Chapter 7 - THE CHECKS MY MOTHER COLLECTED
“My mother collected the checks?”
Evelyn nodded.
“She sat beside the registration table with a little wooden box.”
Sophia stared at the receipt.
“Mom said the payments went directly to escrow.”
“That's what she told me, too.”
Evelyn folded her hands.
“She said she was helping because the older guests were having trouble with the paperwork.”
I remembered Mom.
She'd spent twenty-seven years working in the school district's administrative office.
Forms were her specialty.
She could organize a fundraiser for three hundred people with a notebook, two pens, and a thermos of coffee.
People trusted her.
Especially Grandma June's friends.
“Did Mom write the receipts?” Sophia asked.
Evelyn nodded.
“She filled out the names and amounts. The developer's representative stamped them.”
Sophia stared at the paper.
“Did you write the check to Birch Hollow?”
“Yes. Birch Hollow Client Trust.”
I looked away from the document.
There were things I desperately wanted to ask.
Where the money went.
Who endorsed the checks.
Whether the account number matched anything I had seen at work.
But I had promised Agent Foster I wouldn't conduct my own investigation.
So I said only, “Evelyn, please give these records directly to the investigators. Don't hand over your originals to us.”
She nodded.
“I intend to.”
Then she looked at Sophia.
“I don't want to destroy your life, honey.”
Sophia began crying.
Evelyn continued.
“But I want my life back.”
That sentence stayed with me.
Because nobody had raised their voice.
Nobody had called my sister a monster.
An elderly woman simply wanted the money she'd saved over forty years.
When Sophia and I returned to my parents' house, Dad was waiting in the kitchen.
Mom stood beside the sink.
Neither seemed surprised.
Sophia placed a copy of her own Birch Hollow brochure on the table.
“Evelyn lost forty-two thousand dollars.”
Mom started crying immediately.
“I know.”
I stared at her.
“You knew?”
She nodded.
“Last month.”
Sophia gripped the chair.
“And you didn't tell me?”
“I was trying to get the refunds arranged.”
“How?”
Mom looked at Dad.
He stared back.
“Tell her,” he said.
Mom pressed her hands together.
“When people started demanding their deposits back, Nolan said the escrow release was delayed because the project was being refinanced.”
Sophia shook her head.
“He told me nobody had requested refunds.”
“He told us something different.”
I sat down slowly.
The full shape of my mother's mortgage began to make sense.
“You borrowed against the house because you thought it would help refund the depositors.”
Mom nodded.
“He said the bridge loan would provide temporary liquidity until the escrow account cleared.”
“And you believed him?”
“He showed me a repayment schedule.”
“Mom.”
“I know how it sounds.”
“No,” I said quietly. “I don't think you do.”
Dad rubbed his forehead.
“I didn't know she'd signed the mortgage. But I knew she was trying to arrange money for refunds.”
I looked at him.
“Why didn't you tell me?”
He gave a tired laugh.
“Because we knew what you'd say.”
“What?”
“That it was risky.”
I stared at him.
“It was risky.”
“I know that now.”
“No, Dad. You knew it then.”
He didn't answer.
Sophia was standing very still.
“Nolan gave me the launch numbers,” she whispered.
We turned toward her.
“He showed me a spreadsheet proving the reservations were funded. He said the money was held in a protected account.”
I looked at my sister.
“Did you ever see an independent escrow statement?”
She shook her head.
“I saw a report.”
“Prepared by whom?”
“Nolan's office.”
That was when Dad finally seemed to understand the size of the mistake.
“We believed the same man,” he said.
Sophia nodded.
“He told each of us something different.”
Mom covered her face.
I wanted to feel sorry for them.
Part of me did.
But another part kept seeing Evelyn in that lavender cardigan.
Her little rental kitchen.
Her framed photograph of Grandma June.
Her forty-two thousand dollars.
And the fact that my mother hadn't told anybody after learning the truth.
“Why didn't you report him?” I asked.
Mom wiped her eyes.
“Because Sophia's company was involved.”
There it was.
Again.
Protect Sophia first.
Everybody else could wait.
Sophia looked at her.
“Mom, people lost their homes.”
“I know.”
“You should have told someone.”
“I didn't want you blamed.”
My sister began shaking.
“Maybe I deserve some blame.”
Mom immediately reached for her.
“No, sweetheart.”
Sophia stepped away.
“Stop doing that.”
Mom froze.
“Doing what?”
“Making every mistake I make somebody else's responsibility.”
I had never heard my sister speak to our mother that way.
Sophia wiped her cheeks.
“I knew the photographs were misleading. I told myself the buildings would catch up with the advertising.”
Her voice broke.
“I knew people believed those cottages were finished.”
Dad stared at her.
“Why didn't you tell us?”
Sophia laughed bitterly.
“Because you kept telling everybody how successful I was.”
Nobody spoke.
Then Sophia reached into her handbag.
She removed a small notebook with a black elastic band.
“My agency's billing records.”
I looked at it.
“What about them?”
“I reviewed the payments this morning.”
Her face had gone pale.
“Nolan paid us forty-two thousand dollars for the launch campaign. But the invoice was supposed to be covered by the developer's operating budget.”
Dad frowned.
“What's wrong with that?”
Sophia swallowed.
“The payment reference wasn't from the developer.”
She opened the notebook to a page she'd marked.
“It was listed as a disbursement from Birch Hollow Client Trust.”
Mom stopped breathing for a moment.
May you like
Sophia looked at me.
“Lena, I think the first money Nolan took from those residents went straight into my company's bank account.”
