Chapter 3 - BOB’S FACE WENT WHITE
Bob Whitmore opened his front door in slippers and an old Tennessee Volunteers sweatshirt.
“Roberta?”
I held up my phone.
“Tell me this isn’t yours.”
He put on his glasses.
Read the screenshot.
Then stopped breathing for a second.
“Come inside.”
That was all he said.
Bob’s wife had died four years earlier, so his house had the quiet feeling of a place where one person had learned to take up less space.
He led me into his study.
Joyce followed us without being invited.
Bob sat at his computer.
“Whitmore Family Holdings was my father’s company,” he said.
“Was?”
“I dissolved it twelve years ago.”
Joyce leaned over his shoulder.
“So how is a dead company wiring twenty-four grand to Lindsay?”
“That’s what I’m trying to find out.”
Bob searched records.
Then his expression changed.
“What?”
He didn’t answer.
“Bob.”
He turned the monitor toward me.
A Tennessee business registration page showed that Whitmore Family Holdings LLC had been reactivated fourteen months earlier.
The registered agent was a woman named Donna Mercer.
Lindsay’s mother.
I stared.
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“No,” Bob said. “It doesn’t.”
“Could Donna have bought the name?”
“Not legally without certain filings. And not with the old tax identification number.”
He tapped the screen.
“This entity is using my family’s original EIN.”
Joyce whispered, “Is that fraud?”
Bob’s jaw tightened.
“It could be.”
My phone rang.
Caleb.
I answered.
“Mom.”
He sounded different.
Smaller.
“Where are you?”
“With Bob.”
“Good. I need to talk to him.”
I put him on speaker.
Caleb took a shaky breath.
“Lindsay says the money came from an investment account her mother manages.”
Bob said, “That company hasn’t legally operated in twelve years.”
Nothing.
Then Caleb asked, “Can somebody steal a company?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
Caleb swore under his breath.
That wasn’t like him.
“What else?”
“What do you mean?”
“You wouldn’t sound like that unless there was more.”
A long silence.
Then my son said, “I checked our accounts.”
I gripped the arm of the chair.
“And?”
“We’re missing money.”
“How much?”
“I’m still adding it.”
“Caleb.”
“At least thirty-six thousand.”
My stomach dropped.
“From savings?”
“Some. But there’s more.”
“What more?”
“A credit card I didn’t open.”
Bob sat forward.
“How much?”
“Seventeen thousand three hundred.”
Joyce covered her mouth.
Caleb continued.
“And there’s a personal loan.”
I closed my eyes.
“How much?”
“Forty thousand.”
Nobody moved.
The house closing didn’t matter anymore.
The cancelled dinner barely mattered anymore.
My son’s marriage was sitting on top of something far darker.
“Where’s Lindsay?”
I asked.
“She left.”
“When?”
“Ten minutes ago.”
“Where did she go?”
“I don’t know.”
Then Bob interrupted.
“Caleb, listen carefully. Do you have copies of the mortgage application you signed?”
“Yes.”
“Do not destroy anything. Do not sign anything else. And call the lender immediately. Tell them you believe financial information may have been submitted without your knowledge.”
Caleb’s breath caught.
“Bob, am I in trouble?”
“I don’t know yet.”
That was the first answer all morning that sounded truly frightening.
Then Caleb said, “Mom?”
“Yes?”
“I found something else in Lindsay’s email.”
My throat tightened.
“What?”
“A message from Donna.”
He paused.
“It says, ‘Once Roberta’s gift clears, move the first seventy to Ridgeway before Caleb notices.’”
The room went dead quiet.
Seventy thousand dollars.
May you like
My money.
And they had already decided where to move it.
