“This is it. This is why they wanted to run.”
“There has to be more.”
The folder was full of bills, statements, and final notices. I had gone through everything after they died — or at least everything I had access to.
None of this had been there. My son must’ve tried to bury it before they ran.
“They were in trouble,” I said.
At the back of the folder was one handwritten sheet on lined paper.
A bank account number and routing information.
And beneath it, in Laura’s neat writing: Don’t touch anything else.
Aaron, who’d been looking at the documents over my shoulder, pointed at the page. “Does that mean there’s more money?”
“Only one way to find out,” I replied.
“They were in trouble.”
The next morning, I went to the bank by myself.
“I’m here about my son,” I told the woman behind the desk. “He passed away ten years ago, but I recently found this account number in some of his things. I just need to understand what it was.”
I placed a copy of Daniel’s death certificate and gave her the account number.
She nodded and typed it in. Then she frowned at the screen.
“Ma’am, are you sure that’s the correct number? Our records show this account is still active.”
I blinked. “I’m sorry — what does that mean?”
“It means there’s been recent activity.”
“Our records show this account is still active.”
When I arrived home, all seven of them were waiting in the hallway.
Aaron spoke first. “Well?”
I shut the door and sat down in the kitchen. “The… the account is still active.”
“I told you they were alive!” Grace said.
Aaron shook his head. “No. No, there has to be another explanation.”
“There isn’t,” Grace said, and there was so much rage in her voice it startled me.
He turned on her. “You don’t know that.”
“Recent activity, Aaron! Who else could’ve been using that account? And why were only our documents in that box, not theirs?”
“I told you they were alive!”
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