Chapter 11 - The Second Payment
Three days after Elena’s sixty-sixth birthday, another anonymous donation arrived at the Richard Mercer Center.
This one was not three hundred dollars.
It was seven thousand two hundred.
Clara discovered it while reviewing the center’s weekly accounts. The transfer had come from a prepaid business account registered under the name RM Restoration Services. The company had been created only nine days earlier and had no listed address beyond a postal box.
The note attached to the payment contained five words.
This did not belong to me.
Clara called Elena immediately.
Elena arrived at the center before noon. Victor was already in the conference room with the transaction records spread across the table.
“Is it Garrick?” Elena asked.
“We don’t know,” Victor replied. “But the initials RM could mean Richard Mercer.”
“Richard has been dead for years.”
“They could also mean someone wants us to think of him.”
Elena studied the transfer. Garrick had been making small, documented restitution payments through the court. Seven thousand two hundred dollars did not fit the schedule.
Before they could decide whether to contact him, Teresa appeared in the doorway.
“There’s a woman asking to see you,” she said. “She won’t give her name to reception.”
“Then she can make an appointment,” Clara replied.
“She showed me this.”
Teresa placed a property notice on the table.
The document stated that a lakeside home belonging to Nora Bell, a seventy-eight-year-old widow, had been transferred to Alder Crest Residential Partners.
Victor went still when he read the company name.
“What is it?” Elena asked.
He turned the page toward her.
Alder Crest had been registered by the same corporate filing service that created Bluebonnet Residential Holdings.
Nora entered the room carrying a canvas shopping bag and a folder held tightly against her chest. Her silver hair was wet from the rain.
“My son says I signed the house over to him,” she said. “I did not.”
Clara invited her to sit.
Nora explained that her son, Matthew, had recently begun handling her bills after she fell and injured her wrist. Soon afterward, medical appointments appeared on her calendar that she had never scheduled. Neighbors were told she planned to move. A consultant visited her home and asked questions about her memory.
Elena recognized every step.
“Did your son ever mention Bluebonnet?” Victor asked.
“No. But I heard him speaking to someone about a second birthday.”
Clara looked at Elena.
The birthday trap had never been reported publicly in detail.
Nora opened her folder and removed a photograph taken outside a postal store. Her neighbor had followed Matthew there after becoming suspicious.
The image showed a man collecting a large envelope.
May you like
Elena stared at the familiar gray coat, lowered head, and unmistakable posture.
It was Garrick.
