Chapter 6 - THE MISSING TAB
The police did not let Rebecca and me search the house.
My mother still owned it jointly with Raymond, and she gave investigators written consent to enter common areas and retrieve the binder she had described.
Detective Pike warned us that consent searches could become complicated if Raymond challenged the scope.
So I stayed at Rebecca’s kitchen table refreshing my phone while adults handled doors, paperwork, photographs, and evidence bags.
At 4:12 p.m., Pike called.
“We found the binder.”
Rebecca gripped the counter.
“And?”
“There’s a problem.”
I put the phone on speaker.
“The binder has labeled sections,” he said. “Trust records, house expenses, business payments, school, medical.”
My throat tightened.
“B-17?”
“Missing.”
I looked at Rebecca.
“The whole tab?”
“The divider is there. Whatever was behind it is gone.”
“Raymond took it.”
“Maybe.”
“What else could it be?”
“We don’t build cases on maybe.”
I hated that sentence.
Mostly because I knew he was right.
Pike said they had also found handwritten notes referencing something called Northgate Behavioral Consulting.
Melissa knew the name.
When we called her, she went quiet.
“I’ve seen that on one of the trust distributions.”
“How much?”
“Sixteen thousand four hundred dollars over ten months.”
“For what?”
“It was categorized as mental-health evaluation and treatment.”
I stared at the phone.
“I’ve never been there.”
Rebecca pulled out a chair.
“You’ve never seen a therapist named Northgate?”
“No.”
Melissa searched her files.
“There are invoices.”
“Whose name is on them?”
“Yours.”
I stood.
The room tilted.
Rebecca caught my good arm.
“What do they say?”
Melissa hesitated.
“Nora, the descriptions include behavioral assessment, family stabilization, cognitive screening, and guardianship consultation.”
Nobody spoke.
I remembered my mother calling me unstable in the hospital.
Raymond telling teachers I had emotional problems.
Every time I raised my voice, he smiled.
Every time I cried, he called my mother into the room as a witness.
Every time I refused to play one of his games, he repeated the same phrase.
See? This is what I mean.
They had not only been hurting me.
They had been building a story around my reaction to being hurt.
Melissa called Northgate.
It was a legitimate practice in Dublin, northwest of Columbus.
Dr. Laurel Henson, a licensed psychologist, returned the call that evening.
She refused to discuss records until we provided legal documentation showing my identity and Melissa’s authority to communicate.
That took another day.
When she finally spoke to us, she sounded confused.
“I evaluated Nora once.”
I nearly dropped the phone.
“No, you didn’t.”
There was a pause.
“Yes, I did.”
“When?”
“Last November.”
I remembered November.
My mother had taken me to an office building and told me the appointment was part of a school attention assessment.
I had spent ninety minutes answering questions and completing memory tasks.
No one had told me they were discussing guardianship.
Dr. Henson continued.
“I was asked to evaluate anxiety, attention, and family conflict.”
“By my mother?”
“Yes.”
“Did you say I was incompetent?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Did you say I needed a guardian?”
“No.”
“Did you say I was dangerous?”
“No.”
Rebecca leaned toward the phone.
“Then what was sixteen thousand dollars for?”
Dr. Henson sounded alarmed.
“It wasn’t. My practice billed twenty-eight hundred dollars total.”
Melissa and I looked at each other.
“Who paid you?” she asked.
“Diane Hale.”
“From what account?”
“I’d have to check.”
Melissa wrote something down.
“Doctor, did Mrs. Hale ever ask you about adult guardianship?”
Another pause.
“Yes.”
My mouth went dry.
“What did she ask?”
“She wanted to know whether anxiety or poor judgment could support a finding of incompetence after Nora turned eighteen.”
Rebecca swore under her breath.
“What did you tell her?”
“That nothing I observed supported such a finding.”
“And then?”
“She became upset.”
“Did Mr. Hale attend?”
“No.”
I closed my eyes.
For weeks I had blamed Raymond for the guardianship papers.
My mother had been the one asking the psychologist.
Dr. Henson said she had saved the emails because the request made her uncomfortable.
She agreed to preserve them and speak with Detective Pike.
An hour later, Melissa called back.
“There’s one email you need to know about.”
I sat on Rebecca’s stairs.
“Read it.”
“I’m not going to read the whole thing. But there’s a line from your mother.”
“What line?”
Melissa exhaled.
“She wrote: ‘Raymond says we need the guardianship in place before the audit starts.’”
I stared at the wall.
“What audit?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“But she does.”
“Yes.”
I called my mother.
She answered on the first ring.
“What audit?”
Silence.
“Mom.”
“Nora, not over the phone.”
“What audit?”
She began crying.
I almost hung up.
Then she said something that made me stop.
“If Raymond finds out I told you about B-17, he’ll know I met with Melissa.”
I stood.
May you like
“You met with Melissa?”
My mother whispered, “Five months ago.”
