving table smirking because my eight-year-old had spaghetti on his shoes.
“Did you confront her?” I asked.
Dad looked away.
“That’s why I need you.”
My answer came immediately.
“No.”
His head jerked toward me.
“What?”
“You don’t need me to confront Rebecca. You need to call the bank’s fraud department, the police, and an attorney.”
Dad frowned.
“She’s your sister.”
“And she’s your authorized signer. That makes this complicated.”
For a second, his old commanding tone returned.
“Daniel, family handles family matters privately.”
I almost laughed.
“Twelve hours ago, you told me I wasn’t welcome in your house ever again.”
His expression tightened.
“That was anger.”
“No. That was a decision.”
Dad looked through the front window.
Noah was sitting at the kitchen island eating cereal.
Dad’s shoulders dropped.
“I made a mistake.”
I held his gaze.
“You made a lot of them.”
He said nothing.
I remembered Rebecca receiving extra money on birthdays because she “needed help.”
I remembered Dad loaning Tyler twenty thousand dollars for a business that disappeared within a year.
I remembered Mom constantly babysitting Mason while Rebecca was somehow unavailable when Mom needed knee surgery.
And I remembered Dad ordering Noah to apologize after Mason deliberately ruined his dinner.
Still, seventy-six thousand dollars was serious.
“Go home,” I said. “Don’t warn Rebecca about anything else. Save every text. Save every email. Download every bank statement. Change your passwords. Freeze your credit cards. Then call an attorney.”
Dad stared at me.
“You’re really not coming?”
“No.”
His voice cracked.
“Daniel, she could destroy us.”
I kept my voice calm.
“You spent years teaching Rebecca that consequences were always somebody else’s problem.”
That hurt him more than yelling ever could.
Dad suddenly looked much older.
His phone rang.
Rebecca’s name appeared.
He answered immediately.
“What?”
I could hear her yelling from several feet away.
Dad’s face drained of color.
“What do you mean Tyler’s gone?”
More shouting.
Then silence.
Dad slowly lowered the phone.
“What happened?” I asked.
He looked at me.
“Tyler left last night.”
“Left where?”
“She doesn’t know. He emptied their checking account, packed his clothes, and disappeared.”
I exhaled.
The missing seventy-six thousand suddenly looked even worse.
Then Dad’s phone buzzed again.
A text from Mom.
He read it once.
Then again.
His knees seemed to buckle, and he sat heavily on the front step.
“What now?” I asked.
He handed me the phone.
Richard, Rebecca is tearing through the office. She keeps asking where the property documents are. Please come home.
I gave the phone back.
Dad immediately stood.
“I have to go.”
“Yes.”
He hesitated with one hand on the railing.
“Will you at least answer if I call?”
I looked through the window.
Noah was laughing at something Emily had said.
Less than a day earlier, Dad had threatened to cut us out of the family because I refused to make my son apologize to the boy bullying him.
Now he wanted me to become the family crisis manager again.
“I’ll answer,” I said. “But I’m not cleaning this up for you.”
Dad nodded.
For once, he didn’t argue.
He hurried toward his truck, then paused before opening the door.
“Daniel?”
I looked at him.
“What?”
His voice sounded different.
Lower.
Exhausted.
Almost broken.
“You were right to leave last night.”
Then he climbed into the truck and drove away.
At the time, I thought that was the closest thing to an apology I would ever hear from him.
I was wrong.
May you like
By noon, two police cars were sitting outside my parents’ house.
And before that day ended, my sister would accuse me of stealing the money myself.
