Thomas searched the company’s registration.
Its managing member was Caroline.
Not Caroline Vale.
Caroline Mercer.
Her maiden name.
The business address was a private mailbox in an office building across town.
For a moment, I couldn’t speak.
That money represented more than donations.
It represented winters when elderly volunteers stood outside supermarkets collecting canned food.
It represented schoolchildren who organized bake sales.
It represented people who had very little, giving what they could to strangers who had even less.
And Caroline had moved it into a company she controlled.
Thomas placed another document in front of me.
The transfer authorization carried my electronic signature.
According to the timestamp, I had approved it at 10:42 on the morning of January fourteenth.
I stared at the date.
Then I felt something inside me turn cold.
“Thomas,” I said, “I was in the hospital that day.”
He looked up.
“Are you certain?”
“Nathan drove me there himself. I had pneumonia. He stayed beside my bed until the nurses practically ordered him home.”
I remembered the sound of his chair scraping the hospital floor.
The way he had kept refilling my water glass.
How he’d held my hand when I became frightened because I couldn’t breathe.
It was one of the few times since Arthur died that I’d felt like my son still needed me to be his mother instead of a problem someone else had to manage.
And according to Caroline’s paperwork, I had been authorizing a massive financial transfer during that same afternoon.
Thomas folded his hands.
“We need independent verification before accusing anyone. But if these records are authentic, Margaret, this may be fraud.”
“Can we stop the sale?”
“We need to establish who actually owns the property. And we need to get the remaining board members involved.”
