Grant was questioned first.

Investigators recovered Victor’s actual medication among his belongings, along with other materials relevant to the investigation.

He immediately hired an attorney.

Mom disappeared.

Her car was located at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport.

The cruise departed from Miami, but there was no indication that she had boarded a flight.

For nearly twenty hours, nobody knew where she was.

Then Natalie received an alert.

Someone had attempted to access Victor’s trust portal from a motel outside Toledo.

That was how authorities located Mom.

She had cash with her.

Two passports.

Victor’s trust summary.

And a flash drive containing scanned copies of his signature.

When Detective Bell told me, I expected to feel victorious.

I didn’t.

I just felt tired.

Victor spent four days in the hospital before moving temporarily into a rehabilitation facility.

He refused to return home until everything had been checked and the locks changed.

I visited him after work each evening.

For the first week, we barely mentioned my mother.

We talked about football.

The weather.

Bad hospital coffee.

And Victor’s ongoing belief that his physical therapist secretly enjoyed making him suffer with resistance bands.

Then one night he said:

“You can ask.”

“Ask what?”

“Why I never told Linda about the shares.”

I sat beside him.

“All right. Why?”

Victor stared toward the television.

“Because I knew money changed the way she behaved.”

That answer irritated me.

“You knew?”

“I knew she spent too much. I knew she liked expensive things. And I knew she resented not having control over my business interests.”

“That’s not the same as knowing she would do this.”