Chapter 3: Two Hundred and Eighty Thousand Reasons
A nurse offered to sit with Liam while I waited outside Nora's room.
I handed him over without thinking.
My eyes were already on the phone.
I scrolled back through eighteen months of transactions.
The first transfer I hadn't authorized was $4,200 to a spa in Scottsdale.
Fourteen months ago.
I had been in Seoul that week, closing a contract that paid for our apartment deposit.
I remembered the trip because I had called Nora every evening and she had sounded tired but happy.
I hadn't checked the accounts when I returned.
I trusted them.
I kept scrolling.
$6,800 to a resort in Sedona.
$3,100 to a jewelry retailer in downtown Minneapolis.
$9,400 described only as "family expenses." Then larger ones.
$22,000 in a single transfer to an account I didn't recognize, with Brandon's name in the reference field.
My hands were steady.
That surprised me.
By the time I reached the bottom of the eighteen-month history, the number was $283,400.
Not twelve thousand.
Not a vacation fund.
Two hundred and eighty-three thousand dollars, moved in pieces small enough that no single transfer would alarm me, spread across fourteen months, while I worked in Zurich and Seoul and Frankfurt and trusted the people I had left at home.
A door opened down the hallway.
A different doctor, not Nora's, walked past without looking at me.
I called my bank's fraud line.
It was 2:07 a.m.
"I need to flag unauthorized transfers on my primary account," I said.
"I also need the full beneficiary details on every outgoing transfer from the last twenty-four months."
"Sir, I can start that process, but some documentation will need to—"
"I understand.
Start it now.
I'll send whatever you need in the morning."
I hung up and sat down in a plastic chair against the wall.
Liam was asleep in the nurse's arms twenty feet away.
Through the window in Nora's door, I could see the shape of her under the hospital blanket, an IV line running into her arm.
She had known.
Not the full amount — I was certain of that.
But she had known something was wrong, and she had stayed quiet to keep the peace.
Because every time she hadn't stayed quiet, Martha had made her pay for it.
I thought about the note on the refrigerator.
*Don't call Spencer to play the victim.*
My mother had written that note knowing Nora had just had surgery.
Knowing the refrigerator was empty.
Knowing a newborn needed formula.
She had written it, stuck it to the door, and then boarded a flight to Miami.
I opened my contacts and found the name of a lawyer I had met at a conference in Chicago two years earlier.
Daniel Reeves.
Family and civil litigation.
I had saved his number because he had seemed sharp and because you never know.
I stared at the name for a moment.
Then I typed a message: *Daniel.
Spencer Calloway.
We met in Chicago — 2022.
I need to speak with you as soon as possible.
It involves financial fraud by family members and potential legal action.
I can call at any hour.*
I sent it and set the phone face-down on my knee.
At 2:31 a.m., it buzzed.
*I remember you, Spencer.
Call me at 8 a.m.
I'll be ready.*
I looked up at the ceiling.
The fluorescent light above me flickered once, then held.
They were still asleep in South Beach.
Martha, Chloe, Brandon, Toby.
Ocean suite.
Champagne.
My money.
May you like
In six hours, Daniel Reeves would pick up the phone.
They had no idea that the accounts they depended on were already frozen.
