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“How’s my favorite boy?” she asked as he flung himself at her.
“Mama!”
He was warm and sturdy. His little hands held on tight. Love filled her, warming her from the inside. This, she thought fiercely. This child, this moment. She’d been so blessed.
He stepped back and patted her belly. “Bethany here.”
“She is. Just three more months.”
Three long months, she thought, knowing the worst of the pregnancy was still ahead of her. At least for now, she was able to sleep well and her back only hurt on days she worked at the grocery store. But before she knew it she would ache all the time and be counting the minutes until her baby was born.
The quick drive home was uneventful. She parked in the driveway of their small rental house before releasing Jackson from his car seat. Once they were inside, she changed his diaper then got out his favorite blocks and a toy bucket. She sat on the floor, across from him, and put the blocks in the bucket. Once Jackson was busy with the game of taking them out and throwing them on the carpet, she went to the banking app on her phone to find several alerts.
She opened the first one and stared in disbelief. She’d heard the phrase “She felt her heart stop beating” but had never experienced the sensation herself until this very second.
Your bank accounts have been frozen.
There was more writing and a phone number to call, but all she could see were those six horrible words.
Frozen? What did that mean? How could an account be frozen? Was that why her ATM card hadn’t worked?
Her stomach lurched as chills rushed through her. She felt herself starting to shake as she struggled to call the number on the notice. A recording walked her through the process of verifying her identity, then she had to wait seven minutes to get a representative.
While music played and a voice kept saying, “Due to unexpected call volumes, wait times are longer than usual,” she helped Jackson stack blocks and told herself there had to be a mistake. Everything would be fine. If the representative couldn’t help her, then Peter would handle everything when he got home.
Her husband was a numbers guy. He had his own accounting business. He knew about finance and investing and doing taxes. He was the smartest man she’d ever known—and he was college educated. No one in her family had ever gone. In the small town where she’d grown up, money had been tight for nearly every family she’d known, and going to college wasn’t something she and her friends ever considered. In her circles, only those lucky enough to earn sports scholarships or smart enough to be a superbrainiac went. Everyone else got by learning on the job or maybe by going to trade school or into a family business.
But Peter was different. His meeting tonight was with a potential new client. He was always doing things like that—finding new clients and growing the business. His now thriving company had been decimated by his divorce. Not only had his horrible first wife, Erica, taken her business away, but she’d bad-mouthed him all over town. He’d had to start from practically nothing. But he’d done it because Peter always did what was right. He worked hard and he loved her. Of that she was sure.
“This is Mia at Northwest Bank of the Pacific. How can I help you?”
Allison clutched her phone tightly. “I’m having a problem with my account. I have a notice that it’s frozen. I don’t even know what that means. What’s going on?”
Despite her fear and sense of panic, she was careful to keep her voice calm. Jackson played happily next to her and she didn’t want to upset him.
“All right, Mrs. Jenkins, give me a second and I’ll—”
She paused. “Oh. Well, yes, you’re right. Your accounts are frozen. There’s not a lot of information here. It seems the Treasury Department notified our bank about an investigation. That’s all I know. If you want more details, you should talk to your branch manager.”
“I don’t understand. What are you saying?”
“Every account you have with us is frozen and until we’re told to release the money, you won’t have access to it.”
What? No! “You can’t do that. It’s our money. Our paychecks. We need that money for rent and food. You can’t just take it from us.”
The customer service representative’s voice tightened. “We haven’t taken it, ma’am. The accounts are going to be locked until they’re released by the government. That’s all I know. I’m sorry. You might want to talk to a lawyer.”
A lawyer? Like she had one on retainer? “I need to get groceries and diapers. How do I pay for that?”
The representative sounded uncomfortable. “I can’t answer that. There’s nothing I can do. I’m sorry.”
Sorry? She was sorry? Allison fought tears. This wasn’t happening—it couldn’t be. “But it’s our money,” she repeated. “You have no right to keep it from us.”
“I’m afraid we do. When there’s illegal activity, we have to—”
“Illegal activity?” Allison’s voice came out in a shriek.
Jackson stared at her wide-eyed. “Mama?”
