I left that office feeling completely numb. I didn’t cry. I was too angry for tears. I went straight to the Chase bank branch on Mound Road, the one where Mom had kept her savings account for forty years.

Since I was still listed as a joint owner on her secondary checking account, I was able to request the past twelve months of bank statements for her main savings account.

It took the teller twenty minutes to print everything out. When she handed me the stack of papers, she looked at me with a soft, pitying expression.

“I’m sorry for your loss, Ellen,” she said. “Your mother was a lovely woman. She used to bring us those little lemon drop candies every time she came in.”

“Thank you,” I murmured, my eyes already scanning the pages.

I went out to my car, sat in the driver’s seat, and started highlighting. What I found made my blood feel like ice. Over the last six months of Mom’s life, there were regular cash withdrawals. $5,000 on June 12th. $8,000 on July 4th. $10,000 on August 15th.

In total, $67,000 had been taken out. All of it in cash.

Here is the thing: Mom had been bedridden since May. She had advanced congestive heart failure and severe arthritis. She couldn’t even walk to the kitchen without a walker and someone holding her elbow. She hadn’t left that house in four months.

I called Mom’s physical therapist, a wonderful young man named Daniel who had been coming to the house three times a week. I asked him if he had his logbooks from those months. He said he did, and he emailed them to me within an hour.

Then, I called Mom’s hospice nurse, Sarah. She gave me copies of the daily medical charts, showing exactly what medications Mom was taking and her cognitive state.

I spent three days matching the dates. On July 4th, when $8,000 was withdrawn in cash from the drive-thru window at the bank, Mom’s chart showed she was completely disoriented and unable to speak. On August 15th, when another $10,000 was taken out, Daniel’s physical therapy log noted that Mom was in too much pain to even sit up in bed.

I filed the petition to contest the will. The court date was set for a rainy Tuesday morning in November.

When we walked into the courtroom, Brenda looked completely confident. She was wearing a new gold necklace that I recognized immediately from a boutique in Birmingham. Her lawyer, Mr. Vance, had a smug smile on his face as he shook hands with the probate attorney.