Chapter 5: The Things Renata Knew
She came the next morning.
I heard her car in the driveway at eight-fifteen — that particular sound of gravel shifting under tires that I had known since she was sixteen and learning to park.
I was already dressed.
I had been up since five.
I opened the door before she knocked.
Renata looked like she hadn't slept.
Her hair was pulled back in the way she did it when she wasn't thinking about it, and she was holding a paper coffee cup from the gas station on Elm — not the good coffee place, the one she went to when she needed to do something with her hands.
"Can I come in?" she asked.
I stepped back from the door.
She sat at the kitchen table, the same chair she had always used since childhood, the one closest to the window.
She set her coffee down and looked at her hands.
"I didn't know about the account," she said.
"The investment account.
I didn't know that existed until three weeks ago."
"What happened three weeks ago?"
"Wesley told me." She looked up.
"He said Dad had left some money in an account and that he'd been managing it.
He said you knew."
"I didn't know."
"I know that now." Her voice was steady, but her hands weren't.
"He said you'd agreed to let him handle the finances because it was too much after Dad died.
He said you'd signed paperwork giving him authority."
"I signed refinancing documents.
That's what he told me they were."
Renata closed her eyes briefly.
"Mom."
"What did he ask you to do?"
She was quiet for a moment.
"He asked me to be there last night.
He said he wanted the family together for a dinner.
He said it would be good for you to get out of the house." She paused.
"He said he was going to tell you about the account over dinner.
That he'd been waiting for the right time."
"He wasn't going to tell me anything.
He was celebrating."
"I know." The word came out small.
"I figured that out about halfway through the appetizers.
The way he and Cora were talking — the listing, the spring timeline.
I didn't understand all of it, but I understood enough." She picked up her coffee and put it back down without drinking.
"I should have called you.
I should have left and called you right then."
"Why didn't you?"
She looked at me directly.
"Because I was afraid of what it meant.
If Wesley was doing what I thought he was doing, then I had to decide what I was going to do about it.
And I wasn't ready to decide."
The refrigerator hummed.
A car passed on the street outside.
"Are you ready now?" I asked.
"Yes."
I got up and brought the folder Daniel had left on the counter.
I set it in front of her and let her read.
She read slowly.
She turned each page with care, the way she used to read her school reports before handing them in, checking for something she might have missed.
When she reached the bank statements she stopped, went back to the top of the page, and read it again.
"Cora set this up before Dad died," she said.
"Four months before."
Renata set the papers down.
She pressed her fingers flat against the table.
"Wesley doesn't know I'm here," she said.
"I assumed."
"He called me this morning.
He said we needed to get our story straight before you talked to anyone else." She looked at me.
"I didn't answer."
Something in my chest loosened, just slightly.
"He's going to say I knew," she said.
"When this goes further — and it will go further — he's going to say I was part of it.
That's what he does.
He spreads the weight."
"Daniel knows you're not on any of the documents."
"Documents aren't everything."
"No," I said.
"But they're a start."
She was quiet for a long moment.
Outside, a bird landed on the oak tree and then was gone.
"What do you need from me?" she asked.
"I need you to write down everything Wesley told you.
When he told you, what he said, exactly.
Every conversation.
Dates if you can remember them."
"I can remember them."
"And I need you to be honest with Daniel when he calls.
Not the version that protects Wesley.
The actual version."
Renata nodded.
She pulled her phone from her pocket and opened a blank note.
She started typing before I finished my sentence.
My own phone buzzed on the counter.
I glanced at it.
May you like
Not Wesley this time.
Cora.
