Melissa sent the photograph before I could ask anything else.
For several seconds, the image refused to make sense. The picture had been taken at Carol’s dining-room table. I recognized the flowered wallpaper, the brass light fixture hanging above the table, and even the narrow china cabinet where she kept dishes nobody was allowed to use.
Travis looked younger. His hair was longer around his ears, and he wore the gray work shirt he had favored before moving offshore full-time. Carol sat beside him, one hand resting on a folder. Across from them was an older man in a tan sport coat.
The papers between them carried my father’s name.
I enlarged the image.
The man’s face stirred something in my memory.
Not recognition exactly.
A feeling.
I had seen him somewhere.
“June?” Rebecca asked.
I handed her the phone.
Daniel leaned over her shoulder.
Neither spoke for nearly a minute.
Then Daniel said, “Can Melissa send the original file instead of a screenshot?”
“She said Derek found the photograph in a storage box.”
“Ask her to preserve the box exactly as he found it. Nobody writes on anything. Nobody rearranges anything. Nobody gives anything back to Travis.”
I relayed the instructions.
Melissa responded almost immediately.
Derek had already stopped touching the contents.
Rebecca studied the photograph again. “You’re certain you don’t know this man?”
“I’m not certain of anything anymore.”
That answer came out harsher than I intended.
I took the phone back and zoomed closer to his face.
Gray mustache.
Heavy cheeks.
Wire-rim glasses.
A pale scar beside his right eyebrow.
And suddenly I remembered.
“The funeral.”
Rebecca looked up.
“He was at Daddy’s funeral.”
“You spoke with him?”
“I think so.”
The memory came slowly, incomplete around the edges. Daddy had died after eleven exhausting days in hospice. I barely remembered the service. People had hugged me until their faces blurred together. Someone kept bringing coffee I never drank.
But this man had approached after the burial.
He had introduced himself as a friend of Daddy’s.
Or maybe a business associate.
“He said he knew my father,” I said.
“Name?”
“I don’t remember.”
Daniel turned toward his laptop. “Anything else?”
“He gave Carol a ride.”
The room went still.
“Are you sure?” Rebecca asked.
I closed my eyes.
Yes.
After the funeral, Travis had stayed behind because his truck battery had died. Carol had left with an older man who said he was headed her direction.
I had never thought about it again.
Until now.
Melissa called.
“Derek found a name.”
My heart accelerated.
“Where?”
“On an envelope in the same box. Warren Pike.”
Daniel typed.
A few seconds later, he frowned.
“What?” I asked.
He turned the computer toward us.
An obituary filled the screen.
WARREN ALBERT PIKE.
Former loan officer.
Former branch manager.
Dead six years.
I stared at the photograph.
A dead mother had been added to Daddy’s account.
Now a dead banker appeared at a table with Travis and Carol two days before Daddy died.
Rebecca read silently.
“He worked at the same bank.”
“The one holding Daddy’s trust money?”
“Yes.”
I felt as though the floor had tilted beneath the table.
Daniel scrolled lower.
Pike had retired the year after my father died.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“It means nothing by itself.”
“But?”
“But if he handled Raymond’s account, we need his employment records, internal authorization history, and every transaction connected to the trust.”
Rebecca added, “And we need to know whether any records were altered after he retired.”
I barely heard her.
The photograph remained open on my phone.
Travis.
Carol.
Warren Pike.
My father’s papers.
Two days before his death.
Daddy had been heavily medicated by then.
He had trouble staying awake more than ten minutes.
Travis had told me he was running errands.
I remembered that too.
He had brought soup from Carol’s house that evening and told me she was praying for Daddy.
My stomach twisted.
“Did Travis have access to Daddy’s house while he was sick?” Daniel asked.
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“Almost unlimited.”
The answer tasted bitter.
Travis had been helpful.
That was how I had described him.
He changed lightbulbs.
Picked up prescriptions.
Brought groceries.
Moved boxes.
Sat with Daddy when I showered.
Drove me home when I was too tired.
Everyone praised him for it.
Rebecca must have seen where my thoughts were going.
“June, don’t assume every kind thing he did had an ulterior motive.”
“I’m not.”
But I was beginning to wonder how many had.
The bank archives arrived that evening.
Daniel stayed late to examine them.
I went home only because Rebecca insisted I should not sit in the conference room watching someone read hundreds of pages.
Travis’s truck was in the driveway.
I almost kept driving.
Instead, I parked near the barn, locked the car, and walked toward the house.
He stood on the porch.
“Where have you been?”
“Out.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the same answer you gave me yesterday.”
He folded his arms.
“You need to stop this.”
“Stop what?”
“Calling people. Digging through old records. Turning my business partners against me.”
“Melissa called me.”
His expression sharpened.
“What did she say?”
“Ask her.”
“June.”
I walked past him.
He caught my wrist.
Not hard.
But he had never done that before.
I looked down at his hand.
He released me immediately.
“Don’t touch me again.”
“Fine.”
He stepped back.
“Just listen.”
I unlocked the door.
“You’ve had nine years to talk.”
“I was trying to protect our future.”
“By forging my signature?”
His face lost color.
That was answer enough.
“You don’t know it was forged.”
“I know my own handwriting.”
“You signed things you don’t remember.”
“No.”
“People sign paperwork all the time without reading every page.”
“I didn’t sign that.”
He followed me inside.
“What does Rebecca have you thinking? That I’m some criminal mastermind?”
“I don’t know what you are yet.”
His jaw tightened.
“Everything I did was because Gulf Horizon was going to change our lives.”
“Our lives?”
“Yes.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you would have panicked.”
I almost laughed.
“You mean I would have said no.”
“You don’t understand risk.”
“I understand someone putting my property on a loan application without permission.”
“It wasn’t final.”
“You had my signature on a transfer agreement.”
He looked away.
I stepped closer.
“Who is Warren Pike?”
Travis went completely still.
It lasted less than a second.
But I saw it.
“Never heard of him.”
“Interesting.”
“Why?”
“You’re sitting beside him in a photograph at your mother’s house.”
His eyes changed.
There was no confusion now.
Only calculation.
“Where did you get that?”
“Goodnight, Travis.”
“June, where did you get the photograph?”
I walked toward the guest room.
He followed.
“Did Melissa give it to you?”
I closed the door.
He struck it once with his palm.
Not violently.
A flat, frustrated slap.
“Tell Rebecca she’s making a mistake.”
I leaned against the other side.
“What mistake?”
“She thinks this is bigger than it is.”
“You don’t know what she thinks.”
Silence.
Then footsteps receded.
That sentence bothered me.
He thinks this is bigger than it is.
Not false.
Not impossible.
Just bigger.
At 11:18 p.m., Rebecca called.
“I need you to write down everything you remember about Warren Pike.”
“Why?”
“Because we found him.”
“You said he was dead.”
“We found him in the bank records.”
I sat upright.
“What did he do?”
“He approved several transactions.”
“How many?”
“Enough.”
“Rebecca.”
Her voice grew careful.
“Four months after Raymond died, approximately eighty thousand dollars left the trust account.”
My mouth went dry.
“Where did it go?”
“To another account controlled through an entity called Cypress Capital Services.”
“Whose?”
“We’re still tracing it.”
“And the rest?”
“Withdrawn in stages.”
“By my mother?”
“The records list Elaine Parker as an authorized signer on some documents.”
“My dead mother.”
“Yes.”
“And Warren Pike approved them?”
“Several.”
I pressed my fingers against my temple.
“How much is gone?”
“All of it.”
The room became perfectly quiet.
One hundred eighty-six thousand dollars.
Money Daddy had left specifically to protect the land.
Gone.
Rebecca continued.
“There’s something else.”
Of course there was.
“What?”
“The first transaction occurred before your father died.”
My breath stopped.
“How long before?”
“Three days.”
The photograph had been taken two days before Daddy died.
“No.”
“June.”
“He was alive.”
“Yes.”
“Then maybe he authorized it.”
“That’s possible.”
I held onto that possibility for approximately five seconds.
Then Rebecca said, “Except the authorization form is signed Raymond Parker.”
I knew what was coming.
“And?”
“And your father’s hospice notes indicate he could not reliably hold a pen that day.”
I covered my mouth.
Daddy’s last three days had been difficult.
His hands trembled.
He could barely lift water.
I had fed him ice chips with a spoon.
Rebecca said, “We’ll get handwriting experts involved.”
I looked toward the locked guest-room door.
Travis was somewhere down the hall.
Perhaps sleeping.
Perhaps listening.
“Rebecca?”
“Yes?”
“I don’t think I should stay here.”
“I agree.”
“Can I leave without telling him?”
“You’re an adult. Yes.”
I packed one bag.
Clothes.
Toiletries.
Daddy’s estate papers.
My notebook.
Everything Rebecca had told me to secure.
At 12:07 a.m., I carried the bag through the laundry-room door.
My car headlights remained off until I reached the road.
I drove to my cousin Beth’s house twenty minutes away.
She opened the door wearing pajamas and glasses.
One look at my face ended every question.
“Come inside.”
I slept three hours.
At seven, Rebecca called again.
Daniel had traced Cypress Capital.
It had dissolved years ago.
But its organizer remained in public records.
Carol Hale.
I sat on the edge of Beth’s guest bed.
“Carol received Daddy’s money?”
“Not exactly. She controlled the company that received the first large transfer.”
“And Travis?”
“He was listed later as an officer.”
“When?”
“Six weeks after your father died.”
I stared at the wall.
Every clue had been pointing backward.
Further than our marriage problems.
Further than Gulf Horizon.
Further than the forged property documents.
Back to Daddy’s final days.
My phone buzzed with a message from Travis.
Come home. We need to fix this before you destroy everything.
I showed it to Beth.
She frowned. “Destroy what?”
I looked at the photograph again.
Travis.
Carol.
Warren Pike.
Trust papers.
“Whatever they built using my father’s money.”
Click here to continue reading: PART 6: Daddy’s Hospice Nurse Remembered a Visitor I Never Knew About, and Her Description Changed What I Believed About His Final Signature
The Bank Account Was Empty, but the Courthouse Across the Street Held Something My Husband Had Forgotten
Part 5 of 35
