Chapter 4: The Name on the Second Folder
I slept in my childhood bedroom that night with the folder on the nightstand and my phone in my hand.
Ryan did not leave.
He went back down the hallway, into my parents' room, and closed the door.
My mother stood in the kitchen for a few minutes after that, then came to my door and knocked softly.
"Can I come in?"
I moved my bag off the foot of the bed.
She sat down and folded her hands in her lap the same way she used to when I was in trouble as a kid and she was trying to decide how to begin.
"I know how this looks," she said.
"How does it look, Mom?"
"Like I betrayed your father."
"Did you?"
She was quiet for a moment.
"Ryan was your father's friend first.
You know that.
They worked together for eleven years.
When your father got sick, Ryan came around more.
He drove him to appointments.
He fixed things around the house.
He was—" She stopped.
"He was kind.
And after your father was gone, he kept coming.
And I was so tired, Jess.
I was so tired of being alone in this house."
I didn't say anything.
"I didn't ask him to move in.
It just — happened.
He started staying later.
Then staying over.
Then one day his things were here and I didn't know how to tell him to go."
"And the money?"
She closed her eyes.
"He said the furnace needed replacing.
I said I didn't have enough in checking.
He said he'd take care of it, I just needed to sign a form.
I signed it.
I didn't read it properly, Jessica.
I know I should have.
But I was tired and I trusted him and I—" Her voice broke.
"I didn't read it."
I picked up the withdrawal forms and looked at the dates again.
"Mom.
The furnace form — which one was it?"
She pointed to the first one.
Four thousand, two hundred dollars.
"What about the others?
The sixty-five hundred?
The eleven thousand?"
She shook her head slowly.
"He said there were other things.
The roof.
A plumbing issue.
A contractor who needed a deposit."
"Did any of those things get fixed?"
She looked up at me.
The furnace was the same one they'd had since 2009.
I'd noticed the model number on the unit in the basement when I'd gone down to put my bag in the storage corner out of habit.
I knew that furnace.
I'd complained about it every winter I was home from college.
It hadn't been replaced.
I went to my bag and pulled out my laptop.
I opened it on the bed between us and typed Ryan's full name into the search bar.
Ryan Calloway.
I'd known him since tenth grade.
I knew his middle name, his birthday, the street he'd grown up on.
Three pages in, I found a county civil court record from four years ago.
Fraud.
Financial exploitation of a vulnerable adult.
Case settled out of court.
The name of the plaintiff was an elderly woman in a neighboring county.
I turned the laptop to face my mother.
She read it once.
Then again.
May you like
Her hand came up to her mouth.
From down the hall, we heard the bedroom door open.
