Chapter 7: Coffee at Eleven
He was already there when we arrived.
A man at a corner table, sitting with both hands around a coffee cup like he needed something to hold.
He was older than the photograph.
His hair had gone mostly gray.
He was wearing a jacket that was too formal for the place, like he'd tried too hard and knew it.
He stood up when he saw us.
He looked at me first.
Then at Mom.
Then at Dan, and his expression did something complicated that he didn't quite manage to hide.
"Thank you for coming," he said.
We sat.
The waitress came.
Nobody ordered anything.
She left.
Robert looked at me.
"You look like your grandmother," he said.
"My mother.
Around the eyes."
"I've met her twice," I said.
"I know." He wrapped both hands around his cup again.
"I'm sorry about that.
There's a lot I'm sorry about."
"Okay," I said.
He blinked.
He'd expected something else — tears, maybe, or anger.
I didn't have either one ready.
I just had questions.
"The money," I said.
"Tell me about the account."
He looked at Mom.
She looked back at him without expression.
"I set it up when you were nine," he said.
"I wasn't in a position to be in your life.
I knew that.
But I wanted to do something.
I thought — when you were eighteen, there'd be something there for you.
For college.
For whatever you needed."
"How much?" I asked.
"By now?" He set the cup down.
"A little over sixty thousand dollars."
Mom's hand moved on the table.
Just slightly.
"And you thought it was reaching her," she said.
It wasn't a question.
"I thought it was going to you," he said to her.
"To use for her.
Yes."
"It wasn't," she said.
He nodded.
"I know that now.
I've known for about a year.
I hired someone to look into it after Pullman stopped returning my calls."
"What did they find?" I asked.
He reached into his jacket pocket and put a folder on the table.
Thin.
Four or five pages.
"The disbursement address was changed seven years ago," he said.
"The letter authorizing the change was signed by an attorney representing your mother.
Except—"
"I never had an attorney," Mom said.
"No." He opened the folder and turned it so we could see.
"The signature on the letter belongs to a man named Gerald Foss.
He's a real attorney.
He retired nine years ago.
Someone used his name and his old letterhead." He paused.
"My investigator traced the bank account the money was redirected to.
It's been closed.
But before it closed, the funds were moved to a property management company in Nevada."
"Whose company?" I asked.
He looked at the table.
"It's registered to my mother," he said.
"To Vera."
The corner table was very quiet.
Dan, who hadn't said a word since we sat down, leaned forward slightly.
"Does she know you know?" he asked.
Robert looked at him.
May you like
The first time he'd really looked at Dan directly.
"Not yet," he said.
