How’s motherhood, spreadsheet queen? Lily’s clingy, isn’t she?”
“She’s eight, Vanessa.”
“She’s dramatic. Look, sign the forms. Jason already told the bank she’s been living with you since January. We need everything consistent.”
“You’re saying you reported a custody arrangement that never existed?”
A pause. Then a laugh. “Don’t act like an investigator. You’re her aunt, not a cop.”
“No,” I said. “I’m an accountant.”
She hung up.
I saved the recording, made legally under my state’s one-party-consent rule, and sent it to Grace. The next morning Vanessa forwarded a photograph of herself and Jason boarding a flight, champagne in hand.
You always wanted to feel important, she wrote. Keep the kid. We kept the money.
For the first time, I understood why she had left the envelope in Lily’s backpack. Vanessa needed an authentic signature to make the earlier forgeries look legitimate. She’d dumped her child at my door
