Chapter 6: Kayla's Name on Everything
We didn't go to the storage unit.
Dad turned the car around and drove home in silence.
I watched his face the whole way — the way his jaw was set, the way he didn't blink as much as usual.
I had seen him grieve.
I had seen him angry.
I had never seen him look like this.
This was something past anger.
Something colder and more deliberate.
Kayla was sitting in the living room when we walked in.
She was on her phone, legs tucked under her on the couch, and she looked up with the easy expression of someone who had decided to act like nothing was happening.
"How was the dealership?" she asked.
Dad set his keys on the table by the door.
He didn't answer her question.
"Where did the money go, Kayla?"
Her expression didn't break immediately.
It shifted — a small recalibration.
Then she smiled.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Riverton Holdings LLC," Dad said.
"Registered in Delaware.
In your name."
The smile didn't disappear.
But it stopped being a smile.
"That's a business I set up for investment purposes.
That's completely legal."
"Investment purposes," Dad repeated.
"With two hundred and thirty-one thousand dollars that came out of my account without my knowledge?"
"Mom manages the household finances.
Whatever she transferred—"
"Stop." Dad's voice didn't rise.
That was the thing about him — he had never needed volume to be heard.
"I'm not asking you to explain your mother's decisions.
I'm asking you to explain yours.
Your name is on the company.
The money went there.
What did you do with it?"
Kayla uncurled herself from the couch and stood up.
She was taller than her mother, and when she wanted to, she could take up a room.
"Richard," she said — and the use of his first name, calm and familiar like that, was its own kind of statement — "I think you should talk to a lawyer before this goes any further.
Because if you start making accusations you can't support—"
"I have Frank Delano's full file," Dad said.
"I have fourteen months of transaction records.
I have the redirect authorization from your mother forged on your mother's — on Erin's mother's signature.
And I have the estate attorney ready to file a formal complaint this afternoon."
Kayla's composure cracked.
Not loudly.
Just a small fracture, visible in the way her chin dropped a quarter of an inch and her eyes went to the door behind us.
"You talked to a PI," she said.
"He talked to me."
"That's — you had someone watching our house?"
"He was hired by the estate attorney eight months ago.
Before I knew anything." Dad took a step toward her.
Not threatening.
Just present.
"Kayla.
Where is the money now?"
She looked at him for a long moment.
Then she said, "You should ask Mom."
"I'm asking you."
"And I'm telling you to ask Mom." Her voice had gone flat.
Protective.
"I'm not saying another word without a lawyer."
Dad nodded slowly.
Like he had expected this and it told him everything he needed.
He went to his office and closed the door.
I stood in the living room with Kayla.
She looked at me like I was a piece of furniture she had never particularly liked.
"You did this," she said.
"I came home and my car was gone," I said.
"That's all I did."
"You couldn't just let it go."
"It was my car, Kayla.
I bought it myself."
She picked up her phone off the couch and walked past me without another word.
I heard her go upstairs.
I heard her door lock.
Ten minutes later, Monica's car pulled back into the driveway.
I watched through the front window as she sat there for almost two full minutes without getting out.
Just sitting behind the wheel, staring at the house.
I stepped back from the window so she couldn't see me looking.
When she finally came inside, her face was composed and her voice was even.
"Where's Richard?"
"His office," I said.
She walked to the office door and knocked twice.
Waited.
Dad opened it.
They looked at each other across the threshold for a moment that felt much longer than it was.
"The unit was accessed this morning," Monica said.
"Before I got there."
"I know," Dad said.
Her composure didn't shatter.
It dissolved.
Slowly, like something being lowered into water.
"Richard—"
"Come in," he said.
"And close the door."
She did.
I sat down on the bottom stair and listened to the silence on the other side of that door.
No shouting.
No crying.
Just voices too low to hear through solid wood.
That was almost worse.
My phone buzzed.
Frank Delano again.
*Estate attorney filed at 2:47 p.m.
Complaint is formal and on record.
Expect contact from their office tomorrow morning.
You should have a lawyer present.
I can recommend someone if your father needs a name.*
I typed back: *Thank you.
For everything.*
His reply came in under a minute.
*Your mother's attorney set this in motion two years ago.
She left instructions.
She wanted to make sure you were protected.*
I read that twice.
Then I set my phone face-down on the step beside me and pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes.
My mother had known.
Somehow, from wherever she was, she had known.
The office door opened.
Monica walked out.
She didn't look at me.
She went straight to the stairs.
Her heel caught the edge of the bottom step — the one I was sitting on — and she grabbed the railing to steady herself.
For one second, her eyes met mine.
Then she went upstairs without a word.
Dad stood in the doorway of his office.
He looked at me across the hallway.
"She's calling her lawyer," he said.
"So are we?" I asked.
"Already did," he said.
"Margaret Chen.
She'll be here at nine tomorrow morning."
He looked older than he had yesterday.
But his eyes were clear.
"Your mother," he said.
"The attorney told me tonight.
She set up a protection order for your trust two years before she passed.
She had a clause put in specifically — if anyone attempted to redirect the funds, the attorney was legally obligated to investigate and report." He stopped.
"She saw this coming, Erin.
She didn't know who.
But she saw something coming."
I didn't say anything for a long time.
Then: "She always did."
May you like
Dad crossed the hallway and sat down on the step beside me.
We stayed there together without speaking, in our own house that felt like foreign territory, until the light outside the window went from grey to dark.
