Chapter 6 - THE UNKNOWN NUMBER
I called the number immediately.
No answer.
I called again.
Disconnected.
Detective Bennett asked me to forward the message.
Then she studied the photograph.
“Do you recognize the angle?”
“Yes.”
It had been taken from the hallway.
Someone inside my house had photographed my mother.
Amy stared at it.
“I’ve seen that purse.”
“What purse?”
She pointed toward the corner of the image.
A black leather purse was sitting on the floor near my office door.
“That’s not your mother’s.”
“Whose?”
“Aunt Betsy’s.”
The woman who had laughed about Amy earning her place.
Bennett zoomed in.
“Could Betsy have taken the photo?”
“Maybe.”
“But why warn us?”
Amy shook her head.
“Betsy never defended me.”
The detective asked us to think carefully about who else had been in the house.
Relatives.
Neighbors.
Party vendors.
My mother’s friends.
Then Amy remembered something.
“There was a woman.”
“When?”
“Two weeks ago.”
“What woman?”
“I don’t know her name.”
She explained that Teresa had brought a woman into our kitchen while I was at work.
Teresa introduced her only as a friend who helped families “organize difficult transitions.”
“What kind of transitions?”
“I asked.”
Amy said.
“She told me it was none of my business.”
The woman had spent almost an hour looking through the house.
Bedrooms.
Bathrooms.
Frederick’s nursery.
Even the backyard.
I felt cold.
“That sounds like an appraisal.”
Bennett said.
“Or an inspection.”
Amy nodded.
“She took pictures.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I did.”
I stared at her.
“When?”
“That night.”
Memory hit me.
Amy had said my mother brought someone over to look at the house.
I was answering work emails.
I told her Teresa was probably planning Frederick’s birthday.
I had not even looked up from my laptop.
I covered my face.
“I’m sorry.”
Amy said nothing.
She did not need to.
Bennett’s phone rang.
She stepped into the hall.
When she returned, her expression had changed.
“Mason is cooperating.”
I stood.
“What did he say?”
“He claims your mother promised him fifty thousand dollars after the house was refinanced.”
“For carrying folders?”
“For helping prepare documents.”
“Forging them?”
“He denies personally forging signatures.”
“Of course he does.”
“But he gave us something useful.”
“What?”
“A storage unit.”
My mother rented it under another name.
Bennett reached for her coat.
“We obtained a search warrant.”
I looked at Amy.
She looked at me.
“What do you think is inside?”
She whispered.
I did not know.
Three hours later, Detective Bennett sent me one photograph from the search.
Metal shelves filled the unit.
Banker boxes were stacked from floor to ceiling.
Each box had a family member’s name written across the front.
Mine was near the center.
CONNOR / AMY / FREDERICK.
But the box beside ours was the one that terrified me.
May you like
It read.
EMERGENCY CUSTODY.
