He set the bags down slowly. Then he looked at me and said, “I know about the checks.” I didn’t move. He explained that he’d found three blank checks in my desk weeks earlier and had seen someone taking them. He’d been trying to figure out who it was without frightening me. The two checks the bank mentioned had been written for almost the same amount, both payable to a local contractor. I asked why the contractor’s name was on them. He pulled out his phone and showed me a photograph he’d taken the week before. The contractor had been doing work at my house while I was recovering, but I’d never hired him.
My granddaughter’s boyfriend admitted he’d followed the contractor once and discovered he was also working on my daughter’s house. That’s when everything started making sense. The checks weren’t being used for groceries or emergencies. They were paying for renovations somewhere else. I called my daughter and asked whether she’d hired anyone recently. She said no. Then I asked about the missing checks. She went silent. A few minutes later she called back and said, “Grandma, don’t ask him about it yet. I think I know who took them.”
The next Thursday, my granddaughter came with him. She was crying before she even sat down. She told me her mother had been taking the checks and using them to pay debts she’d never told anyone about. But there was one check left — the one she’d been afraid to cash because it was made out for $12,000. I asked where it was. My granddaughter’s boyfriend reached into his jacket and placed it on the table. On the back was my daughter’s signature, but beneath it was another name I recognized immediately. He looked at me and said, “Your daughter didn’t take the checks for herself. She was paying someone who threatened to tell you what happened the night your husband died.”
