Chapter 5 - Vanessa’s Secret
Vanessa pushed past Samuel before I could say anything.
“Tell me it isn’t true.”
I looked at her.
“What?”
“That you’re Caroline’s daughter.”
I stared at Samuel.
“I didn’t tell her.”
Vanessa wiped her face.
“Dad did.”
“When?”
“Twenty minutes ago.”
“Why?”
“He said you’re trying to steal everything.”
I laughed bitterly.
“Everything was already mine.”
Her expression changed.
So Dad had not told her that part.
I opened the trust schedule.
Vanessa read.
House.
Investment accounts.
Jewelry purchases.
Land.
She slowly sat down.
“My jewelry?”
“Bought with trust money.”
“I didn’t know.”
“Some of it?”
“No.”
“Grandma thought you knew something.”
Vanessa looked toward the floor.
“I knew Dad had fake companies.”
“How?”
“I found statements in his office.”
“When?”
“Three years ago.”
“What did you do?”
“I asked Mom.”
“And?”
“She said Dad moved money around for tax reasons.”
“You believed her?”
“At first.”
“And later?”
Vanessa swallowed.
“I found Caroline’s name.”
There it was.
“What did Mom say?”
“That Caroline was Grandma’s daughter.”
“That she died.”
“Nothing about me?”
Vanessa shook her head.
“No.”
“Then why were you scared of the music box?”
“Because Dad told me Grandma had proof that could put him in prison.”
My anger sharpened.
“And you went looking for it.”
“Yes.”
“To destroy it?”
She hesitated.
“I don’t know.”
“That means maybe.”
Vanessa looked at me.
“I was scared.”
“So was Grandma.”
“That didn’t make twelve years of silence okay.”
She looked away.
Fair.
Samuel closed the front curtains.
“We need to assume Thomas will try to enter the property.”
“He already has keys.”
“I changed the locks this afternoon.”
Dad would love that.
Vanessa reached into her purse.
She placed a small silver key on the table.
“What’s this?”
“Storage unit.”
“Whose?”
“Dad’s.”
Samuel became alert.
“How did you get it?”
“Mom gave me a spare last year.”
“Why?”
“She told me to move boxes if Grandma died.”
“What boxes?”
“I don’t know.”
I looked at Vanessa.
“Take us there.”
The storage facility sat behind a shopping center outside town.
Unit 316.
Inside were ordinary household items at first.
Old furniture.
Business records.
Christmas decorations.
Then Samuel found six banker boxes labeled with years.
The first began three decades earlier.
Caroline.
Photographs.
Legal documents.
Guardianship papers.
A yellowed envelope containing my original birth certificate.
Evelyn Caroline Reed.
Mother:
Caroline Marie Reed.
Father:
Nathan James Reed.
I touched their names.
My parents.
Not Thomas.
Not Diane.
Mine.
Vanessa stood beside me.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For every time I told you Grandma loved me more.”
I almost laughed.
“She left you the jewelry.”
“Apparently stolen jewelry.”
“Still.”
Vanessa began crying again.
“I thought you were jealous of me.”
“I thought you stayed with Grandma because you wanted the will.”
“I thought you were pretending to be good.”
“That is what Mom said.”
My chest tightened.
“How long?”
“Years.”
That explained things I had never understood.
Vanessa’s contempt.
My mother’s small comments.
Dad treating my care for Grandmother as manipulation.
They had created a version of me that protected them from examining themselves.
Samuel opened another box.
Inside were guardianship accountings signed by Thomas.
Every year he certified that my trust assets remained intact.
Every year he lied.
Then I found a photograph.
Caroline standing beside Thomas.
Same day as the music-box photograph.
But this image included another man.
Nathan Reed.
My biological father.
He stood between them.
On the back, Caroline had written:
Nathan still thinks Thomas is his best friend.
Vanessa read over my shoulder.
“Oh my God.”
Samuel looked away.
“You knew them?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“How well?”
“I was junior counsel at your grandfather’s company.”
“What was Thomas to Nathan?”
“Business partner.”
“And friend.”
“Until?”
Samuel looked at the photograph.
“Until Nathan died.”
“How?”
“Construction collapse.”
“Accident?”
“That was the ruling.”
My stomach turned.
Two dead biological parents.
Both connected to Thomas.
Nathan died first.
Caroline three years later.
Then Thomas adopted me.
Became trustee.
And eventually controlled everything they left behind.
I looked at Samuel.
“How many coincidences before you stop calling them coincidences?”
He did not answer.
Then Vanessa opened a metal file cabinet.
Inside was one single folder.
May you like
Across the front, Dad had written:
EVELYN — IF SHE EVER FINDS OUT.
