Chapter 6
Aunt Rachel brought a box with her.
Not clothes.
Not gifts.
Letters.
Dozens of them.
All addressed to me and Ethan.
All returned.
Some unopened.
Some marked refused.
Some with Sarah’s handwriting across the front.
No longer at this address.
I sat at Mr. Alvarez’s kitchen table and spread them out with shaking hands.
Birthday cards.
Christmas cards.
School photos Rachel had printed from Dad’s old emails.
Letters begging Dad to call.
One envelope was thicker than the others.
It had been mailed two weeks before Dad died.
Rachel touched it.
“That one came back after the funeral.”
I opened it.
Inside was a copy of Sarah’s first marriage certificate.
Sarah Whitcomb.
Married to Thomas Reed.
And a newspaper clipping.
Local Woman Inherits Estate After Husband’s Fall.
My throat tightened.
Rachel sat beside me.
“I hired a private investigator when your dad started sounding scared.”
“Why didn’t you come?”
“I did.”
I looked up.
“What?”
Her eyes filled.
“I came to Dallas three days before he died. Sarah met me outside. She said your father didn’t want to see me. She said you kids hated me for interfering.”
“I never knew.”
“I know.”
Her voice cracked.
“I sat in my car for two hours hoping he would come outside.”
I covered my mouth.
All those months I had thought we were alone.
We weren’t.
Sarah had built walls out of lies.
Detective Holt used Rachel’s files to reopen everything.
Thomas Reed’s death.
Dad’s death.
Sarah’s financial records.
The life insurance policy she had increased three months before Dad collapsed.
The bank account she opened under Ethan’s name.
That one made me furious in a new way.
“She used him?”
Detective Holt nodded.
“She deposited money after your father’s death. Then withdrew it in cash.”
“How much?”
“Forty-eight thousand dollars.”
Ethan heard from the doorway.
His face went pale.
“That was for my school?”
I turned.
“What?”
“Dad said he made an account for me. For art camp and college.”
I wanted to break something.
Sarah had not only hurt him.
She had stolen the future Dad left.
Aunt Rachel crossed the room and knelt in front of Ethan.
“We’ll get it back.”
“What if we don’t?”
“Then I’ll help you build another one.”
He blinked.
“You don’t even know me.”
Rachel smiled through tears.
“I know your dad. And I know he loved you. That gives me a place to start.”
Sarah called from jail that night.
The phone rang on Mr. Alvarez’s landline.
He answered.
His face hardened.
Then he handed it to Detective Holt, who happened to be there reviewing files.
The detective pressed record.
Sarah’s voice came through sharp and cold.
“Tell Olivia to stop digging.”
Detective Holt said nothing.
Sarah continued.
“She doesn’t want to know what her father was involved in.”
My hands curled into fists.
Detective Holt wrote something on a notepad.
Keep her talking.
I stepped closer.
“What was he involved in, Sarah?”
A pause.
Then a laugh.
“Oh, pumpkin. Using his word now?”
My skin crawled.
“What did you do to him?”
“I loved him more than your mother ever did.”
“You poisoned him.”
“I saved him from losing everything.”
“What does that mean?”
Sarah’s breath shook.
“He was going to give the house to you.”
My heart stopped.
“He told me,” she hissed. “He said the house, the accounts, the truck, everything was going into a trust for you and Ethan. He was going to leave me with nothing.”
“So you killed him?”
Another pause.
Too long.
Then she whispered, “He should have been grateful.”
Detective Holt’s eyes lifted to mine.
There it was.
Not full.
Not clean.
But enough to cut through the dark.
Sarah suddenly realized the silence.
“Who is listening?”
Detective Holt spoke.
“Detective Karen Holt, Dallas Police Department. This call is being recorded.”
Sarah screamed so loudly I flinched.
Then the line went dead.
Aunt Rachel grabbed my hand.
Mr. Alvarez bowed his head.
Ethan stood in the doorway, crying without sound.
I went to him.
He looked up at me.
“She did it?”
I held his face.
“We’re going to find out everything.”
“But she said Dad was going to protect us.”
“He was.”
Ethan’s chin trembled.
“Then why didn’t he win?”
I looked at the letters on the table.
The camera feed.
The detective.
Our aunt.
May you like
The neighbor Dad trusted.
“He didn’t finish,” I said softly. “So we will.”
