Sent eight months earlier by Brandon.
Attached was a PDF from our financial adviser.
Beneficiary designations.
I opened it.
My life insurance policy listed Brandon as primary beneficiary.
His listed me.
Normal.
Except beneath Brandon’s policy was a recent amendment.
Primary beneficiary: Natalie Price.
My skin went cold.
I called Claire.
“Tell David to check life insurance.”
“What?”
“Just do it.”
That night, Claire and I sat in the hotel lobby while Mom slept upstairs.
A janitor pushed a vacuum slowly across the carpet at the far end of the room.
Claire looked exhausted.
“Hannah, there’s something else.”
Of course there was.
“There’s always something else.”
“David got records from the bank because of the emergency filing. The transfers didn’t start yesterday.”
My hands folded tightly in my lap.
“What do you mean?”
“Smaller amounts have been moving out for almost a year.”
“How much?”
“Another forty-eight thousand.”
I closed my eyes.
“Where?”
“Some went through Lucas. Some paid credit cards you didn’t know existed.”
“Natalie?”
“Possibly.”
I thought about dinners Brandon had skipped because of “client work.”
Weekend fishing trips.
A conference in Chicago that had conveniently required no hotel receipt because “the company booked everything.”
Every lie rearranged itself.
Then Claire said, “The ten thousand five hundred dollars was withdrawn from your joint checking nine days ago.”
I opened my eyes.
“What?”
“We found it.”
“Where?”
“Cash withdrawal. Brandon made it.”
I stared at her.
“He took the money?”
“Yes.”
“So he knew.”
“Yes.”
“He knew Mom didn’t steal anything.”
“Yes.”
The hotel lobby seemed to tilt.
I saw his hand again.
Raised.
My mother falling into the table.
The vase breaking.
