Then I remembered Lauren’s warning about paperwork that could transfer decisions regarding my medical care and living arrangements if my condition became serious enough. Suddenly, the financial theft appeared to be only one part of a much larger plan.
Lauren needed me to appear incapable of managing my own affairs. If she could establish a documented pattern of confusion and convince a court that I was declining mentally, she could potentially gain control over much more than the money she had already diverted, especially because Jared’s trust for me was worth close to two million dollars.
That was when I realized how badly I had miscalculated on Father’s Day. By pretending to be confused and asking whether my wife Diane would be home for dinner, I had given Lauren exactly the kind of incident she needed, and my own son had witnessed it.
I thought I was buying myself time, but Lauren’s satisfied glance suddenly made perfect sense.
She now had Jared as a witness to his supposedly declining father asking about a woman who had been dead for ten years. I refused to repeat the same mistake, which was why I didn’t immediately call Jared and accuse his wife. Without documented evidence, Lauren could easily dismiss my accusations as paranoia coming from the same confused elderly man she had already taught everyone to expect.
Instead, I chose to handle the situation the way I had handled financial fraud throughout my career. I would quietly build the case, document every allegation, and wait until the evidence could speak more convincingly than either Lauren or I ever could.
Over the next two weeks, the auditor I had once been came fully back. For the first time since Diane died, I had a difficult problem in front of me, and although the circumstances were devastating, there was something strangely familiar about tracing numbers that refused to balance. I retained Patricia Okafor, an attorney who specialized in elder financial abuse, and placed the bank records, disputed power of attorney, transfer history, and information about Meridian Care Solutions on her desk. After reviewing the documents and hearing my explanation of the unusual gap in my genuine signature, she looked up at me with clear curiosity.
“Mr. Blake, in fifteen years, I’ve rarely had a client come in with the case already organized. Who are you?”
“I’m a retired corporate auditor.”
I paused before telling her the part that mattered most.
“And apparently, I’m the confused old man in question.”
BUILDING A CASE AGAINST MY OWN FAMILY
Patricia immediately recognized the weakness at the heart of Lauren’s plan. Everything depended on convincing people that I was mentally incapable of managing my own affairs, which meant that if we could formally establish my competence, much of the evidence Lauren had created would begin working against her instead.
