Chapter 8: What Robert Called Proof
I showed Amy the text.
She read it once.
Then she set the phone down on the table and looked at me.
"Are you going to meet him?"
"No," I said.
"But I'm going to find out what he thinks he has."
I forwarded the text to Greg and to the detective who had taken my statement the night before — a calm, methodical man named Detective Okafor who had given me his direct number before leaving my property.
Okafor replied within ten minutes.
*Don't meet him alone.
If he contacts you again, keep him talking and let us know immediately.
We're already working on locating him.*
I texted back: *Understood.*
Then I called Betsy.
She answered on the third ring, her voice careful.
"Connor."
"I need to see you this morning.
Can you come to the house?"
A pause.
"Is this about the police?"
"It's about a will with my name on it that I never wrote.
And about what you might have been asked to sign or witness in the last year."
The pause this time was longer.
"I'll be there in an hour," she said.
She arrived in forty-five minutes.
Amy made coffee and set it on the table without being asked, then took Frederick to the living room, close enough to hear but giving us space.
Betsy sat down.
She looked like she hadn't slept.
"I didn't know about the will," she said, before I could speak.
"I want you to know that."
"What did you know about?"
She wrapped both hands around her mug.
"Teresa asked me, about four months ago, if I would be a witness to some paperwork.
She said it was an update to her own estate documents.
She said it was routine." She stopped.
"I signed something.
I didn't read it carefully.
I trusted her."
"Do you remember what it looked like?"
"It was several pages.
There was a lot of legal language.
My signature was on the last page, with a notary stamp already on it." She looked up.
"Connor, I didn't know it was your name on the front."
I believed her.
Not because she was family, but because her fear was too specific and too detailed to be performance.
"The notary stamp was already there when you signed?" I asked.
"Yes."
"Then the notary either wasn't present or was complicit." I made a note to tell Greg.
"Betsy, I need you to make a formal statement to the police.
Everything you just told me, exactly as you told me."
"Will I be in trouble?"
"I don't know.
But you'll be in more trouble if you don't." I looked at her.
"You told Amy she had to earn her place.
In her own home."
Betsy's eyes dropped to the table.
"I repeated what Teresa told me," she said.
"That Amy was ungrateful.
That she took your money and did nothing.
I believed it because Teresa said it with such—" She stopped.
"I should have looked at Amy and seen the truth myself.
I'm sorry, Connor.
I'm sorry to Amy."
From the living room, Amy's voice came quietly.
"I heard that, Betsy.
Thank you."
Betsy pressed her lips together and nodded.
After she left, I sat with the silence for a moment.
Then my phone rang.
It was Okafor.
"Mr.
Bradley.
We've located your father.
He's at a motel on the east side of Nashville.
We're bringing him in now for questioning." A beat.
"We also executed a search of the motel room.
We found additional documents — including what appears to be a second version of the property transfer, prepared as a backup in case the first was challenged."
"They had a contingency."
"Several, it looks like.
Mr.
Bradley, your mother has been asking to speak with you.
She's been held overnight.
She's not under arrest yet, but she's been asked to remain available.
She says she has something she wants to tell you directly."
I looked at the hallway, toward the living room where Amy was singing something soft to Frederick.
May you like
"Tell her I'll come," I said.
"But I'm bringing my attorney."
