Chapter 5 - The Power of Attorney Trap
The next morning, Ethan and the woman were gone before Lily woke up.
They left in a hurry. The guest room was a mess — clothes half-packed, toiletries scattered. On the kitchen counter, Ethan had left the power of attorney papers again, this time with a new sticky note.
“Sign these so we can still help with Mom’s care. Don’t make this ugly.”
I took the papers, walked to the sink, and dropped them in the trash.
Then I called a locksmith.
While the man changed the locks, I sat at the kitchen table and made three more calls.
The first was to my lawyer — the one who had handled Lily’s trust after her father died. I told him everything. The fake illness. The pressure for power of attorney. The woman pretending to be Doris. The way they had used Lily.
He listened without interrupting.
When I finished, he said, “Megan, this is serious. We need to move fast. If they were trying to access Lily’s trust, there could be criminal implications.”
The second call was to the bank that held Lily’s trust. I put a fraud alert on the account and requested all recent activity.
The third call was to a private investigator my lawyer recommended.
By the time Lily came downstairs for breakfast, the locksmith was finishing up.
She looked at the new keys on the table, then at me.
“They’re not coming back?” she asked.
“No,” I said. “They’re not.”
She sat down and poured cereal like it was any other morning, but I saw the way her shoulders relaxed for the first time in weeks.
After she left for school, I opened my laptop and started a new document.
I titled it simply:
What They Tried to Take
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Then I began writing everything down — dates, times, conversations, the mall sighting, Lily’s statements, the power of attorney pressure.
I didn’t know yet what I would do with it.
