The Fatal Scam

"Hello, are you Mr. Kyle Knight's family? He's locked himself in his bedroom and is about to swallow a bottle of pills!"

The caregiver's voice trembled over the phone.

I froze halfway through reviewing the quarterly financial report. I couldn't believe my father-in-law, who had always been so honest and levelheaded, would ever do something like this.

The caregiver kept talking. Kyle had locked the bedroom door and slipped a suicide note underneath it.

He had lost his entire life savings to a scam and didn't want to live anymore.

My heart sank. I immediately called my husband, Joshua Knight.

He was a psychology expert. If anyone could talk Kyle down, it was him.

Joshua answered almost immediately, but the first thing I heard was a woman laughing.

"Joshua, who is it?"

Then Joshua came on the line, sounding annoyed.

"Cassidy, what is it?"

I tightened my grip on the phone and forced down the panic rising inside me.

"Dad lost his entire retirement fund to a scam. He left a suicide note, and he's trying to kill himself. Come home!"

Joshua scoffed. "Your dad's made plenty of bad decisions before. Maybe this'll finally teach him a lesson. Don't bother me with stupid stuff like this again. I'm trying to watch a movie with Vanessa."

I opened my mouth to tell him I wasn't talking about my father when a deliberately high-pitched scream came through the phone.

"Oh my god! Joshua, I'm scared!"

"Don't be. I'm right here. Here, let me make it better."

"Mmm... You can't touch me there..."

Then he hung up.

I stood there gripping my phone, listening to the dial tone.

So that was why he didn't care. He thought it was my father who was dying.

The caregiver called again, her voice breaking with panic.

"Ms. Hunt! He took the pills!"

-

Eventually, the caregiver and I forced the bedroom door open and rushed Kyle to the hospital.

The light above the emergency room stayed red.

I leaned against the wall as the warmth slowly drained from my body.

A long time later, the doctor came out and shook his head.

"He took too many pills. We couldn't save him."

Still leaning against the wall, I called Joshua again, my hands shaking uncontrollably. My throat tightened, and my voice came out strained.

"Joshua, Dad's gone. Come back and see him one last time."

The other end went silent for a few seconds.

"He's already dead. Me coming back won't change anything. I'm still with Vanessa, so I'm not coming home yet."

His voice was calm, almost cheerful.

"Oh, and put together a PowerPoint on how he got scammed. I've got an anti-scam livestream next week, and his case would make a good example."

I listened to his matter-of-fact tone and still didn't tell him that the man who died was actually Kyle.

I simply said, "Okay. What do you need?"

"Bank transfer records, chat logs, everything. The more detailed, the better. I want all of it."

Vanessa Morgan's coy voice came through in the background, and Joshua quickly hung up.

I went home and walked into Kyle's room.

Several bank transfer receipts were scattered across the desk. I picked them up one by one, planning to send everything to Joshua.

The moment I saw the name on the recipient account, I froze.

Heather Maxwell. I knew that name.

Vanessa was Joshua's first love, and Heather Maxwell was her mother.