Daniel grabbed his keys before the black security screen had finished refreshing.
“I’m going back.”
Elaine stepped between him and the conference-room door.
“No.”
“My wife is in that house.”
“So are two men who have already demonstrated they know private information about your family.”
“I don’t care.”
“You should.”
Daniel looked at me, expecting support.
I wanted to give it to him.
I wanted to tell him Renee could not possibly be part of anything involving Harold’s medication, Victor’s blackmail, or the secrets inside that safe-deposit box.
But I had spent too many years protecting people from questions simply because I disliked the answers they might produce.
“Elaine’s right.”
Daniel stared at me.
“Mom.”
“We call the police.”
“And tell them what?”
“The truth.”
He laughed once, sharply.
“Which truth?”
That silenced us.
The lottery.
Redstone.
Victor.
The paternity report.
Harold’s recording.
Renee’s alleged connection to the pharmacy.
Raymond Bell.
Any one of those things sounded unbelievable.
Together they sounded deranged.
Elaine picked up her phone.
“We don’t need to explain fifty years of family history. We report unauthorized entry and possible theft.”
“The door code,” I said.
Daniel looked at me.
“What?”
“Renee knows the code.”
“So she didn’t break in.”
“She entered without permission after we left.”
“That matters.”
Elaine nodded.
“It does.”
Daniel dragged a hand across his face.
His anger seemed to collapse into exhaustion.
“I need to know whether she’s safe.”
“I know.”
He stared at the dark security image on my phone.
Then he nodded.
Elaine made the call.
The bank manager moved us to another private room while we waited.
Daniel sat alone at the far end of a polished table.
I stayed near him without touching him.
He had received too much information in too little time.
The man he believed was his father might not have been his biological father.
The man who raised him had apparently known.
The physician responsible for his conception might also be the biological parent.
His wife had been accused of working with Victor.
And the dead father Daniel had always considered cautious, predictable, almost boring had left behind warnings about blackmail and altered medication.
At fifty, my son looked twelve.
“I should have listened to you,” he said.
“About Victor?”
“About everything.”
“Daniel.”
“I went to him because I thought you were hiding Dad’s money.”
I said nothing.
He continued anyway.
“When I saw that house, I thought you’d been sitting on millions while Renee and I were struggling.”
“Struggling?”
His eyes lifted.
I kept my voice level.
“You live in a four-bedroom house. You both earn good salaries. Your children have never wondered whether there would be dinner.”
“I know.”
“Then choose your words carefully.”
He looked ashamed.
“We wanted more.”
“There’s nothing wrong with wanting more.”
“No.”
He rubbed his thumb along the edge of the table.
“But I started thinking you had more, so maybe I should have more.”
That was closer to the truth.
He looked at me.
“I’m sorry.”
The apology landed quietly.
I believed him.
Believing someone was sorry, I had recently learned, did not require pretending the damage had never happened.
“Thank you.”
He seemed surprised I did not immediately forgive everything.
Perhaps I surprised myself too.
My phone vibrated.
The Willow Creek security system had restored connection.
A camera at the rear entrance came online first.
Empty patio.
Then the driveway.
Victor’s car remained there.
Renee’s SUV was beside it.
A third vehicle, black and unfamiliar, sat near the curb.
Daniel leaned over my shoulder.
“That has to be Bell’s.”
The kitchen camera remained offline.
So did the front hall.
Then the living-room camera appeared.
No one was visible.
But one of my side tables had been knocked over.
A lamp lay on the floor.
The drawer beneath Harold’s photograph stood open.
Daniel swore under his breath.
“What were they looking for?”
“The same thing Victor has always been looking for.”
“Redstone?”
“Maybe.”
I thought of the gray metal case in Victor’s hands.
He had taken it from my bedroom.
That case contained copies of Harold’s business files.
Most were ordinary.
Taxes.
Old contracts.
Insurance.
Except Victor had spent seventeen years waiting for something.
Whatever he wanted, I no longer believed it was merely money.
A call came from the responding officer.
They had arrived at Willow Creek.
No one was inside.
All three vehicles were gone.
No obvious forced entry.
Several rooms had been searched.
A metal document case appeared to be missing.
Nothing else immediately looked stolen.
“Renee?” Daniel asked.
The officer had not found her.
Daniel called again.
Straight to voicemail.
He stood.
“I’m going home.”
Elaine did not stop him this time.
Neither did I.
“I’m coming.”
He opened his mouth.
I raised a hand.
“My house was searched. My husband’s records were stolen. I’m coming.”
Elaine gathered Harold’s ledger, letters and cassette.
“These stay with me.”
“Why?”
“Because Victor has already removed one set of records from Margaret’s house.”
She placed them in her briefcase.
“I’m making copies and putting the originals somewhere neither of you can casually access.”
Under different circumstances, I might have been offended.
Instead, I felt relieved.
The drive to Willow Creek passed in near silence.
A patrol car waited outside.
Neighbors watched from porches.
My beautiful new house had become a spectacle before I had owned it a month.
Inside, the damage was smaller than I feared.
Nothing smashed.
Nothing vandalized.
Drawers opened.
Cabinets searched.
Mattress shifted.
Closet boxes disturbed.
Someone had been methodical.
That was worse.
People who destroy a room are angry.
People who search one know what they want.
An officer asked whether anything besides the gray case was missing.
I checked jewelry.
Cash.
Electronics.
All untouched.
Daniel went upstairs.
A moment later he called my name.
I found him in the window-seat bedroom Sophie loved.
The cushion had been removed.
The wooden panel beneath it stood open.
I had not known it opened.
Inside was an empty compartment.
Daniel pointed.
“Was anything in there?”
“Not that I knew.”
He crouched.
Dust lined most of the space.
Except one rectangle.
Something had rested there recently.
Maybe a box.
Maybe a book.
Maybe an envelope.
My house had belonged to someone else until weeks earlier.
Had Victor known the compartment existed?
Had Bell?
Or had the previous owners left something behind?
Daniel photographed it.
“Who owned this place before you?”
“Susan will know.”
I called her.
The answer made me sit down.
The Willow Creek house had been owned for twenty-three years by a company.
Not a family.
Not an individual.
A corporate entity.
“What company?”
Susan checked.
“Redstone Residential Properties.”
Daniel heard.
His face changed.
I closed my eyes.
The house had not been merely the home he and Renee wanted.
It was connected to Redstone.
Harold’s hidden investment.
Victor’s obsession.
The company apparently worth more than forty million dollars to me.
The property had been placed on the market after Redstone began selling older residential assets.
Daniel sank onto the window seat.
“So Dad owned part of this house.”
“Indirectly.”
“And we almost bought it.”
“Yes.”
“Did you know?”
“No.”
That mattered.
I had purchased Willow Creek because Daniel and Renee once wanted it.
Someone else had allowed the property to appear in our family story long before then.
Coincidence was becoming difficult to believe.
My phone rang.
Renee.
Daniel lunged for it.
I put the call on speaker.
“Renee?”
Breathing.
Nothing else.
Daniel leaned close.
“Where are you?”
“Daniel?”
Her voice sounded strained.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Where are you?”
“I don’t know.”
He closed his eyes.
“What do you mean you don’t know?”
“They took my phone.”
“Who?”
She hesitated.
“Victor.”
“What about Bell?”
Another silence.
“Renee.”
“I didn’t know he would be there.”
That was not an answer.
Daniel’s voice changed.
It became harder.
“How long have you known Victor?”
She started crying.
I watched my son’s face.
He did not soften.
“Answer me.”
“About two years.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
Samuel Kerr had told the truth about that part.
“Why?”
“He contacted me.”
“For what?”
“He said your father had hidden money from you.”
Daniel looked at me.
I said nothing.
Renee continued.
“He knew things about Harold. Business things. He said Margaret would inherit everything and you’d never know.”
My son’s jaw clenched.
“So you helped him.”
“No.”
“You gave him information.”
“I answered questions.”
“What questions?”
“Schedules. Documents. Things Harold talked about.”
My stomach turned.
“Did you photograph Harold’s medication?”
Renee went silent.
Daniel whispered her name.
“Yes.”
His face lost color.
“But I didn’t change it.”
“Were you at the pharmacy?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Victor said there might be proof Harold was hiding something in the prescription records.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“I know that now.”
Daniel stood motionless.
“Did you touch Dad’s medicine?”
“No.”
“Did Victor?”
“I never saw him do it.”
That answer was not enough.
My son knew it.
So did I.
A sound came through the phone.
A door.
Then Renee spoke quickly.
“I have to go.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m in a motel.”
“Which one?”
“I don’t know. Outside Phoenix, maybe.”
“Look at something. A sign. A receipt.”
“They’re coming back.”
“They?”
The line went dead.
Daniel immediately called police.
Elaine called while he was speaking.
Her researcher had found something.
Raymond Bell and Victor Hale had not simply known one another.
They had shared an attorney seventeen years ago.
During the same period Harold and Victor dissolved their construction partnership.
The attorney’s name was Leonard Shaw.
Elaine had also found that Shaw helped create Redstone Development Group.
“Who owned Redstone originally?” I asked.
“That’s the problem.”
“What problem?”
“The earliest ownership records were shielded.”
“By whom?”
“We’re working on it.”
She paused.
“There’s more.”
I waited.
“One of Redstone’s early investors was a medical holding company connected to Raymond Bell.”
Daniel heard.
“So Bell and Dad were business partners?”
“Maybe indirectly.”
Elaine continued.
“And Victor may have believed he deserved part of that transaction.”
I looked toward the hidden compartment under the window seat.
“Why would Harold buy into a company tied to the doctor who fathered his son?”
Nobody answered.
That was the question.
The obvious explanation would have been revenge.
Blackmail.
Payment.
But Harold was not a man who spent seventeen years quietly sitting on a revenge scheme worth forty million dollars.
There was something else.
We returned downstairs.
Police wanted Daniel to meet them regarding Renee’s call.
He hesitated at the front door.
“Come with me.”
I almost did.
Then I looked around my house.
My opened drawers.
My displaced furniture.
My husband’s photograph turned facedown.
“No.”
“Mom.”
“You find Renee.”
“What will you do?”
“I’m going to find out why this house belonged to Redstone.”
He stared at me.
“You’ll call if anything happens?”
“Yes.”
“And don’t let anyone in.”
“I’m seventy-one, not seven.”
For the first time all day, the corner of his mouth moved.
Then he left.
I called Susan.
She dug through the listing file while I waited.
The property had been transferred into Redstone’s residential division twenty-three years earlier.
Before that, it belonged to a private owner.
“Name?”
She hesitated.
“Margaret, this is strange.”
“What?”
“The owner was Raymond Bell.”
I stopped breathing.
Dr. Bell had once owned my house.
Long before Daniel and Renee tried to buy it.
Long before I won the lottery.
Long before I knew Redstone existed.
“When did he sell it?”
“He didn’t exactly.”
“What does that mean?”
“He transferred it into Redstone.”
I walked toward the window-seat room.
Something had been hidden there.
Something somebody returned for today.
“Who lived here when Bell owned it?”
“I can try to find out.”
“Please.”
I ended the call.
Then I heard a sound upstairs.
A floorboard.
I froze.
The police had searched the house.
Everyone had left.
Another sound.
Slow.
Careful.
Coming from the room with the hidden compartment.
I picked up the heavy brass fireplace poker.
Then I climbed the stairs.
The bedroom door stood partly open.
I pushed it wider.
Nobody.
But the wooden panel beneath the window seat was open again.
Inside, where the compartment had been empty minutes earlier, sat a small black envelope.
My name was written across it.
Margaret.
Fresh ink.
Someone had been inside the house while police were downstairs.
I did not touch it.
I called the officer.
Then my phone vibrated.
Unknown number.
One text.
HAROLD WAS NOT WARNING YOU ABOUT VICTOR.
A second followed.
HE WAS WARNING YOU ABOUT BELL.
Click here to continue reading: PART 6: Harold’s Hidden Warning Led Me Back to the Fertility Clinic, Where a Retired Nurse Remembered the Night My Son Was Conceived
Three Months After My Secret Lottery Win, My Son Asked When I Planned to Stop Living Under His Roof
Part 5 of 14
