Chapter 14: The Man Who Took My Mother's Money
Daniel Price answered on the fourth ring.
When I told him we had found the payment ledger, he remained silent long enough that I checked whether the call had disconnected.
“Daniel?””
“I'm here.””
“Why was my father paying you?””
A slow breath came through the speaker.
“I wondered when you'd find that.””
The answer made my stomach turn.
“You knew?””
“I knew money had been sent to an account in my name. I didn't know how much until years later.””
“That's not an answer.””
“No,” he said quietly.
“It isn't.””
Samantha had joined the call, and Detective Hale was listening through an approved recording arrangement. Daniel had agreed to speak after Hale explained that the conversation could become part of the investigation.
“Tell us everything,” Samantha said.
Daniel's voice sounded older than it had during our previous conversation.
“Your mother asked me to drive her to a lawyer's office. She believed Charles had been taking money from the company and using her shares to secure debts she hadn't approved. She wanted to leave him, but she was afraid he would find out before she could get the records somewhere safe.””
“You said my father followed you,” I reminded him.
“He did. He followed us from the lawyer's office and tried to force Margaret out of my car. I managed to get away from him and took her to a motel.””
“And then she died.””
“Yes.””
“Did you see the accident?””
“No. I saw Charles's vehicle leaving the area shortly before I heard the report. I told the police what I knew, but the officer who took my statement said there was no evidence Charles had been involved.””
“Did you tell them he had followed her?””
“I did.””
“Then why did the official report say nothing about it?””
“I don't know.””
The answer sounded painfully familiar.
Everyone had a reason for not knowing.
Everyone had a piece of the truth.
And somehow, my mother had still died without anyone being held accountable.
“What about the money?”” I asked.
Daniel sighed.
“After Margaret died, Charles contacted me. He said the family would be investigated if I kept making accusations. He claimed I had helped her conceal company documents, and that he could have me charged with theft.””
“Had you stolen anything?””
“No. Margaret gave me a sealed packet and asked me to keep it safe. I didn't open it for years. I was afraid.””
“So he paid you to remain silent?””
“He offered to cover expenses and compensate me for the trouble. At first, I refused. Then my wife became ill, and we had medical bills. I accepted money from a company he controlled.””
My fingers curled against my palm.
“You took money from the man you believed had something to do with my mother's death.””
“I told myself it wasn't payment for silence. I told myself I wasn't changing my statement. I never withdrew what I'd told the police.””
“But you never came forward again.””
“No.””
His voice cracked.
“I was a coward, Emily. I was afraid of Charles, and every year I waited made it harder to tell you. I thought the money would stop if I refused it.
It didn't. Eventually, I understood that accepting it had made me part of the thing I was trying to escape.””
Samantha asked him whether he still had the original packet.
“Yes.””
“Can you surrender it to Detective Hale?””
“I can.””
“Please do not alter, destroy, or remove anything from it,” she said.
“The investigators will arrange a proper transfer and document its condition.””
Daniel agreed.
Before the call ended, I asked him one final question.
“Did my mother believe my father would kill her?””
He didn't answer immediately.
“She believed he was capable of ruining her life,” he said.
“She feared losing you. She feared that if she disappeared, he would tell you she had abandoned you. But she also believed the records would protect you.””
I looked at Lucas's letter lying on the table.
“She was wrong.””
“Yes,” Daniel whispered.
“And I'm sorry.””
After the call, Samantha contacted Hale with the new information. Daniel's financial relationship with Charles would have to be investigated, and his account of the events would need corroboration. But his admission offered another lead: the original packet he had kept for decades.
Two days later, Detective Hale confirmed that Daniel had surrendered the documents.
The packet contained bank statements, handwritten notes, copies of company resolutions, and a letter from my mother to an attorney. Several pages bore signatures that differed noticeably from the samples preserved in the company's archives.
One document was particularly important.
It was a resolution transferring my mother's controlling shares into an account managed by Charles.
The resolution claimed Margaret had signed it in person.
But the attorney's letter, written the following week, stated that she had never approved the transfer and intended to challenge it.
There was also a note in my mother's handwriting.
Charles says Emily's future is safe because he controls the shares. He does not understand that I have arranged for her to receive them independently. If anything happens to me, the original register will show the truth.
The original register was included.
My name appeared beside the controlling interest.
The transfer to Charles had been recorded later, but the supporting authorization was missing.
The financial trail was no longer just suspicious. It gave investigators a concrete basis to examine whether company assets had been misappropriated and whether the transfer documents were fraudulent.
The next development came from the forensic accountant.
He had traced the recent attempted $850,000 transfer to Courtney's account and found that the receiving account had been opened using documents connected to the holding company.
The same account had paid for a vehicle registered to Courtney's consulting business.
A black SUV.
The registration matched the vehicle identified in the traffic camera records near Lucas's fatal collision.
Hale warned us that registration alone did not establish who had been driving, and it did not prove that the vehicle had caused the crash. The investigators were working to establish its movements and identify the person behind the wheel.
Then they obtained a more significant record.
A toll camera had captured the SUV on the highway leading toward the intersection where Lucas died. The timestamp placed it behind his car less than twenty minutes before the collision.
The driver was not clearly visible.
But the image showed a distinctive crack across the lower passenger-side windshield.
Richard Cole had previously told investigators that Courtney's SUV had a cracked windshield around that time.
When Hale interviewed her, Courtney denied following Lucas and said she had been home that evening.
The toll record contradicted her account.
She then changed her statement, saying she might have lent the SUV to someone.
She could not identify that person.
Investigators sought additional records and interviews rather than treating the inconsistency as proof of guilt.
Meanwhile, Charles's legal position began to unravel.
The court rejected his emergency request to control my finances after reviewing the preliminary evidence of unauthorized transfers and the protected trust documents. The ruling did not resolve every estate issue, but it prevented him from taking control of my accounts while the investigation continued.
For the first time, my father could not simply sign a paper and declare himself entitled to everything.
Then Samantha received an urgent call from the company's records custodian.
A director had submitted a request to destroy archived financial files, claiming they were obsolete duplicates.
The request had been made under Charles's authorization.
The custodian had refused to comply because of the preservation notices already in place.
But the request included a note.
These files must not be available when the auditors arrive.
The note was dated the morning after Daniel surrendered my mother's packet.
May you like
Charles knew the evidence was surfacing.
And now he was trying to destroy whatever remained.
