“I know her,” she said.
“How?”
“She worked at the bank branch where your grandmother opened the account.”
“Did she know about the savings?”
“She helped us when I was pregnant with you.”
I looked from Mom to the screen.
“That was over twenty years ago.”
“Yes.”
“Why would she still have access?”
Mr. Ellis scanned the report.
“She may not. We need the bank to confirm her employment and access history.”
I looked at the unfinished recording.
Grandma had known the person’s identity. She had been about to say the name.
But the file ended before the revelation.
Then Daniel spoke.
“There’s one more thing.”
He walked to the wooden trunk and knelt beside it.
“I didn’t open this because your grandmother told me to leave it sealed until you came.”
He lifted the lid.
Inside was a cream-colored envelope, larger than the one Mom had brought to the house.
My full name was written across the front.
Beneath it, in Grandma’s handwriting, were six words:
**The person who knows where it went.**
I reached for the envelope.
Before I could open it, my phone rang.
The bank’s number appeared on the screen.
When I answered, a woman introduced herself as the manager of the branch where Grandma had opened my accounts.
Her voice was tense.
“Ma’am, we located an additional access record,” she said. “You need to come in as soon as possible.”
“What did you find?”
There was a pause.
Then she said, “The login used to redirect your education funds was not created by your mother.”
I looked at Mom.
“Whose was it?”
The manager took a breath.
“It was created under the name of a bank employee.”
I gripped the envelope in my hand.
“Elaine Porter?”
“No,” the manager said. “The account was created under the name of someone else.”
“Who?”
The woman’s next words made Mom stagger against the filing cabinet.
“It was created under your grandmother’s name,” she said, “but the recovery email belonged to Daniel Mercer.”
“It was created under your grandmother’s name,” she said, “but the recovery email belonged to Daniel Mercer.”
For a moment, no one moved.
The storage unit seemed to contract around us. The metal walls, the stacked boxes, the open trunk—everything felt suddenly too close, as if the air itself had become difficult to breathe.
Mom turned toward Daniel.
