Chapter 3 - The House Full of Missing Hours
The next morning, I called Helen.
She cried when she heard Mom's voice.
“Jess? Oh my God.”
Mom started crying too.
I left them alone.
Twenty minutes later, Helen asked to speak with me.
“She wouldn't let me visit.”
“She didn't know you were trying.”
Helen became quiet.
“Wendy told me Jess was developing dementia.”
My hand tightened around the phone.
“When?”
“About six weeks ago.”
“Anything else?”
“She said you agreed it was better not to upset her with visitors.”
I closed my eyes.
“I never said that.”
“I suspected something was wrong.”
“Why?”
“Your mother called me once from a grocery store.”
I straightened.
“When?”
“About a month ago. She sounded frightened. Then the call ended.”
Mom remembered.
Wendy had taken her shopping.
Mom had borrowed a stranger's phone while Wendy was in another aisle.
“What did she say?”
Helen hesitated.
“She said, ‘Something is wrong at Luca's house.’”
That sentence stayed with me.
Something is wrong at Luca's house.
Not Wendy's house.
Mine.
My mother had been trapped inside a place I paid for and believed was safe.
I started reconstructing timelines.
My travel calendar.
Camera logs.
Credit-card activity.
Wendy's appointments.
Mom's medical appointments.
Patterns appeared.
Every significant event happened while I was away.
Kitchen camera disabled: during New York trip.
Online banking activated: Boston.
First suspicious withdrawal: Chicago.
Doctor appointment canceled: Seattle.
I called Mom's primary physician.
With permission, the office confirmed she had missed two appointments.
“Who canceled them?”
The receptionist checked.
“Someone identifying herself as her daughter-in-law.”
Wendy.
I documented everything.
Then I found the second witness.
Our neighbor, Robert, had a doorbell camera facing part of our driveway.
“Can I ask you something strange?”
He looked concerned.
“Sure.”
“Did you ever see Mom outside while I was traveling?”
His expression changed.
“Not recently.”
“Why?”
“Your wife told us she was sick.”
There it was again.
Wendy had constructed a story around Mom before anyone knew there was a story to question.
Robert remembered an incident ten days earlier.
“I heard your mother calling from the backyard.”
My blood went cold.
“Calling?”
“She said she'd locked herself outside.”
“What happened?”
“Wendy opened the door eventually.”
“How long?”
“Maybe twenty minutes.”
He showed me footage.
There was Mom.
Standing beside the back door.
Knocking.
Then sitting on the patio chair.
Waiting.
Wendy was clearly home because her car never left.
Twenty-two minutes later, the door opened.
I copied the clip.
That afternoon, Wendy entered my office without knocking.
“What are you doing?”
“Working.”
“You haven't worked at all.”
I smiled.
“Then what am I doing?”
“Investigating me.”
I turned my chair.
“Why would I investigate you?”
Her face went pale.
Only slightly.
“You've been talking to neighbors.”
“Robert asked about Chicago.”
“Don't lie to me.”
Interesting.
The woman who had forged my mother's signature was suddenly offended by dishonesty.
“Wendy, if there's something you want to tell me, tell me.”
She crossed her arms.
“I want your mother out.”
“Why?”
“Because she's destroying our marriage.”
“No. I'm asking why now.”
“She’s manipulative.”
“How?”
“She makes you feel guilty.”
“About what?”
“Everything!”
Her voice finally rose.
Then she stopped herself.
I watched.
She breathed slowly.
“I'm sorry.”
“Okay.”
“I miss us.”
She came around the desk.
“Before she moved here, we were happy.”
Were we?
A week earlier I would have said yes without hesitation.
Now memories had changed shape.
The unexplained shopping.
Her increasing interest in my mother's house sale.
Questions about whether Mom had updated her estate plan.
Comments disguised as jokes.
“Your mother could buy us a vacation house and never notice the money.”
I had laughed.
Why had I laughed?
That night, I checked our own finances more carefully.
And found something I wasn't expecting.
Our home-equity line had been accessed.
$41,000.
I stared at the statement.
I hadn't authorized it.
The funds had been drawn in three transactions over four months.
I called the bank.
The representative confirmed the requests had come through our joint online profile.
Wendy legally had access.
That wasn't fraud in the same way Mom's account activity was.
But I had never known.
“What happened to the money?”
I traced it.
Credit cards.
Personal loans.
A payment to the same law firm.
Then a wire to an account at another bank.
I opened Wendy's laptop after she went to sleep.
I didn't attempt to bypass security. She had left it unlocked on the kitchen counter.
Her browser was open.
I saw a tab.
“Debt restructuring options.”
Another.
“Spousal liability for personal debt.”
Another.
“Power of attorney elderly parent.”
I photographed the screen.
Then I saw an email notification appear.
The sender was someone named Nathan Cole.
Subject:
FINAL DOCUMENTS.
I didn't open it.
I didn't need to.
Not yet.
Instead, I searched the law firm's public website.
Nathan Cole.
Attorney.
Estate planning and asset transfers.
My phone rang.
Unknown number.
“Mr. Moretti?”
“Yes?”
“This is Denise from the bank's fraud department.”
Her voice was serious.
“We found another attempted change.”
“What?”
“A request was submitted yesterday to add an authorized financial agent to your mother's account.”
“Who?”
She paused.
“Wendy Moretti.”
I stared through the dark kitchen toward the bedroom where my wife was sleeping.
Then Denise continued.
“But there's something else. The supporting document names a second person as successor agent.”
“Who?”
She gave me the name.
Nathan Cole.
The attorney Wendy had been paying with money taken from our home.
And suddenly this wasn't only about what my wife had done.
May you like
I needed to know whether someone had helped her do it.
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