Chapter 8: What Diane Didn't Expect
Finding Diane took four days.
Daniel helped.
He was methodical and patient, and he had a way of working through documents without getting distracted by the emotion attached to them, which I could not always manage on my own.
Her full name was Diane Marsh.
She was a bookkeeper — or had been, until eighteen months ago when her license had been quietly suspended following a complaint from a former employer.
The suspension wasn't public knowledge.
It wasn't the kind of thing that came up in ordinary conversation.
But it came up when you knew where to look.
"She's done this before," Daniel said, spreading the printouts across my kitchen table.
"Not the same setup.
But the same basic idea.
Moving money through accounts that look legitimate until someone checks the dates."
"Christina found her specifically," I said.
It wasn't a question.
"Looks that way.
They have a connection going back about three years.
Some kind of community group."
Paul was sitting at the end of the table.
He hadn't said much since Roberta's visit, but he had stayed.
He had shown up every morning and sat down and worked through it alongside us.
"What do we do with this?" he asked.
"We take it to someone who can do something with it," I said.
I had already spoken to a lawyer — a woman named Grace, recommended by my aunt Ruth, who had apparently used her years ago during a property dispute and described her as someone who didn't waste words.
Grace had reviewed the documents and confirmed that what Christina had done met the threshold for civil fraud.
Possibly criminal, depending on how the transfers were structured and whether Diane's involvement could be established.
Grace had also said something that stayed with me.
*Your mother built you a very solid case.
She just needed you to be the one to finish it.*
I called Christina that evening.
She picked up on the second ring, which told me she had been waiting.
"I've spoken to a lawyer," I said.
A pause.
"I see."
"I want to give you the opportunity to respond before anything is filed.
That's the only reason I'm calling."
"What do you want me to say?"
"I want you to tell me the truth.
All of it.
Including Diane."
A longer pause.
"How do you know about Diane?"
"It doesn't matter how.
I know.
And my lawyer knows.
And if you make me go through the formal process, everything comes out in a way you can't control."
I heard her breathing on the other end of the line.
"I didn't mean for it to go this far," she said.
"I want you to know that."
"I believe you," I said.
"I don't think you sat down one day and decided to steal from a dying woman's care fund.
I think you made a decision you thought you could reverse, and then you couldn't, and then it got bigger than you expected.
I understand how that happens."
"Then—"
"But understanding how it happened doesn't change what happened.
My mother went without things she needed.
I took on debt I'm still carrying.
The people who gave to that fund gave in good faith and their money didn't go where they thought it was going."
"I know," she said quietly.
"So here's what I need from you.
Full disclosure of every transaction.
Diane's full involvement documented in writing.
And full repayment — not to me, but to every person on my mother's list."
Silence.
"And if I do that?"
"Then I'll discuss with my lawyer what that means for the rest of it.
I'm not making promises tonight.
But I'm giving you the chance to do this the right way before it's done for you."
Another long pause.
"I need a few days," she said.
"You have one."
I ended the call.
Daniel looked up from across the table.
"Do you think she'll do it?" he asked.
"I think she's more afraid of Diane being exposed than she is of me," I said.
"Which means she'll try to control this herself.
Whether that means cooperating or trying to find another way out — I don't know yet."
Paul's phone buzzed.
He looked at it.
His face shifted.
"It's Diane," he said.
"She's texting me directly."
He turned the phone so I could see the screen.
May you like
*Tell your wife to be very careful about what she thinks she knows.
Some things are better left alone.*
