Chapter 3 - The Password Robert Should Not Have Known
Joanna picked up the first bank statement.
The pages were not screenshots.
They were official copies printed directly from her online banking portal.
Someone had logged into her account.
Her current password was a random combination of letters and numbers stored only in a password manager.
No one in her family knew it.
Or should have known it.
“Where did you get these?” Joanna asked.
Linda shrugged.
“That isn’t important.”
“It’s identity theft.”
Beth laughed.
“Don’t be dramatic.”
Joanna looked at Robert.
He would not meet her eyes.
Then she remembered the previous Sunday.
Robert had come to her apartment to help replace a leaking kitchen faucet.
While Joanna cleaned the cabinet beneath the sink, she handed him her laptop and asked him to find a hardware store.
For ten minutes, he sat alone at the dining table.
Her password manager had been open because she had just paid a bill.
“Dad?”
Robert’s shoulders dropped.
“I only wanted to understand why you stopped helping.”
Joanna felt the betrayal before he finished speaking.
“You opened my bank account?”
“I saw the balance.”
“And then?”
Linda answered for him.
“He printed what the family needed to see.”
Joanna turned toward her mother.
“You told him to do it.”
“I told him to find out why our own daughter was abandoning us.”
“I didn’t abandon anyone. I stopped financing you.”
Beth picked up one of the pages.
“This house could pay for my entire wedding.”
“It is already paid for.”
Beth blinked.
“What?”
Joanna immediately regretted answering.
Linda stepped closer.
“You bought it outright?”
Joanna hugged the property folder tighter.
The house had cost less than most Phoenix condos because it needed repairs.
Joanna had used years of savings and a modest inheritance from her grandmother as a down payment, then paid down the remaining mortgage aggressively.
The folder contained the final closing records.
She had planned to move in two weeks.
Linda’s gaze fell to the gold house symbol.
“That folder contains the deed.”
Joanna said nothing.
Beth reached toward it.
Joanna stepped back.
“Do not touch me.”
Beth’s expression twisted.
“You’ve always thought you were better than us.”
“No. I thought I was responsible for you. There’s a difference.”
Robert spoke softly.
“Joanna, maybe you could loan Beth some of it.”
“The money is gone. It became the house.”
“Then borrow against the house,” Linda said.
Joanna stared at her mother.
Linda said it as though the answer were obvious.
As though Joanna’s future was simply another family asset.
“No.”
The single word changed Linda’s face.
Her disappointment became contempt.
“You would humiliate your sister over money?”
“No. Beth chose a wedding she cannot afford.”
Beth slapped the bank statements onto the island.
“You’re jealous because no one wanted to marry you.”
Robert whispered, “Beth.”
But he did not defend Joanna.
Linda picked up her yellow lighter from beside a candle.
May you like
Then she locked the kitchen door.
👉 Joanna had believed the stolen statements were the worst betrayal—but Linda had already prepared a way to force her signature.
