Abigail studied me.
“You don’t trust me?”
There it was.
The trap.
If I answered too defensively, she would know.
So I reached across the counter and squeezed her hand.
“I just got home. Give me a day to understand everything.”
Her expression softened.
“Of course.”
Then she smiled.
The same smile she had given the neighbors.
Patient.
Concerned.
Perfect.
At 2:13 that morning, after Abigail finally fell asleep, I went downstairs again.
My investigation started with her laptop.
She had changed the password.
That didn’t matter.
I wasn’t trying to break into it.
I only needed to know what had been done from it.
The home router provided device histories.
The security company provided login logs.
Mom’s bank provided notification records because my name was still listed as an emergency contact.
A pattern emerged.
Seven months earlier, Abigail had started accessing Mom’s bank account from our home network.
