Chapter 4: What Mason Knew
I set Frederick down in Amy's arms and turned to face my cousin.
The relatives near the door shifted.
Someone moved toward the kitchen.
Mason didn't move at all.
"The money went to you," I said.
"Connor—"
"Thirty-six thousand dollars.
Twelve transfers.
All from the joint account." I picked up the bank statement and held it out so he could see it.
"Explain that."
Mason looked at the paper, then at me.
Something shifted in his posture — not guilt exactly, more like a man deciding how much to give up.
"Teresa needed a way to move the money that couldn't be traced back to her directly," he said.
"She said it was temporary.
That she'd pay me back once the property transfer went through."
"Pay you back," I repeated.
"So she was going to pay you back with money from the sale of my house."
He didn't answer.
"How much were you keeping?"
A pause.
"Ten percent."
"Thirty-six hundred dollars," Amy said quietly from behind me.
"That's what our son's first year was worth to you."
Mason finally looked at her.
Whatever he saw in her face made him look away again.
"I didn't know she was going to do it like this," he said.
"I thought it was a legal arrangement.
A family trust thing.
She told me you had agreed to it."
"She told you I agreed."
"Yes."
"And you believed her."
"She's my aunt, Connor.
I've known her my whole life."
I put the bank statement back on the table.
"You're a notary, Mason.
You notarized documents with my forged signature.
Whether you believed her or not, you committed a crjme."
His jaw worked.
"I know."
"Then you're going to tell the police everything.
Every conversation.
Every document she asked you to sign.
Every transfer you processed."
"If I do that—"
"If you don't, you go down for all of it alone." I kept my voice level.
"She's already asked for a lawyer.
She's already told me this isn't finished.
Whatever she's planning next, she's not planning to protect you.
You know that."
The room was very still.
An officer near the hallway was writing something in a notepad, not looking up.
Mason sat down heavily on the arm of the couch.
He pressed both hands against his knees.
"There's a storage unit," he said finally.
"In her name, off Murfreesboro Road.
She kept copies of everything there.
The original documents, the account records, correspondence." He paused.
"There are also recordings."
Amy looked at me.
"Recordings of what?" I asked.
"Phone calls.
She recorded conversations with Amy.
Going back about eighteen months." He didn't look up.
"I don't know everything that's on them.
She played me one once, to convince me Amy was hiding money from you.
I don't know if that was real or if she edited it."
I thought about all the times Amy had seemed tense when my mother called.
All the times she'd said "it's fine" and changed the subject.
All the times I had not pushed.
"Amy." I turned to her.
Frederick had fallen asleep against her shoulder, his small face flushed with fever.
"Did she ever threaten you directly?"
Amy looked at me for a long moment.
"She told me," Amy said carefully, "that if I ever told you what she was doing, she would make sure you believed I had been st*aling from you.
She said she had proof.
She said she'd been building it for months."
"The recordings," I said.
"I think so."
I picked up the folder from the table.
The last two pages were still unread.
The fourth page was a printed email chain between Teresa and a man named Gerald Fitch — a real estate attorney in Brentwood.
The subject line read: *Transfer timeline — Bradley property.*
The emails went back fourteen months.
May you like
Teresa had not started planning this at Frederick's birth.
She had started planning it two months after Amy and I got married.
