Allison invited me back once the first bank records arrived.
She had arranged to meet with a forensic accountant named Martin Cho.
He was a patient man who carried a battered leather briefcase and asked permission before moving any paper on the table.
He drew three columns on a legal pad.
Known.
Likely.
Unconfirmed.
“People often mix these together,” he said.
“I'd like us not to.”
He reviewed the name Keystone Strategic Advisers and compared it with public business registrations.
The company existed.
It had an office address and a registration date.
Its owner was a man named Grant Mercer.
Ryan and Grant had attended a local business association meeting together.
That connection, by itself, proved very little.
Martin had found invoices attached to the transfer records.
One described consulting work on a small warehouse acquisition.
Another used an unfamiliar reference number and listed a payment schedule.
I had never agreed to invest in a warehouse.
Daniel had never mentioned one either.
“Could somebody have made a simple mistake?” I asked.
“Possibly,” Martin answered.
“That's why we request the original documents.”
He showed me why the fifteen-thousand-dollar item and the eighteen-thousand-five-hundred-dollar check needed separate treatment.
The first involved money that had left an account.
The second involved a check that had never been paid.
The attempted check could be important evidence of a pattern.
But it was not an additional loss of eighteen thousand five hundred dollars.
I wrote that carefully in my notebook.
Before this appointment, I would have added the two figures together and told myself we had lost the total.
Martin asked what Ryan did for work.
“He manages projects for a commercial remodeling company,” I said.
“Does he own the company?”
“No. He has spoken about buying into it.”
“Do you know whether he has business debts?”
“I know he and Megan borrowed twelve thousand dollars from us for their kitchen.”
I explained that they had repaid six thousand dollars over three years.
Then the payments stopped.
Martin made a note.
“We'll treat that as a separate family loan,” he said.
“It may or may not connect to these transactions.”
I appreciated his refusal to make everything fit a single story.
Allison asked me about Daniel's final months.
Had he ever mentioned Ryan's money problems?
Yes.
One rainy evening he had told me Ryan was taking on too much.
I thought he meant work.
Daniel had pressed his fingers against his forehead.
“He keeps asking me to cosign things,” he said.
“What things?”
“Business things. He says they're temporary.”
I had offered to speak with Ryan.
Daniel shook his head.
“I told him no.”
That conversation had disappeared beneath appointments and medication schedules.
Now it felt painfully important.
Martin explained what records could establish whether any loan documents carried Daniel's signature.
He warned that he might find nothing beyond the two disputed items.
“Then that's what the evidence will say,” he said.
Outside, snow fell in loose flakes.
I drove past the office where Ryan worked.
His car was parked out front.
I did not stop.
I wanted to march inside with the photocopy.
I wanted him to look at the crooked signature and tell me the truth.
Instead, I went home and made tea.
I put the photocopy beside an old Christmas card Daniel and I had signed together.
My signature appeared below his in blue ink.
There was the little dot.
I photographed the card for Allison.
Then I put it away.
No amount of staring would make the paper speak.
We needed records.
And I needed patience I did not yet feel.
Click here to continue reading: PART 7: Megan Asked Me To Save Their House Before She Would Explain The Money
The Christmas Dinner I Prepared For Three Ended With A Courier At My Door
Part 6 of 16
