Chapter 5 - The Man Helping Us Search
His name was Eric Walsh.
Forty-one years old.
Insurance broker.
Married.
Two daughters.
Frank’s only son.
And for the past three days, he had been loudly demanding justice for the money stolen from his sick father.
Now surveillance showed him walking beside Tyler.
Dad sat down.
“I don’t understand.”
I did.
At least partly.
“Tyler had help.”
Dad stared at the image.
“Eric?”
“Looks that way.”
“But Frank is his father.”
“Rebecca is your daughter.”
That silenced him.
Family didn’t prevent betrayal.
Sometimes it created access.
Bell asked us not to contact Eric.
By morning, detectives had identified his vehicle leaving a second airport exit.
Tyler had apparently abandoned his own SUV, phone, and wallet to create the impression that he had fled by air.
Eric drove him away.
Where remained unknown.
The silver laptop gave investigators more.
Fake loan applications.
Forged signatures.
Scanned IDs.
Passwords.
Account recovery questions.
Tyler and Eric had built profiles on older relatives and family friends.
They targeted people who trusted them.
People uncomfortable with technology.
People likely to hand over documents.
Dad’s recommendation had opened doors.
Eric had provided others.
The scheme had started small.
A few thousand.
Then ten.
Then twenty.
Once nobody noticed, they became bolder.
The Hocking Hills property was supposed to be their largest score.
A private loan of $180,000 against property Dad owned outright.
If successful, Tyler and Eric could disappear with the funds while leaving my parents facing foreclosure on land they barely remembered they still owned.
Rebecca’s role remained complicated.
She had signed legitimate authorizations.
She had signed transfers.
She had benefited from stolen funds.
But there was no evidence she knew about Eric or the broader scheme.
That didn’t make her innocent.
It made her useful.
Prosecutors offered a cooperation agreement.
Dad hated it.
“She should face consequences.”
“She will,” I said.
“She may avoid prison.”
“Maybe.”
“She stole from your mother.”
“I know.”
Dad looked at me.
“You’re defending her?”
“No.”
“Then what are you saying?”
“I’m saying consequences don’t have to look like revenge.”
The words surprised both of us.
Dad looked away.
Maybe because that was not how our family usually operated.
We punished.
We remembered.
We stored resentment like emergency supplies.
By afternoon, Rebecca agreed to cooperate fully.
She also surrendered the SUV.
It was financed partly with stolen money.
She sold several handbags.
Jewelry.
Designer clothing.
Anything purchased during the fraud period.
Her attorney created a restitution account.
It wouldn’t cover seventy-six thousand.
But it was a beginning.
Then something happened I didn’t expect.
Rebecca brought Mason to my house.
I almost didn’t open the door.
She stood on the porch with no makeup, hair tied back.
Mason stared at the floor.
“Noah home?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Mason wants to say something.”
I looked at him.
“Does he?”
Rebecca glanced at her son.
Mason nodded.
I called Noah downstairs.
He stayed beside me.
Mason looked embarrassed.
“I broke your dinner on purpose.”
Noah said nothing.
“And I called you a crybaby.”
Still nothing.
“And I lied when I said you pushed me.”
Rebecca’s eyes filled.
Mason continued.
“My mom said I have to say sorry, but she also said saying sorry doesn’t mean you have to forgive me.”
That was better than I expected.
Noah looked at me.
I said, “This is yours.”
Noah thought.
Then looked at Mason.
“Okay.”
Mason blinked.
“Okay what?”
“I heard you.”
Rebecca almost smiled.
Noah added, “I’m still mad.”
Mason nodded.
“Okay.”
It wasn’t a movie reconciliation.
The boys didn’t hug.
They didn’t suddenly become friends.
But it was honest.
That was enough.
After Rebecca left, Dad sat quietly for a long time.
Then he said, “You handled that better than I would have.”
“Yes.”
He gave me a look.
I smiled slightly.
He almost did too.
That evening, detectives tracked Eric’s vehicle to a motel outside Dayton.
The car was abandoned.
Room empty.
Security footage showed Tyler and Eric leaving in a rideshare.
Destination: a used-car dealership.
There, they bought a ten-year-old minivan with cash.
No tracking.
No registered toll account.
They disappeared again.
Then Rebecca remembered something.
“Tyler has a friend near Cincinnati.”
“Name?” Bell asked.
“Not really a friend. A former client.”
“Name.”
“Greg Sanders.”
Bell searched.
Greg owned three rental properties.
One was vacant.
Police went there.
Empty.
But someone had recently stayed.
Food wrappers.
Two sleeping bags.
A disposable phone package.
And a burned pile of papers in the fireplace.
Most were unreadable.
One corner survived.
It contained part of Dad’s Social Security number.
Tyler was still working.
Still planning.
Still dangerous financially, if not physically.
The next break came from something ridiculous.
A baseball receipt.
Mason remembered Tyler complaining that he had bought new batting gloves online and shipped them to the wrong address.
Rebecca searched her email.
Found the order.
The delivery address wasn’t theirs.
It was a small house in Chillicothe.
Police checked ownership.
Eric Walsh.
Not directly.
Through an LLC created eighteen months earlier.
At six the next morning, police surrounded it.
Nobody inside.
But the house contained luggage.
Computers.
Cash.
Nearly forty thousand dollars.
And documents belonging to six additional families.
Tyler and Eric had been there.
Recently.
Bell called me afterward.
“We found one thing you should know.”
“What?”
“A document about your parents’ house.”
“Another loan?”
“No.”
“What then?”
“A deed transfer.”
My stomach tightened.
“To who?”
“That’s where it gets strange.”
The grantee was an LLC.
The signature was forged.
But the filing had never been completed.
I asked the company name.
Bell read it.
Carter Family Holdings LLC.
I frowned.
“I’ve never heard of it.”
“We know.”
“Who owns it?”
“We’re tracing that now.”
Three hours later, he called back.
His voice was sharper.
“We identified the registered organizer.”
“Tyler?”
“No.”
“Eric?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
Bell hesitated.
“Daniel, the organizer used your mother’s maiden name.”
I looked across the room at Mom.
Bell continued.
“And the registration was filed twelve years ago.”
Long before Tyler married Rebecca.
Long before the missing money.
Long before any of this was supposed to have started.
May you like
Then Mom whispered from behind me:
“I know what Carter Family Holdings is.”
