He really had been a delivery driver.
He had delivered a package one afternoon and noticed Margaret struggling to carry groceries inside.
He offered to help.
Margaret gave him coffee.
They talked.
Ryan told her that he had lost his grandmother the previous year and had been struggling financially while attending community college.
Over the next few weeks, he occasionally stopped by to help Margaret with small things around the house.
There had never been a romance.
Margaret had invented that part.
“You told me you were in love with him?” I asked.
A tiny smile appeared on her face.
“I needed Susan to think I had become foolish.”
I stared at her.
Margaret explained that Susan had begun calling constantly, asking whether she was still capable of managing her own finances.
Margaret worried her daughter was URM preparing to claim that she could no longer take care of herself.
So Margaret decided to pretend.
She told Susan about her “young boyfriend.”
She purposely acted secretive.
She hoped Susan would reveal what she was really planning.
And she did.
Two nights earlier, Susan suddenly arrived at the house.
She told Margaret that Ryan was using her for money.
They argued.
Margaret refused to sign documents Susan had brought with her.
Then Susan took Margaret’s phone.
“She said I needed time to calm down,” Margaret whispered.
My stomach turned.
“How did you end up down here?”
“She told me she had something stored in the basement that she wanted me to see.”
Margaret looked embarrassed.
“I followed her.”
Susan shut the storage room door behind her.
Margaret had been trapped there ever since.
“But Ryan?” I asked. “Where is he?”
Margaret looked at me strangely.
“That’s what worries me.”
Ryan had come by the previous evening.
Margaret had heard his voice upstairs.
She had screamed and knocked on the door.
Then she heard shouting.
After that, silence.
I immediately called the police.
This time Margaret did not stop me.
Officers arrived within minutes.
They searched the house and found Margaret’s phone hidden in Susan’s suitcase upstairs.
They also discovered documents spread across the dining room table.
Some appeared to involve transferring control of Margaret’s finances.
But Ryan was nowhere in the house.
Neither was Susan.
One officer stayed with Margaret while two others began searching the neighborhood.
Then my phone rang.
Unknown number.
I almost ignored it.
