The bank statements arrived two days later.
Mom and I sat at the dining table while Harrison joined us by video call. The documents covered the full period during which I'd been sending the monthly allowance. Each transfer appeared in chronological order, followed by withdrawals, purchases, and payments to various accounts.
At first, Mom struggled to recognize the descriptions. Some were abbreviated, others identified companies she had never heard of. I had printed a separate sheet listing the transactions we could already connect to Julian and Khloe.
The total was worse than either of us had expected.
Of the seventy-two thousand dollars I had transferred over two years, only a fraction had been spent directly on Mom's needs. The remaining funds had been used for household expenses, personal purchases, debt payments, and transfers to accounts controlled by my sister or her husband.
There were legitimate household costs among the transactions. Electricity, water, internet, and several repairs had been paid from the account. But even after accounting for those expenses, a substantial amount remained unexplained.
Mom read the figures without speaking.
Then she asked for a calculator.
I handed it to her.
She added the monthly transfers, deducted the expenses she recognized, and wrote the remaining balance in the margin.
"Thirty-one thousand six hundred dollars," she said.
Harrison nodded.
"That's the amount we can identify as unexplained at this stage. It may change when the additional records arrive."
Mom looked at the number.
"That's a lot of groceries."
I felt a painful smile tug at my mouth. She had always translated money into ordinary things. A large sum meant years of heating bills, comfortable shoes, and enough food to stop worrying about prices at the supermarket.
She turned the page.
There was another transaction near the end of the second year. A payment of $4,900 had gone to a company named Mercer Lifestyle Services.
"What's that?" she asked.
I recognized the surname immediately.
"Julian's company."
Harrison enlarged the transaction description.
"Let's see whether it was registered."
He searched the public business records while we waited. The company had been incorporated three years earlier and listed Julian as its sole director. Its registered address was a rented office suite, the same location that appeared on the documents associated with the fraudulent property sale.
I leaned back in my chair.
"So the money moved through his company."
"Some of it," Harrison replied. "We shouldn't assume every payment to that account was improper, but this transaction requires an explanation."
Mom turned another page.
Her finger stopped at a payment of $1,250 to a pharmacy.
"That's mine."
I checked the date. It was the same week she'd told me she'd been unable to afford a prescription refill.
"Did you receive the medication?"
She shook her head.
"No. I went to the clinic, and they gave me a smaller supply."
I wrote the date beside the transaction.
Harrison asked whether the pharmacy could provide a receipt and confirm who had collected the medication. We agreed to request the information.
The next few hours passed in a blur of phone calls, notes, and document requests. Every time we found something that appeared straightforward, another question emerged.
By late afternoon, Mom pushed the papers away.
"I need a break."
We went into the garden. The weather was warm, and the grass smelled freshly cut. Mom sat on a bench beneath the tree near the fence. I brought her a glass of water and sat beside her.
For a while, neither of us spoke.
Then she said, "I used to worry about having enough money when you were little."
I turned toward her.
"Why?"
"Your father wasn't always reliable. Some months, I had to decide whether to pay the electricity bill or buy new shoes for you girls."
She smiled faintly.
"You never noticed."
I remembered our old apartment, the narrow kitchen, and the way Mom used to stretch meals by adding potatoes or rice. I remembered her sewing loose buttons back onto our school uniforms and telling us that the repairs made them look better.
"I noticed more than you think," I said.
She rested her hands on her knees.
"When you bought this house, I thought those days were over."
"They should have been."
She looked at me.
"Do you think Khloe knew how much I was struggling?"
I wanted to say no. I wanted to believe that my sister had simply become careless, that she'd lost track of the money while dealing with Julian's problems.
But the evidence didn't support that comforting explanation.
"She knew enough," I said.
Mom nodded.
A few minutes later, she asked me to help her walk back inside. Her knees were hurting, and she moved slowly across the patio. I matched her pace without mentioning it.
That evening, Harrison called with an update about the lender's records. The second loan inquiry had been made through a broker who specialized in secured borrowing. The broker had received a package containing the property's valuation, my passport scan, and a purported authorization from me.
The application had been rejected after inconsistencies appeared in the ownership documents.
"Did the broker keep the correspondence?" I asked.
"Yes. They're cooperating with the investigation."
"Who contacted them?"
"Julian, using a business email address."
I closed my eyes.
There was a pattern now. Julian had repeatedly presented himself as someone authorized to act for me, while using my sister's access to obtain the documents that made the deception possible.
Harrison said the broker had also received a second email from Khloe.
It was brief.
She had asked whether the loan could be processed without my physical presence.
I felt the last of my uncertainty disappear.
"She was involved."
"That email establishes her involvement in the inquiry," Harrison said. "We'll let the investigators determine the extent of her role."
After the call, I found Mom in the living room. She was looking through the photographs we'd rescued from the blue tin.
One showed the three of us at a seaside restaurant many years earlier. Mom was wearing a sunhat, and Khloe had her arm around my shoulder. We looked relaxed and happy.
Mom held the photograph for a long time.
"Can I ask you something?"
"Anything."
"If Khloe comes here and apologizes, what should I do?"
I sat beside her.
"You don't have to decide now."
"But she's my daughter."
"And you're her mother. That doesn't mean you have to accept everything she does."
Mom traced the edge of the photograph.
"I don't want to hate her."
"You don't have to."
She placed the picture on the table.
"I just don't want to be afraid of her anymore."
I felt the words settle heavily between us.
That night, I slept in the upstairs bedroom beside hers. The house was beginning to feel familiar again, but every creak of the floorboards reminded me of the months I'd been absent.
At six in the morning, a message arrived from Harrison.
The investigators had obtained additional correspondence from Mercer Lifestyle Services. One email referred to a payment arrangement between Julian and an unidentified third party. The message suggested that money from the proposed house sale would be used to settle an outstanding obligation.
The recipient's name had been partially redacted in the copy Harrison received.
I called him immediately.
"Who is the third party?"
"We're still confirming the identity."
"Is it another lender?"
"Possibly. There's a reference to a private agreement rather than a standard loan."
I looked toward Mom's closed bedroom door.
"Does it involve the house?"
"That's what we're trying to establish."
Later that morning, Elise arrived with a request for additional documents. She wanted copies of the original property deed, the closing statement, and any records showing that I'd paid the mortgage and maintenance costs myself.
I brought out a box of receipts I'd kept from the purchase and subsequent repairs. There were invoices for the new roof, the heating system, and the replacement windows. I had also paid for the garden's drainage work after a storm damaged the back lawn.
Elise reviewed the records and made a list.
"These will help establish your ownership and financial contributions," she said.
While she was working, Mom came downstairs carrying a small cardboard box.
"I found this in the cupboard."
Inside were several old envelopes, a set of keys, and a folded piece of paper with Julian's handwriting.
Mom handed it to me.
It was a list of household expenses, but beside each item was a figure much higher than the corresponding amount in my bank records.
The electricity bill had been listed as $480 when the actual payment was $190. The garden maintenance cost was shown as $1,200, though the contractor's invoice was for $350. A repair to the upstairs bathroom had been recorded at $2,700, while my own records showed that I'd paid the plumber $860 directly.
I looked at Elise.
"These aren't accurate."
She examined the sheet carefully.
"No. And we should preserve the originals."
Mom sat down.
"Julian said everything was getting more expensive."
I turned toward her.
"He used those numbers to justify taking more money."
She looked down at the paper.
"I believed him."
I folded the sheet carefully and placed it in an evidence envelope.
Then Mom reached into the cardboard box and removed a small key attached to a faded blue tag.
"What's this?" I asked.
She looked uncertain.
"Julian gave it to me a long time ago. He said it opened a storage cabinet in the garage."
I examined the key. It was old, with a narrow brass head and a worn label that read OFFICE.
I remembered a built-in cabinet near the garage entrance. It had been locked for as long as I could remember, even before Khloe and Julian moved in.
I went downstairs and tried the key.
It turned.
Inside were several folders, a small cash box, and a stack of unopened envelopes. Most of the paperwork appeared ordinary: old bills, business receipts, and product brochures.
But one envelope bore the name of a private lending company.
The letter inside was dated ten months earlier. It acknowledged receipt of a payment from Julian Mercer and referred to a personal guarantee secured by an unspecified asset.
The amount was $28,000.
I read the letter twice.
Then I turned it over.
On the back, in my sister's handwriting, was a note.
Ask him what happens if Natalie finds out.
I stood motionless in the garage.
The words weren't proof that Khloe knew about every transaction. But they established something I hadn't previously understood.
She had been worried about me discovering a financial arrangement long before the fake sale.
And whatever Julian had promised the lender, it appeared that my sister knew the arrangement carried consequences she didn't want me to see.
Click here to continue reading: PART 8: The Note in Khloe’s Handwriting Led Us to a Private Agreement, but the Person Who Arrived at My Door Brought an Even More Troubling Revelation
The Unexpected Return That Revealed How Completely My Mother Had Lost Her Place in the Home I Bought for Her
Part 7 of 20
