The most recent transfer was dated the day before.

Thanksgiving.

$28,000.

“Did you make these?”

“No.”

“Mom?”

“No.”

I set the phone down.

“Then who has access?”

He didn’t answer immediately.

That was when I knew.

“Dad.”

He stared at the papers.

“Rebecca.”

I actually thought I’d misheard him.

“Rebecca has access to your home equity line?”

“Not exactly.”

“What does ‘not exactly’ mean?”

He pulled out one of our kitchen chairs.

For once, my father didn’t look angry.

He looked old.

“Six months ago, your mother was having trouble keeping track of everything. Utilities, insurance, property taxes. Rebecca offered to help.”

“So you gave her your password?”

“I gave her access to the accounts she needed.”

I picked up the printed transaction history.

The transfers went back roughly four months.

“And you didn’t notice this?”

His jaw tightened.

“I don’t check it every day.”

“Seventy-six thousand dollars isn’t one transaction.”

“I know that.”

“Apparently not.”

He looked at me sharply.

Normally, that look would have ended the conversation.

This time I kept reading.

The final transfer bothered me most.

$28,000.

Yesterday.

While Rebecca had been sitting ten feet away from us eating Thanksgiving dinner.

While Dad had been demanding that my eight-year-old apologize to her son.

I slid the paper toward him.

“You need to call the bank.”

“I thought you could look into it first.”

I work in IT.

That means my family occasionally believes I can do anything involving a screen, including things that are illegal.

“No.”

He frowned.

“Daniel, I just need you to figure out where it went.”

“The bank can do that.”

“I don’t want to make this bigger than it needs to be.”

There it was.

The sentence underneath the sentence.

Protect Rebecca.

Again.

I pushed his phone back across the counter.

“Seventy-six thousand dollars is already big.”

He lowered his voice.

“She’s your sister.”

I looked at him.

“And it’s your money.”

I Refused to Fix It

Dad stood and began pacing between the kitchen island and our back door.

“She has two kids. Tyler lost his job a while back. Maybe she got desperate.”

“Did she tell you she took the money?”

“No.”

“Did you give her permission?”

“No.”

“Then stop explaining it for her.”

He stopped walking.

“Watch your tone.”

I almost laughed.

Instead, I folded the transaction pages and placed them back on the counter.

“Dad, listen carefully. Save those records. Change every password. Remove her access. Call the bank’s fraud department. Then call the police and an attorney.”

His eyes widened.

“Police?”

“Yes.”

“That’s your sister you’re talking about.”

“I know exactly who I’m talking about.”

He stared at me for a long moment.

Then he said something I had heard in different forms my entire life.

“I need you to help me handle her.”

There it was.

Not help me protect Mom.

Not help me secure the account.

Help me handle Rebecca.

Meaning talk to her.

Calm her down.

Figure out what happened.

Keep Dad from having to do anything that might make his favorite child angry.

I shook my head.

“No.”

His expression hardened.

“What do you mean, no?”

“I mean I’m not cleaning this up.”

“Daniel, this is serious.”

“I know.”

“Then why are you acting like this?”

I looked toward the stairs.

Noah was still asleep.

Then I looked back at my father.

“Because yesterday you told me to get out of your house forever rather than ask Rebecca’s kid to apologize for something you watched him do.”

Dad opened his mouth.

I kept going.

“Now Rebecca may have taken seventy-six thousand dollars from you, and your first instinct is to come here and ask me to fix it quietly.”

He looked away.

That was enough.

I picked up his phone and held it out to him.

“Call the bank.”

He took it.

“And if Rebecca calls you?”

“Save everything she says.”

“What if she comes over?”

“Don’t let her touch your computer, phone, checkbook, statements, or paperwork.”

He stared at me.

For the first time in my life, my father wasn’t asking me to solve Rebecca’s problem.

He was standing in my kitchen being forced to admit that Rebecca was the problem.

His phone was still in his hand when he finally nodded.

“Okay.”

Then he called the bank.

And I didn’t make the call for him.

Rebecca Had Another Explanation

By Saturday morning, my father had changed every password, frozen online access to the home equity line, and spoken to the bank.

Then Rebecca called him.

I knew because Dad called me less than five minutes later.

“She says Tyler did it.”

I was standing in our garage replacing a burned-out bulb.

“Did she admit she transferred the money?”

Silence.

“Dad?”

“She said Tyler was having financial problems.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

Another pause.

“Yes.”

I put the new bulb on the workbench.

“She admitted making the transfers?”

“Some of them.”

According to Dad, Rebecca said Tyler had lost his job months earlier and had been too embarrassed to tell everyone how bad things had gotten.

She claimed she’d moved money to keep their mortgage current and cover basic expenses.

That explanation lasted until Dad asked about the $28,000 Thanksgiving transfer.

Rebecca hung up.

Two hours later, Mom called me.

Her voice was shaking.

“Daniel, Tyler’s gone.”

“Gone where?”

“Nobody knows.”

Rebecca had woken up to find his clothes missing, along with his laptop and a duffel bag.

Their joint checking account had been emptied overnight.

Then Mom said something else.

“Your sister is here.”

“At your house?”

“She says she needs some documents.”

I was already reaching for my keys.

“What documents?”

“I don’t know. She’s in your father’s office.”

“Mom, get Dad.”

“He’s outside talking to the bank.”

I called him myself.

“Rebecca’s in your office.”

His voice changed immediately.

“What?”

“Mom says she’s looking for documents.”

I heard a door slam on his end.

By the time I reached my parents’ house, Rebecca was standing in the hallway with Dad blocking the office door.

A stack of folders sat on the desk behind him.

“I’m trying to find Tyler’s paperwork,” Rebecca said.

“In my filing cabinet?” Dad asked.

“He helped you with some financial stuff before.”

Dad stared at her.

“No, he didn’t.”

She looked at me.

“Why are you even here?”

“Mom called.”

Rebecca laughed once.

“Of course she did.”

Dad told her to leave.

She argued for another minute.

Then she grabbed her purse and walked toward the front door.

Before leaving, she turned to me.

“You seem pretty interested in all this.”

I didn’t answer.

She opened the door.

“You work with computers, Daniel. Maybe Dad should be asking how you know so much about his accounts.”

Dad’s face tightened.

For half a second, I saw the old reflex.

Daniel, don’t make this worse.

Daniel, let it go.

Daniel, she’s upset.

Instead, he looked at Rebecca.

“Leave.”

She did.

The Money Had Three Destinations

The police became involved after the bank confirmed the transfers weren’t random fraud from an outside account.

Someone with authorized online access had initiated them.

Mom had kept more records than Dad realized.

She brought out a folder containing printed statements she’d been filing every month.

The transfers led to three places.

One was Rebecca’s personal account.

One was the joint account she shared with Tyler.

The third was something called TJR Holdings LLC.