Lindsay, twice.
Then a text from Preston:
Dad what did you do? Why can’t I access anything? Call me back right now.
Right now.
Caps and everything.
I stared at that message for long enough to feel something inside me turn from shock into clarity.
This was the same young man who had hugged me at Christmas and said, with both hands on my shoulders and all the sincerity of an actor nailing the last scene, “You know you’re the best dad anybody could ask for, right?”
I had believed him.
I had told Kurt about it the next day.
My son said I’m the best dad anybody could ask for.
What I hear now, when I remember it, is not love. It is market research.
I typed one sentence back.
You should have thought about that before you touched my wife.
Then I put the phone away and went upstairs because Cassandra mattered more than any text, any account, any legal strategy, any need I had to hear my own suspicions confirmed.
She was going to wake up.
Dr. Nash had said so.
And when she did, I wanted my face to be the first familiar thing she saw, not fluorescent ceiling tile and fear.
Still, by that evening one question had rooted itself in me so hard it felt structural.
Why?
Eleven thousand dollars and months of exposure did not happen because two people got bored. That kind of patience belongs to motive. There had to be a destination.
So I called Kurt again.
He answered immediately.
“How’s Cassandra?”
“Stable. Treatment’s working.”
“Thank God.”
“Kurt, I need you to do something for me. I need you to find out whether Cassandra changed anything recently. A will. An insurance beneficiary. Any estate document. Anything with my name or Preston’s name on it.”
Silence.
Then: “You think this is money.”
“I think my son needed eleven thousand badly enough to steal it in spoonfuls. And I think whatever he thought he was heading toward was bigger than that.”
Kurt exhaled through his nose.