I did not sleep that night.
Grady stayed downstairs with Detective Morales while I sat at the kitchen table, staring at my father's old photograph album.
My marriage had ended with death.
For eleven years, I had believed Thomas was Grady's father.
There had never been a reason to doubt it.
Grady had his smile.
His hands.
His stubbornness.
Even the slight crease between his eyebrows when he was concentrating.
Now my son was telling me that all of it rested on a lie.
At six in the morning, Morales called me into the living room.
Grady was already there.
He looked as if he hadn't slept either.
“I need you both to understand something,” Morales said. “We aren't going to assume the biological question explains the financial crimes. They may be connected, but we need evidence.”
I nodded.
Grady looked at me.
“I didn't mean to hurt you.”
“You already did.”
He lowered his eyes.
“I know.”
“Tell me the truth now.”
“I will.”
Morales placed a sealed envelope on the table.
“Grady says he was told his biological father was someone named Peter Ellis.”
I stared at the name.
“Nathan's father.”
“Yes.”
“Who told you?”
“My grandfather.”
“My father?”
Grady nodded.
“He told me when I was seventeen.”
“Why would he tell you?”
“Because he was sick.”
I remembered that week.
Grady had come home from visiting my father with red eyes.
I had assumed they had argued.
Maybe they had not.
“What did he say?”
“He said Thomas knew.”
I closed my eyes.
“Knew what?”
“That you were pregnant with me before you married Thomas.”
I looked at Grady.
That was true.
I had been nineteen.
Thomas and I had married when I was twenty.
But Grady had been born after the wedding, and I had never considered the possibility that Thomas wasn't his father.
I remembered the night I told Thomas I was pregnant.
He had gone silent.
Then he had said, “I'll take care of you both.”
I had thought he meant marriage.
Maybe he had meant something else.
“Did my father know Peter?”
“Yes.”
“Did he know you were Peter's son?”
“I think so.”
“Think?”
“I never saw the records.”
Morales opened the envelope.
Inside was a copy of a birth record.
Grady's name.
Karen Whitlow listed as mother.
Father's name blank.
I stared at it.
“That can't be right.”
“The original has no father listed,” Morales said.
“Thomas signed the amended certificate later.”
My throat tightened.
“Why wasn't I told?”
“Because the amendment was filed privately.”
“By whom?”
“Thomas.”
The room went silent.
I looked at Grady.
He whispered, “He chose to raise me.”
That should have made me feel grateful.
Instead, I felt betrayed.
Not by Thomas for raising my son.
By the secrecy.
By the fact that everyone had known something about my own life that I had not been allowed to know.
I asked Morales, “Where is Peter Ellis?”
“Dead.”
“When?”
“Twenty-two years ago.”
“How?”
“Car accident.”
I looked toward the window.
“Was Nathan involved?”
“No.”
“Then why is Nathan connected to all this?”
“Because he inherited his father's records.”
Grady nodded.
“Kelsey found them.”
I looked at him.
“How?”
“She searched Nathan's office.”
“She broke into a doctor's office?”
“She didn't do it herself.”
“Who did?”
“I don't know.”
Morales interrupted.
“Let's stay with what we can prove.”
He placed another photograph on the table.
It showed Peter Ellis and Thomas together.
Behind them was the same black pickup.
On the back of the photograph was a date.
October 14, 1994.
I stared.
“That's the year you said you saw the man.”
Grady nodded.
“What happened that night?”
“I was at Grandpa's house.”
“Why?”
“He called me.”
“Your grandfather?”
“Yes.”
“What did he want?”
“He told me to bring the key.”
I looked at him.
“You had the key.”
“Yes.”
“What did he ask you to unlock?”
“The basement.”
My pulse quickened.
“There was a basement?”
“Not exactly.”
“What do you mean?”
“There was a room beneath the cellar.”
Morales looked at me.
“Did you enter it?”
Grady nodded.
“What was inside?”
“A desk.”
“Anything else?”
“Boxes.”
“Records?”
“Yes.”
“People?”
Grady shook his head.
“No.”
“Then why were you frightened?”
“Because I saw Kelsey.”
I stared.
“She was there?”
“No.”
He shook his head.
“Not Kelsey. Her father.”
I froze.
“Kelsey's father knew my grandfather?”
“Yes.”
“What was his name?”
Grady hesitated.
“Martin Hale.”
I recognized the surname.
Kelsey had once told me her father had owned a construction company.
I had never met him.
He had supposedly died before the wedding.
“When did he die?”
“Two years ago.”
I looked at Morales.
“Then he couldn't have been in the basement in 1994.”
Grady nodded.
“That wasn't him.”
“Then who?”
He whispered, “His brother.”
The detective wrote down the name.
“What was his name?”
“I don't know.”
“You must.”
Grady shook his head.
“He never gave it.”
I stood.
“This is impossible.”
Grady looked at me.
“I know.”
“No. You don't.”
I walked toward the kitchen.
I needed air.
Instead, I saw the cellar door.
The hidden room.
The notebook.
The key.
The property survey.
The photograph.
Everything seemed to lead back there.
I turned.
“Take me downstairs.”
Grady hesitated.
“Mom—”
“Now.”
We went down.
Morales followed.
The hollow wall had been opened farther by the investigators.
Behind it was a narrow passage.
It led beneath the original foundation.
Grady stopped.
“I haven't been down here since I was seventeen.”
I looked at him.
“You came back?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Grandpa told me never to.”
Morales entered first.
The passage smelled of earth and old concrete.
At the end was a small room.
There was a desk.
A rusted filing cabinet.
And a wooden chair.
Nothing else.
Except for a rectangular mark on the floor.
Something heavy had once stood there.
Morales crouched.
“There's fresh dust disturbance.”
I looked at Grady.
“You said you haven't been here.”
“I haven't.”
Morales photographed the floor.
Then he opened the filing cabinet.
Most drawers were empty.
One contained an old envelope.
It was addressed to me.
Karen.
No last name.
My hands shook as I opened it.
Inside was a single page.
Thomas's handwriting.
Karen,
If you are reading this, then someone has opened the room again.
I stopped.
Morales leaned closer.
The letter continued.
I did what I believed would keep you and the boy safe. I was wrong about some things. I was right about others.
I read slowly.
Peter Ellis was never supposed to know the truth.
Neither was his son.
I looked at Nathan's name.
But someone told him.
And when that happened, the arrangement began to unravel.
My heart pounded.
What arrangement?
The final paragraph was shorter.
I never stole from anyone.
I moved what they asked me to move.
The money was not mine.
The properties were not mine.
But I became the person they blamed.
At the bottom was one final sentence.
Trust no one who asks you to sell the house.
I lowered the letter.
Kelsey had repeatedly pushed Grady to sell the property.
The first time I had dismissed it.
The second time, I had become annoyed.
Now it felt deliberate.
Morales took the letter.
“Who knew about the house?”
I answered.
“My father.”
“Who else?”
“Grady.”
“Kelsey.”
“Nathan.”
He looked at me.
“And possibly Martin Hale.”
I thought of the black pickup.
The photograph.
The hidden room.
Then I remembered something from Kelsey's first visit to my house.
She had asked whether I intended to keep the property after retirement.
I had laughed.
She had said, “Some places are worth more empty.”
At the time, I thought she was talking about renovation.
Maybe she wasn't.
My phone buzzed.
A message.
No number.
SELL THE HOUSE.
I stared.
A second message appeared.
OR YOUR SON PAYS FOR WHAT HIS GRANDFATHER HID.
Grady saw it.
His face went pale.
“Mom.”
I looked at him.
“What did my grandfather hide?”
He shook his head.
“I don't know.”
Morales took the phone.
Then his own phone rang.
He listened.
His expression changed.
“What?”
He looked at me.
“Nathan Ellis is gone.”
“What do you mean?”
“He left the hospital.”
“He was sick.”
“He was discharged against medical advice.”
“Where did he go?”
Morales didn't answer immediately.
Then he said:
“Your house.”
Click here to continue reading: PART 8: Nathan Returned to My House Before Dawn With a Box From My Father, and Inside It Was the One Thing Grady Had Been Ordered Never to See
My Son Told Me to Stay Away From His House, So I Went to the Dealership and Discovered a Name I Had Never Authorized
Part 7 of 24
