“Daniel?”
He looked as stunned as I felt.
“That’s impossible,” he said.
The bank manager’s voice remained in my ear. “We’re still reviewing the records. The recovery email was created using an address registered to Mr. Mercer. We need all account holders and authorized parties to come to the branch.”
“Was the money transferred to that account?” I asked.
“No. The login was used to redirect the funds to an external account. We are trying to identify the receiving institution.”
“Can you tell us anything else?”
“There is one additional detail. The access occurred from a device that had previously been used to log into your grandmother’s account.”
I looked at the old laptop.
The screen had gone dark.
“Could someone have used this computer?” I asked.
The manager hesitated. “Possibly. But we can’t confirm that over the phone.”
“I’m coming in.”
When I ended the call, Mom was staring at Daniel.
He had gone pale.
“I never opened an account in your grandmother’s name,” he said.
“You were listed as the recovery contact,” Mom replied.
“I gave her my email address because she didn’t have one she trusted.”
“Then why did the bank find it?”
“I don’t know.”
Her face tightened—not with anger, but with the exhausted disbelief of someone who had reached the edge of what she could continue accepting without answers.
“You knew about the account,” she said.
“I knew about the storage unit. I knew your grandmother wanted the funds protected. I helped her set up an email account because she needed one to receive bank notices. That’s all.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because she asked me not to discuss the details until she was ready.”
“She was my mother.”
“And she was afraid,” Daniel said quietly. “Not of you. Of what would happen if too many people knew where the money was.”
Mom looked away.
I held the envelope from the trunk against my chest.
“Did you ever access the account?”
Daniel met my eyes.
“Once.”
The answer came without hesitation.
“When?”
“After your grandmother called me last year. She said she had received a notice that the protected account had been accessed. She couldn’t remember the password, so I helped her log in.”
“From this laptop?”
“No. From my home computer.”
“Did you move the money?”
“No.”
“Did you change the recovery information?”
