Chapter 5: What the Accounts Showed
The police officer at the front desk was polite and unhurried in a way that made Maya want to climb over the counter.
He took down the details.
Father's full name.
Date of birth.
Last known location.
Last contact.
He asked Ruth her relationship to the missing person.
He asked Maya hers.
He typed slowly, with two fingers.
"And the wife has been informed?" he asked, not looking up.
"The wife is the reason we're here," Ruth said.
He looked up then.
"She has his phone," Ruth continued.
"She told his fifteen-year-old daughter — who she locked outside in the rain on the night he disappeared — that he left voluntarily and asked not to be contacted.
She has not filed a report.
She has not called his family.
She has not contacted his workplace.
Three days."
The officer's typing slowed.
He looked at Maya.
"She locked you outside?"
"For two hours," Maya said.
"In the rain."
He reached for a different form.
It took another hour.
A different officer came and took Maya's account separately, in a small side room with a plastic table and a box of tissues that Maya did not use.
The officer — a woman, younger, with a quiet way of asking questions that made it easier to answer them — wrote everything down in a notebook rather than a computer.
She asked about Sarah's behaviour in the days before Tuesday.
She asked whether Maya's father had seemed worried or different recently.
She asked about the phone.
"The phone is still in Sarah's handbag," Maya said.
"She took it when she caught me with it."
The officer wrote that down without comment.
When Maya came back out to the waiting area, Ruth was standing at the front desk talking to the first officer in a low, controlled voice.
She had a small notebook open in her hand — her own — and she was reading from it.
"These are three transactions," Ruth was saying.
"All from my brother's personal account.
All in the six weeks before he disappeared.
Eleven thousand, eight thousand, and fourteen thousand.
All transferred to an account I don't recognise.
I have the reference numbers here."
The officer took the notebook and looked at it.
"How did you obtain these?" he asked.
"My brother gave me access to his accounts two years ago when he had a health scare.
He never removed it." Ruth met the officer's eyes.
"I checked this morning, in the car, on my phone.
I haven't touched anything.
I just looked."
Maya stood very still.
Thirty-three thousand dollars.
Gone in six weeks.
"Ruth," she said quietly.
Ruth glanced at her.
"I know."
"He told you to look at the accounts."
"Yes."
"He knew." Maya's voice came out steadier than she felt.
"He found out she was taking money.
That's what he found out.
That's what he was going to deal with."
Ruth didn't answer.
She didn't need to.
The officer behind the desk had picked up his phone.
He was speaking quietly to someone, his back half-turned.
Maya caught the words *financial irregularity* and *welfare check* before he moved too far away to hear.
They waited another forty minutes.
Ruth bought Maya a coffee from the machine — black, too hot, tasting of burnt plastic — and they sat side by side on the plastic chairs without talking much.
Ruth kept her hand over Maya's on the armrest.
At half past ten, the younger officer came back out and crouched down to Maya's level.
"We've sent officers to the house," she said.
"And we've flagged your father's details as a priority welfare concern.
That means more resources, faster movement." She paused.
"Is there somewhere safe you can stay tonight?
Not the family home."
"She can stay with me," Ruth said immediately.
"Good." The officer looked at Maya.
"You did the right thing coming in.
Both of you."
Maya nodded.
She didn't trust her voice right then.
Outside, the morning had turned grey and cold, the kind of flat autumn light that made everything look like it was waiting for something.
Ruth unlocked the car and they both got in.
Neither of them moved to start the engine.
"She took his money," Maya said.
"And then he disappeared."
Ruth's hands were on the steering wheel.
She didn't start the car.
"Ruth.
Do you think she—"
"I don't know," Ruth said.
Firmly.
Like she was closing a door on a thought she wasn't ready to open.
"What I know is that the police are involved now.
What I know is that you are safe.
What I know is that your father is — " She stopped.
Her knuckles went white on the wheel.
Then she loosened her grip, one finger at a time.
"Your father is resourceful.
And stubborn.
Like you."
Maya looked out the window at the police station entrance.
"He left me his emergency contact number," she said quietly.
"In my school planner.
He wrote it there at the start of term.
He put his number, and then underneath it he put a second number and wrote *only if you can't reach me.* I always thought it was just Ruth's number."
She opened her school planner.
There, in her father's handwriting, was a number she didn't recognise.
Not Ruth's.
She showed it to Ruth.
May you like
Ruth looked at it for a long moment.
Then she said: "That's not my number."
