Chapter 5: The Man Who Knew Everything
I called Dad before I even finished reading the message.
"She just left," I said.
"Someone texted me.
The same number that called you last night.
They said she's going to the storage unit and I have forty minutes."
A pause.
Then: "Don't go alone, Erin."
"I'm not planning to.
But, Dad — who is this person?
Who keeps warning us?"
"I don't know yet.
But they knew about the secondary account before we did.
That means they've been watching this for a while." Another pause.
"Stay on the phone with me.
I'm turning around."
He was back in twenty-five minutes.
I was waiting at the front door.
We drove without speaking much.
Dad had the transaction history pulled up again on the passenger seat where I could see it.
The Riverton Holdings transfers were highlighted in yellow.
He'd done that at some point in the night.
Then his phone rang through the car speakers.
Unknown number.
Dad answered it immediately.
"Mr.
Harlan." The same man's voice from last night.
Calm.
Unhurried.
"I'm glad you're both in the car."
Dad gripped the wheel.
"Who are you?"
"My name is Frank Delano.
I'm a licensed private investigator.
I was hired eight months ago by your late wife's estate attorney to look into some irregularities in her accounts."
The car got very quiet.
"My wife has been gone for six years," Dad said.
"Yes, sir.
But her estate account has not been fully closed.
There was a remainder trust set aside for your daughter Erin, to be released on her twenty-fifth birthday.
Somebody attempted to redirect those funds fourteen months ago."
I felt the seat beneath me but couldn't feel my hands.
"How much?" I asked.
A brief pause.
"The trust was valued at one hundred and twelve thousand dollars," Frank said.
"The redirect was caught by the attorney's office when a signature authorization came through that didn't match any living signatory.
The signature on the authorization—"
"Was my mother's," I said.
"Yes."
Dad pulled off the road.
Not at a turn.
Just off, onto the shoulder, because he needed to stop moving.
"Monica used my daughter's inheritance to fund a secondary account," he said.
It wasn't a question.
"That's what the evidence suggests.
Yes."
"And the storage unit?"
"Based on my surveillance over the past three weeks, that unit contains documents, a second laptop, and at minimum two prepaid phones.
It's where she manages the accounts she doesn't want accessed from this house."
Dad looked at me.
I looked back at him.
"Frank," he said.
"Why didn't you come to me sooner?"
"I needed enough to be certain.
I didn't want to bring you half a picture and have her destroy the other half before you could see it." A pause.
"I'm certain now."
"Where is she right now?"
"Pulling into the facility on Dresser Road.
Unit 114.
She'll be inside for no more than fifteen minutes before she realizes what she came for is already gone."
Dad's head turned.
"Gone?"
"I have copies of everything, Mr.
Harlan.
Every document.
Every transfer record.
Every communication.
I delivered the originals to the estate attorney this morning at seven a.m."
There was a long silence.
Then Dad said, very quietly, "Thank you, Frank."
"There's one more thing you should know," Frank said.
"Riverton Holdings LLC — the company receiving the transfers — was registered in Delaware eighteen months ago.
The registered agent is listed as a K.
Brennan."
I didn't recognize the name.
But Dad did.
I could tell from the way his hands moved on the steering wheel.
"Kayla's father's last name," he said, almost to himself.
"Before Monica remarried."
"Kayla Brennan," Frank confirmed.
"Yes."
The line went quiet again.
"She wasn't doing this alone," Dad said.
May you like
"No," said Frank.
"She wasn't."
