Chapter 3: What the Carter Account Was Really For
Luke left the room.
He pulled the door almost shut — not all the way.
I noticed.
Emma stood near the window with her arms crossed over her chest, still in her cleaning uniform.
The morning light made the dark circles under her eyes look worse than they had the night before.
"Sit down," I said.
"I should go.
My shift ended two hours ago."
"Sit down, Emma."
She sat on the edge of the armchair near the door.
The one everyone else avoided because it was closest to me.
"The Carter family account," I said.
"Tell me what you know about it."
She looked at her hands.
"It's my mother's name.
Carter.
Margaret Carter."
"I know her name.
I'm asking what you know about the account."
Her jaw tightened.
"I know someone has been pulling money out of it for fourteen months.
I know the facility where she lives says her private fund is nearly empty.
And I know that when I called the bank, they told me the account had a co-signer I never authorized."
I said nothing.
I let the silence sit.
"I took this job," she said quietly, "because I needed the money.
But I also took it because someone told me the name Caruso was connected to that account."
"Who told you that?"
She finally looked up.
"A man named Reyes.
He came to the diner where I work.
Said he had information about my mother's money.
Said if I wanted answers, I should get close to the Caruso estate."
The name landed like a stone dropping into still water.
"Reyes," I repeated.
"You know him."
"I know of him." I turned toward the window.
"He works for a man named Victor Hale.
Hale runs a financial services company on the north side.
Legitimate on the surface.
Underneath—" I stopped.
"How much has been taken from your mother's account?"
Emma's voice didn't waver, but her hands gripped each other tightly in her lap.
"Sixty-three thousand dollars."
The number sat between us.
"She has dementia," Emma said.
"She doesn't know.
She asks me sometimes why I look tired.
I tell her I've been busy.
She tells me I work too hard." A short pause.
"She's the only person left who says that to me."
I looked at her.
She wasn't asking for sympathy.
She was just stating the facts, the way she always did — the same way she'd told me the pill bottle said one every six hours.
"Why didn't you go to the police?"
"I did.
They said without proof of fraud it was a civil matter.
The co-signer had legal documentation.
Notarized."
"Forged?"
"I don't know.
My mother can't remember signing anything.
But she also can't remember what she had for breakfast." Emma uncrossed her arms.
"The lawyer I spoke to said it would cost more to fight it than what was left in the account."
I pulled out my phone and sent Luke a single message: *Get me everything on Victor Hale's connection to a Margaret Carter account.
Today.*
"What are you doing?" Emma asked.
"What I do."
"Mr.
Caruso—"
"Danny."
She blinked.
"You've been in this house for six weeks," I said.
"You've brought me medication at two in the morning and told me no when I wanted more.
You can use my name."
Something moved across her face.
Not quite a smile.
Something quieter than that.
"Danny." She said it carefully, like she was testing the weight of it.
"You don't have to do this."
"I know."
"I didn't come here to ask you for help.
I came here because someone pointed me in your direction and I didn't have anywhere else to go."
"I know that too." I set the phone down.
"Reyes pointed you here because he thought you'd be harmless.
A tired maid asking questions no one would answer.
He didn't expect you to last a week."
Her eyes narrowed slightly.
"How long have you known?"
"That Reyes sent you?
Three days after you arrived.
My people ran background checks on every new hire."
The color shifted in her face.
"Then why didn't you fire me?"
I looked at her for a long moment.
"Because you scrubbed my baseboards at three in the morning and didn't ask me a single question about my business.
Whatever Reyes told you to do, you weren't doing it."
She was quiet.
"And," I said, "you gave me one pill instead of two.
Nobody does that."
The door opened.
Luke stepped back in, a tablet in his hand, his face carefully neutral in the way that meant the news was not good.
"The account co-signer," he said, setting the tablet on my desk and turning it to face me.
"The notarized signature belongs to a man named Thomas Carter."
Emma stood up from the chair.
May you like
"That's my father's name," she said.
"My father has been de@d for eleven years."
