“Why?”
“He needed it.”
“For what?”
“He said there were business expenses.”
“What business?”
“Consulting.”
I almost laughed again.
Daniel’s consulting work had never required forty thousand dollars.
Most of it involved helping local businesses with digital marketing plans from his laptop.
No staff.
No office.
No inventory.
“What exactly did he say?”
Eleanor frowned.
“That he had a major client opportunity and needed short-term cash.”
“When?”
“Over the last eight months.”
Eight months.
I thought about the new car.
The expensive dinners Daniel had begun suggesting.
The weekend trip he planned for our anniversary and then canceled abruptly.
The strange stack of unopened mail he once swept into a drawer when I entered the room.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“He asked me not to.”
“Why?”
“He said you were already stressed about money.”
I looked at her.
“I wasn’t stressed about money.”
She stared back.
Something changed in her face.
Very slowly.
As though she had begun assembling her own version of events.
“He said your bonus had been smaller than expected.”
“My bonus was larger.”
Silence.
“He said the mortgage was becoming difficult.”
“I paid it automatically every month.”
Eleanor’s face drained of color.
The house became quiet.
For the first time since she had moved in with us eighteen months earlier, Eleanor looked genuinely frightened.
Not of me.
Of her son.
“Where is Daniel?” I asked.
“I told you. I don’t know.”
“When did he leave?”
“About twenty minutes ago.”
“Did he take anything?”
She shook her head.
Then stopped.
“His laptop.”
My stomach tightened.
“And the blue folder.”
“What blue folder?”
She looked at me.
“The one he keeps in the hall cabinet.”
I had never seen a blue folder.
I stepped past her.
“Show me.”
The cabinet beside the downstairs coat closet was mostly filled with old tax returns, appliance manuals, and insurance documents.
Eleanor pointed to the middle shelf.
“It was there.”
The empty space was obvious once I knew where to look.
“What was in it?”
“I don’t know.”
“You saw him take it?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“When he left.”
“Did he say where he was going?”
“No.”
I turned toward the kitchen.
My mind was moving faster now.
Not revenge.
Not anger.
Questions.
Daniel had borrowed forty thousand dollars from his mother.
