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 Escalation

I drove home from the office in a daze, my hands gripping the steering wheel too tightly, my thoughts replaying the confrontation again and again. The look in Allison’s eyes when she told me to leave. The cold certainty that she wasn’t finished, that she wouldn’t back down. The moment I got home, I called Jacob.

“How did it go?” he asked.

“She didn’t deny it,” I said. My voice sounded empty. “Not really. She deflected, got angry, tried to turn it around. But she didn’t deny abandoning Clara. She didn’t deny any of it.”

Jacob was quiet for a beat. “What did she say when you confronted her about the evaluation?”

“She told me to leave. And when I walked out, I saw her pick up her phone. She was calling someone. And the look on her face…” I sank into the chair in my study. “She’s going to retaliate.”

“Then we need to move fast,” Jacob said. “We need to understand exactly what she’s doing. I want to know who Dr. Brady Thornton really is. How she found him. What role he’s playing. I’ll make some calls. Give me a couple of hours.”

I tried to wait. I made coffee I didn’t drink. I paced. I stared at the fake psychiatric evaluation still sitting on my desk, exactly where I’d left it before everything exploded. Two hours felt endless. When Jacob finally called, I answered immediately.

“Tell me.”

“Brady Thornton isn’t a licensed psychiatrist,” Jacob said. “He’s not licensed at all.”

I straightened. “Go on.”

“He was a medical student at Oregon Health and Science University. Two years. Dropped out in 2018. No degree, no license, no certification.” Papers rustled. “After that, he rebranded himself as a wellness coach. More specifically, an elder care consultant. And that means officially helping families navigate aging concerns. Unofficially? Helping adult children build cases for conservatorship. He produces assessments designed to make elderly parents appear incompetent.”

My stomach tightened. “The evaluation.”

“Yes. And he’s done this before.”

“How many times?”

“Four documented cases in the last three years. In all four, his evaluations were used to pursue conservatorship. All four cases settled quietly. The parents gave up control rather than fight.”

“Four families. Four lives dismantled.”

“So he’s a scam artist,” I said.

“An elder abuser,” Jacob corrected. “He found a profitable niche.”

“How did Allison find him?”

“They met at a healthcare conference in Seattle in 2022. There’s a photo, networking event. He gave a presentation on cognitive decline in aging executives.”

Two years ago. She’d been planning this long before I suspected anything.

“Send me the photo.”

“Already did.”

I opened my laptop. The image showed a group of professionals holding drinks. In the back, Allison stood beside a man with sandy hair and an easy smile. Brady Thornton. They stood close, familiar.

“She sought him out,” I said. “This wasn’t random.”

“No,” Jacob agreed. “She likely knew exactly what he did.”

“What about the other families?”

“Most details are sealed. But all four adult children claimed dementia. All relied on Brady’s evaluations.”

“All parents surrendered because fighting would mean questioning their own sanity,” I said quietly. “It’s psychological warfare.”

“Yes.”

I opened my trust account. The balance should have been $200,000. It was $150,000. I scrolled. Three weeks ago, $50,000 transferred out.

“She’s already stealing,” I said.

“What?”

“The trust fund. 50,000 gone. And another 10 last month. 15 before that.”

“Philip, we need the police,” Jacob said. “This is fraud.”

“Not yet.”

“Why not? It’s not enough.” I said. “Right now it looks like a family dispute. A concerned daughter, a wellness consultant, a worried aging father. But she’ll say I’m paranoid. That I’m proving her point. She has witnesses. She’s been preparing this for months.”

“So what do you want to do?”

I looked around my study at the documents, at Maryanne’s photograph. “I want to know the full plan,” I said. “Brady doesn’t work for free. There’s an endgame. I want to know it before we move.”

Jacob was silent. “You’re sure?”

“No. But I know going early will help her. And if she escalates…”

“She will,” I said.

After we hung up, I sat alone and thought about my daughter. About the girl who believed I could fix anything. About the woman who hired a con artist to destroy me. I thought about Brady Thornton and the families he’d helped dismantle. And I wondered how far Allison would go. Four families had surrendered. Four parents had lost everything rather than fight. But I wasn’t going to surrender. Even if it meant accepting that the daughter I raised was gone, replaced by someone I didn’t recognize. Someone who abandoned her child and was now dismantling her father’s life to keep that secret buried.

That night, I didn’t sleep. I sat in the dark and wondered where her line was. And I realized I didn’t know. I no longer knew what my daughter was capable of. But I was about to find out.