My Daughter Told Everyone I Have Dementia To Steal My Fortune. Then I Found The Drugs She Was Putting In My Coffee. What Should My Next Move Be?

The Journal

Jacob called me Wednesday night with an update.

“I’m going to Portland tomorrow,” he said. “I need to dig into Elena’s past. See what I can find.”

“Do you want me to come with you?”

“No,” he replied. “Stay there. Keep an eye on things. If Allison suspects we’re investigating, she might make a move.” He hesitated. “And this is something I need to do for Clara.”

I understood, so I waited.

Thursday evening, he called again. His voice was different this time: tight, controlled, like he was holding something back.

“I found things,” he said. “You need to hear this.”

He started at Portland Community College. The registrar’s office was tucked behind the main administration hall, staffed by a middle-aged woman who barely looked up as she typed.

“I need information about a former student,” Jacob said. “Elena Warner. Fall 2016.”

The registrar frowned at her screen. “I’m not seeing any record of an Elena Warner enrolled that term. Are you certain of the name? Could you try Allison Peton?”

Her fingers paused, then resumed. “Yes. Allison Peton. She audited two courses in Fall 2016. Psychology 101 and Creative Writing. Not degree-seeking.”

Something clicked for Jacob. Elena hadn’t truly existed. She’d created a version of herself that couldn’t be easily traced.

“Can I contact the instructors?”

The registrar hesitated, then nodded. “Psychology was taught by Professor Linda Anderson. She’s still here.”

Professor Anderson’s office was cluttered with books and papers. She studied Jacob carefully when he mentioned Allison.

“I remember her,” she said. “Quiet. Sat in the back. Rarely spoke. But her written work was excellent.” She paused. “She dropped the class after midterms. That surprised me.”

“Did she explain why?”

“She said she was pregnant. Said she needed to focus on that.” Professor Anderson tilted her head. “You’re the father?”

Jacob nodded.

“She told me she was 22,” the professor said softly. “I thought she was handling things well for someone so young.”

“She was 30,” Jacob said.

Professor Anderson exhaled. “Then I’m sorry for you. And for the child.”

From the college, Jacob drove to the Southeast Portland apartment where Elena had lived. The landlord, Mrs. Rodriguez, remembered her immediately.

“That girl,” she said, shaking her head. “She vanished in the middle of the night. Left most of her things behind. Owed me two months’ rent.”

“What happened to her belongings?”

“I donated most of it. But I kept a few things in storage.” She studied Jacob. “You’re the baby’s father?”

“Yes.”

“She hurt you.”

“Yes.”

Mrs. Rodriguez led him to a wire storage cage in the basement and pulled out a small box labeled 3B Warner.

“Not much,” she said. “But there’s this.”

She handed him a blue spiral notebook. A journal.

“I read it in my car,” Jacob told me. “I couldn’t wait.”

It began in September 2016, when Allison arrived in Portland. She wrote about running away from me, from the company, from expectations she couldn’t meet. She wrote about suffocation, grief, and feeling invisible after my wife died. Then she wrote about meeting Jacob. About lying easily, pretending to be younger, free.

“She writes about getting pregnant in December,” Jacob said. “And everything changes.”

“Changes how?” I asked.

“Fear. Panic. She wants to run again but doesn’t know where.” He swallowed. “I’m going to read you something. The entry was dated February 10th. Four days before Clara was born.”

“I can’t do this. I’m not ready to be a mother. I thought a baby might give me purpose, make me real. But all I feel is terror. Dad would disown me if he knew. Not just about the baby, but the lies. The fake name. The running. I can’t bear the disappointment. Better to never tell him. Better to let him believe I’m still his perfect daughter. Even if it means abandoning this child. Even if it breaks Jacob’s heart. I’m a coward. I know that. I just don’t know how to be anything else.”

I couldn’t speak.

“There’s more,” Jacob said. “The final entry was dated February 27th.”

“I have to go home. I have to fix this. And I have to make sure no one ever finds out about the baby. If Dad learns about Clara, he’ll try to fix it. He’ll get involved. Everyone will know what I did. That I ran away. That I abandoned my own child. I can’t let that happen. So I’m burying this. Portland, Elena Warner, the baby—none of it ever existed. And if Dad starts asking questions, I’ll make sure he can’t. Whatever it takes.”

“Whatever it takes,” I repeated.

“She decided then,” Jacob said. “Not the abandonment, but the silencing.”

I thought of the forged evaluations, the drugged meals, the missing money. “She wrote the blueprint seven years ago,” I said. “And she’s been following it ever since.”

“Yes.”

I looked at the DNA results on my desk, the birth certificate, the truth she’d tried to erase. “Thank you,” I said.

“I did it for Clara,” Jacob replied. “But we have to be careful.”

He didn’t need to finish. My daughter had written her intentions down, and she was carrying them out, even if it meant destroying me.

How It Happened

That night, after Jacob told me about the journal, I asked him to tell me everything. Not the abbreviated version, not the highlights. Everything. How they met, how it happened, how she left.

“I need to understand,” I said. “Not just what she did, but how. I need to see it through your eyes.”

So he told me, and I listened.

September 2016. Jacob had been sitting in a coffee shop near Portland Community College, working on code for a freelance project, when a woman sat down at the table next to him. Dark hair pulled back in a ponytail, oversized sweater, backpack that looked like it had seen better days. She’d smiled at him—shy, uncertain—and asked if he had a phone charger she could borrow.

“I’m Elena,” she’d said when he handed it over. “Thanks for this. I’m always forgetting mine.”

“Jacob. And no problem.”

They’d started talking. She told him she was 22, a student at PCC trying to figure out what she wanted to do with her life. He told her about his work as a software developer, about moving to Portland two years ago for a fresh start. She’d laughed at his jokes, asked questions about his work, seemed genuinely interested in everything he said.

“She made me feel seen,” Jacob told me. “Like I mattered. I’d been lonely for a long time, and suddenly here was this girl who wanted to know about my day, my thoughts, my dreams.”

They’d exchanged numbers. Started meeting for coffee, then dinner, then more.

October 2016. By October, Elena was spending most nights at Jacob’s apartment. She’d show up with takeout, stay to watch movies, fall asleep on his couch. It felt natural when she started leaving clothes there, when she stopped going back to her own place.

“I asked her to move in officially,” Jacob said. “It seemed crazy. We’d only been dating a month. But it felt right.”

She’d said yes. A week later, he’d proposed. Nothing fancy, just him and her in his apartment, a ring he’d bought from a vintage shop downtown.

“I know it’s fast,” he’d said. “But I love you. I want to build a life with you.”

She’d looked at the ring for a long moment. “Then I’m not ready. I’m sorry, Jacob. It’s not you. It’s just… I’m not ready.”

He’d been disappointed, but understanding. They were young. There was time. Two weeks after that, she’d told him she was pregnant.

November 2016. The pregnancy terrified her. Jacob could see it in her eyes every time she looked at the positive test, every time someone mentioned babies or asked when she was due.

“I can’t tell my family,” she’d said one night, curled up on the couch with her arms wrapped around her knees.

“Why not?”

“They wouldn’t understand. My father…” She’d trailed off, shaking her head. “He’s very strict. Very traditional. If he knew I was pregnant and unmarried… if he knew about you…”

“What about me?”

“You’re not what he’d want for me.” She’d said it apologetically, but the words had stung anyway.

Jacob had promised he’d take care of her and the baby. That she didn’t need her family’s approval. That they’d be okay on their own. She’d nodded, but he could tell she didn’t believe him.

February 14th, 2017. Clara was born at Providence Portland Medical Center on Valentine’s Day. 7 lb 3 oz, dark hair, surprisingly alert eyes, a cry that filled the delivery room. The nurses had placed her on Elena’s chest for skin-to-skin contact. Elena had looked down at the baby—her baby—with an expression Jacob couldn’t read. Not love, not joy, not even curiosity. Just nothing.

“I thought it was shock,” Jacob told me. “Or exhaustion. Labor had been long. I told myself she’d bond with Clara once they got home. Once she’d had time to rest and process.”

But the emptiness in Elena’s eyes never went away. For two weeks, she went through the motions. Changed diapers, fed Clara bottles, held her when she cried. But there was no connection. No warmth. She moved like a robot doing what needed to be done, without any emotion behind it.

Jacob had called the hospital, worried about postpartum depression. They’d scheduled an appointment for the following week. Elena never made it to that appointment.

February 28th, 2017. Jacob woke at 3:00 in the morning to Clara’s crying. He’d reached across the bed automatically, expecting to find Elena to take turns soothing their daughter the way they’d been doing for two weeks. The bed was empty. He’d gotten up, gone to Clara’s crib, picked up his screaming daughter.

“Shh, baby. It’s okay. Daddy’s here.”

But where was Elena? He’d searched the apartment. Bathroom empty. Kitchen empty. Living room empty. Her backpack was gone. Her jacket. Her ID. On the kitchen counter, weighed down by a coffee mug, was a piece of notebook paper torn from a spiral binding.

“I’m sorry. I can’t do this. Take care of her. E.”

That was all. No explanation. No phone number. No forwarding address. Just a baby screaming in his arms and a note that changed his life forever.

“I called her phone,” Jacob said, his voice hollow with the memory. “Over and over. It went straight to voicemail. I called hospitals, police, shelters. Filed a missing person report. But she’d left voluntarily, and she was an adult. So there wasn’t much they could do.”

He’d sat on the floor of his apartment holding Clara and cried until he had nothing left.

I sat across from Jacob in my living room, the story hanging between us like smoke. Outside, it was dark. We’d been talking for hours. The coffee in my mug had gone cold.

“You spent seven years looking for her,” I said.

“For Clara,” he corrected. “So she’d have answers. So when she got old enough to ask why her mother left, I could tell her something beyond ‘I don’t know’.”

He looked at me. “I wanted to understand. And I wanted Clara to know it wasn’t her fault. That there was a reason, even if it was a terrible one.”

“And now you have your answer.”

“Yes.” His smile was bitter. “Elena Warner was Allison Peton. The woman I loved was a lie. She wasn’t 22. She wasn’t a student. She wasn’t figuring out her life. She was running from it. And when reality caught up to her, when she had a baby she didn’t want and couldn’t explain…” He gestured helplessly. “She ran again.”

I thought about Allison at seven years old sitting on my shoulders at the Fourth of July parade. About the journal entry where she wrote that she wasn’t ready to be a mother, that I would disown her if I knew. She’d been so wrong. I would never have disowned her. I would have helped, supported, loved her through it. But she’d never given me the chance.

“The answer we have,” I said slowly, “isn’t the one either of us wanted.”

“No.” Jacob stood, picked up his jacket. “But it’s the truth. And now we have to figure out what to do with it.”

After he left, I sat in the dark and thought about my daughter. About the choices she’d made, the lies she’d told, the people she’d hurt. And I wondered: if she’d been capable of abandoning her own newborn baby seven years ago, what else was she capable of now?