Chapter 3 - THE MONEY SHE STOLE
I put the phone on speaker.
Detective Ortiz raised one finger, silently telling me not to interrupt.
“Why?” I asked my mother. “What’s on the card?”
“You are upset. You are not thinking clearly.”
“Answer me.”
“I went to your apartment to protect you.”
“By beating my pregnant wife?”
“I never beat her.”
“Then why are you afraid of the video?”
Silence.
The detective moved closer.
My mother finally spoke.
“Megan was trying to separate us. She was filling your head with lies about money.”
“What money?”
“You know I have struggled since your father died.”
“That doesn’t answer me.”
“I borrowed a little.”
“How much?”
My mother exhaled impatiently.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know how much you took from us?”
“I was going to return it.”
“How did you access our savings account?”
Another silence.
Then she said something that made my blood run cold.
“You gave me everything I needed years ago.”
I remembered helping her set up online banking after my father died. At the time, I had used the same passwords for several accounts.
She knew my security questions.
She knew my Social Security number.
She knew the name of my first pet.
She knew everything.
“Twenty-six thousand dollars,” I whispered. “Did you take all of it?”
“It was family money.”
“It was for our baby.”
“I am your family.”
“So is Megan.”
My mother’s voice sharpened.
“That woman was going to report me.”
Detective Ortiz’s eyes narrowed.
“Did you hurt her to stop her?”
“I did not hurt anyone.”
“You just admitted she knew about the theft.”
“I admitted nothing.”
“You called me and told me to destroy evidence.”
The line went dead.
Detective Ortiz immediately requested that the call be preserved.
A nurse approached and said I could see Megan.
She had been moved into a private room in the maternity unit. Monitors surrounded her bed. An IV ran into her arm, and a fetal heart-rate belt was fastened around her stomach.
Her face looked small against the white pillow.
I sat beside her but did not touch her until she reached for my hand.
“The baby?” I asked.
“The medicine slowed the contractions.”
Relief nearly broke me.
“The doctor says we’re not safe yet,” she added. “But the heartbeat is steadier.”
I bowed my head over her fingers.
“Megan, Mom called me.”
Her body stiffened.
“She admitted taking the money.”
Megan stared at me.
“How much did she tell you?”
“Almost nothing. I need to hear it from you.”
Megan was silent for a long time.
Then the story came out.
Three weeks earlier, she had logged into our savings account to pay a deposit for a crib.
The balance was eight hundred and twelve dollars.
At first she assumed it was a banking error.
Then she found eleven transfers made over six months.
Each one went to an account registered under my mother’s name.
Megan printed the statements.
She planned to show me that evening.
My mother arrived before I came home.
“She had copied our key months ago,” Megan said. “I didn’t know until that day.”
“How did she know about the statements?”
“She saw the bank website open on my laptop.”
Megan swallowed.
“She told me you had given her permission to take the money.”
“I didn’t.”
“I know that now.”
“What happened?”
“She said the baby was already ruining your life. She said you would be trapped working forever while I sat at home spending your money.”
My grip tightened around her hand.
“She told me to delete the statements. When I refused, she took my phone.”
Megan looked toward the door as though my mother might appear.
“She shoved me against the dresser. I fell.”
“Your ankle?”
“That happened later.”
My heart pounded.
“There was more?”
Megan nodded.
The first time my mother hurt her, she apologized afterward.
She brought flowers.
She cried.
She blamed grief and financial pressure.
Megan believed it would never happen again.
Two days later, my mother returned and demanded that Megan sign a written statement saying she had authorized the transfers.
When Megan refused, my mother grabbed her legs and dragged her from the bed.
Megan’s ankle twisted beneath her.
She begged to go to a doctor.
My mother threatened to tell everyone Megan had attacked her.
“She said you would believe her,” Megan whispered. “She said she had spent your whole life teaching you to believe her.”
I closed my eyes.
She was not wrong.
My mother had always presented herself as the only person who truly understood me.
Whenever a girlfriend disagreed with her, she called the woman disrespectful.
Whenever I tried to set a boundary, she cried about everything she had sacrificed.
When Megan and I married, my mother refused to smile in the wedding photographs.
I had called it protectiveness.
Now I saw it for what it was.
Ownership.
“Why didn’t you call the police?” I asked gently.
“I tried.”
“What happened?”
“She took my phone. She unplugged the apartment phone. She told me she would call child services and say I was abusing prescription medication during pregnancy.”
“That wouldn’t be true.”
“She put pills in my bedside drawer.”
My entire body went cold.
“What kind of pills?”
“I don’t know. She showed me the bottle. It had my name on it.”
Detective Ortiz, who had entered quietly, stepped closer.
“Where is that bottle now?”
Megan pointed toward her purse on the chair.
“My friend Tasha came by yesterday. I secretly gave it to her and asked her to keep it safe.”
The detective asked for Tasha’s information.
Megan gave it to her.
Then she looked at me again.
“Your mother also showed me messages.”
“What messages?”
“Messages from your phone.”
She described screenshots in which I supposedly told my mother I regretted marrying Megan and wanted her gone after the baby was born.
“I never wrote that.”
“I know. But at the time…”
“You thought I was part of it.”
Megan’s eyes filled with tears.
“She said you wanted me frightened enough to leave quietly.”
I could barely breathe.
The screenshots had been fabricated, but my behavior had made them believable.
Each time Megan tried to express fear, I defended my mother.
Each time she withdrew, I became suspicious.
My mother had not merely hurt my wife.
She had prepared the ground carefully, poisoning both sides until Megan no longer knew whom she could trust.
Detective Ortiz received a call and stepped into the hallway.
When she returned, her expression had changed.
“Officers went to your mother’s apartment.”
“Did they arrest her?”
“She wasn’t there.”
My stomach tightened.
“Where is she?”
“We don’t know.”
The detective looked at Megan.
“But her apartment appears to have been cleared out in a hurry. Clothes are missing. Her passport is gone.”
My mother was running.
Then Megan’s monitor began beeping.
The baby’s heartbeat dropped sharply.
A nurse rushed in and pressed a button on the wall.
Within seconds, the room filled with medical staff.
I was pushed toward the doorway.
Megan reached for me.
“Jake!”
“I’m here!”
The doors closed between us.
Detective Ortiz stood beside me in the hallway.
My phone vibrated.
A message from an unknown number appeared.
It contained a photograph of my mother standing beside a bus terminal.
May you like
Under it were seven words:
DROP THE CHARGES, OR MEGAN LOSES EVERYTHING.
