Chapter 2
“Rebecca.”
Ryan said the name as if it belonged to a ghost.
Margaret grabbed his wrist.
“Do not open that door.”
The knocking came again.
Three hard blows.
Ryan looked at his mother.
“Who is Rebecca?”
Margaret tightened her grip.
“No one.”
A woman’s voice came through the door.
“Ryan, I know Margaret is in there.”
Margaret’s nails dug into his skin.
“She is dangerous. She has been trying to destroy this family for years.”
“You said she was no one.”
“She is no one to us.”
Ryan pulled free and opened the door.
The woman standing on the porch looked about forty-five. Her dark hair was streaked with gray, and rain covered the shoulders of her navy coat.
She carried a leather folder against her chest.
The moment she saw Ryan, her expression broke.
“You look exactly like Dad.”
Ryan did not move.
“Who are you?”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“My name is Rebecca Hale.”
Margaret pushed between us.
“Get off this property.”
Rebecca did not even look at her.
“I’m your sister, Ryan.”
The room went silent.
Ryan’s face lost all color.
“I don’t have a sister.”
“Yes, you do.”
“My sister died when I was eight.”
Rebecca looked directly at Margaret.
“That is what she told you.”
Margaret lunged for the folder.
Rebecca stepped back.
“Don’t touch me.”
Ryan caught his mother’s arm.
“Mom, stop.”
“She is lying!”
Rebecca opened the folder and removed an old photograph.
It showed a teenage girl sitting on the front steps of a brick house. A little boy sat beside her, smiling with a missing front tooth.
The boy was Ryan.
I recognized the blue mark beside his left eyebrow. He had gotten it after falling from a bicycle when he was six.
Ryan took the photograph with shaking fingers.
“I remember this porch.”
Rebecca nodded.
“You should. It was our first house.”
Ryan stared at her face.
Then he looked at Margaret.
“You told me Rebecca drowned.”
Margaret’s lips parted, but no words came out.
“You made me go to a funeral.”
“There was no body,” Rebecca said quietly. “Only an empty coffin.”
Ryan stumbled backward.
I reached for his hand, but he barely seemed to feel me.
“Why would she do that?”
Rebecca’s eyes hardened.
“Because I discovered what she was stealing from Dad.”
Margaret laughed too loudly.
“This is insane. She disappeared after getting involved with drugs. Your father sent her away.”
“My father tried to help me come home.”
Rebecca pulled out several letters.
“You intercepted every letter.”
Ryan took one.
The envelope had been opened and resealed.
His father’s handwriting covered the front.
Ryan had shown me birthday cards written in that same careful script.
Rebecca pointed toward the documents on his phone.
“The attempted transfer of your house is not the first one.”
Margaret’s voice sharpened.
“You have no right to discuss private family business.”
Rebecca finally faced her.
“You stole my inheritance. You forged Dad’s signature. You convinced him I had run away, and you convinced me he never wanted to see me again.”
“That is not what happened.”
“You sent me to a private institution under a false name.”
My breath caught.
Ryan looked sick.
“What institution?”
“Westbrook Behavioral Center in Kentucky.”
Margaret turned to him quickly.
“She was unstable.”
“I was seventeen,” Rebecca said. “I had found bank statements showing Margaret was moving money out of Dad’s company.”
Ryan shook his head.
“No. Dad would have known.”
“He eventually did.”
Rebecca removed a sealed envelope.
“This is the last letter he wrote to me.”
Margaret tried to snatch it.
Ryan blocked her.
“Enough!”
His shout shook the room.
Margaret froze.
Ryan had never raised his voice around her before.
He held out his hand.
Rebecca gave him the envelope.
It was addressed to her, but the words Return to Sender had been stamped across the front.
Inside was a short handwritten letter.
Ryan read it silently.
His shoulders began to tremble.
I stepped closer.
“What does it say?”
He passed it to me.
Rebecca,
I know now that you never abandoned us. I found the records and reported everything. Margaret says she can explain, but I no longer believe her. Come home. Ryan asks about you every day. I am sorry I failed you.
Love,
Dad
The letter was dated six days before Thomas Hale died in a car accident.
Ryan looked at his mother.
“You told me Dad blamed Rebecca for tearing the family apart.”
Margaret straightened her back.
“Your father was confused near the end.”
“He died at forty-six.”
“He was drinking.”
“Dad never drank.”
Rebecca’s eyes never left Margaret.
“He was coming to get me the night he died.”
Margaret’s face tightened.
“That accident had nothing to do with me.”
“No one said it did,” I whispered.
She looked at me sharply.
It was the speed of her denial that frightened me.
Ryan noticed it too.
He stepped away from her.
The rain blew through the open doorway.
Rebecca entered and closed the door behind her.
“I didn’t come here to accuse anyone of murder,” she said. “I came because Margaret used the same forged power-of-attorney document she used twenty-eight years ago.”
Ryan pointed at the message from his attorney.
“How did you know about the house?”
“Because your attorney contacted me.”
“Why would he contact you?”
Rebecca looked at me.
My heart began pounding.
Ryan followed her gaze.
“Emily?”
Margaret smiled.
It was slow and cruel.
“There it is.”
Ryan turned toward me.
“What did you do?”
I swallowed.
“Six weeks ago, I found a copy of your signature in Margaret’s desk.”
His eyes narrowed.
“What were you doing in her desk?”
“Looking for my car keys. She had hidden them again.”
Margaret folded her arms.
“Convenient.”
“I also found a property assessment for our house and a letter addressed to a company called Hale Residential Holdings.”
Ryan stared at me.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I tried. You were about to leave for Chicago, and every time I mentioned your mother, we argued.”
“That doesn’t answer me.”
“I was scared you would think I was attacking her.”
Margaret moved closer to him.
“Because that is exactly what she was doing.”
Rebecca opened the folder again.
“Emily contacted the county clerk. The clerk flagged an unusual deed request and notified your attorney. He traced the company.”
Ryan’s voice became quiet.
“Who owns it?”
Rebecca laid a page on the table.
“Margaret.”
The name appeared beside the company registration number.
But there was another name underneath it.
Lucas Hale.
Ryan stared at the page.
“My cousin?”
“Your mother’s nephew,” Rebecca said. “And a loan officer at Cumberland First Bank.”
Margaret shook her head.
“Lucas helped me create an estate plan. That is all.”
Rebecca placed another document beside the first.
“The company applied for a six-hundred-thousand-dollar loan using this house as collateral.”
My knees almost gave out.
Ryan’s eyes snapped toward Margaret.
“You tried to borrow money against our house?”
“I was protecting your assets.”
“By taking them?”
“The company was going to invest the money.”
“What company?”
“Our family company.”
“There is no family company!”
Margaret’s voice exploded.
“There would have been if your father had not ruined everything by chasing after her!”
She pointed at Rebecca.
Rebecca flinched, but she did not look away.
Ryan seemed to stop breathing.
“So you did know Dad was going to get her.”
Margaret realized her mistake.
Her anger disappeared.
“I was speaking emotionally.”
Rebecca stepped toward her.
“You knew where he was going that night.”
“I knew he was behaving irrationally.”
“You told the police he was driving to a business meeting.”
“He was.”
“You just said he was chasing after me.”
Margaret backed into the table.
The bucket tipped over.
Dirty water spread across the floor.
No one moved to clean it.
Then Ryan’s attorney called.
Ryan answered and put the phone on speaker.
“David, I’m here with my mother and a woman named Rebecca Hale.”
There was a heavy pause.
“Ryan, listen carefully,” David said. “Do not let Margaret leave with any documents, computers, or phones.”
Margaret grabbed her purse.
Ryan blocked the hallway.
“What happened?”
David’s voice became grim.
“The bank approved the loan this morning.”
My chest tightened.
“How?” Ryan demanded.
“Lucas certified your identity remotely.”
“I never spoke to him.”
“We know.”
Ryan stared at his mother.
David continued.
“The money was released two hours ago.”
“How much?”
“Six hundred thousand dollars.”
Ryan’s jaw clenched.
“Where is it now?”
“That is the problem. It has already been transferred out of the holding company.”
Rebecca shut her eyes.
Margaret slowly moved toward the back door.
Ryan stepped in front of her.
“Where did the money go?”
“I don’t know.”
“You own the company.”
“Lucas handled the accounts.”
“Then call him.”
“I don’t take orders from you.”
Ryan gave a broken laugh.
“You just stole our house, and you think this is about orders?”
Margaret looked at me.
Her eyes burned with hatred.
“This would never have happened if you had not married her.”
I stared back.
“You did this because you thought Ryan would always forgive you.”
“He will.”
“No,” Ryan said.
Margaret turned.
He held the front door open.
“You are leaving.”
She looked almost amused.
“David told you not to let me leave.”
“He said not to let you take documents or devices.”
Ryan held out his hand.
“Give me your phone, your purse, and your keys.”
Margaret’s confidence vanished.
“You cannot be serious.”
“Give them to me.”
“I am your mother.”
Rebecca’s voice cut through the room.
“That sentence has protected you long enough.”
Margaret stared at Ryan.
For one second, I thought she might surrender.
Instead, she shoved him hard and ran toward the kitchen.
She yanked open a drawer, grabbed a small silver key, and raced for the back door.
Ryan followed.
I heard a door slam.
By the time we reached the patio, Margaret was running across the wet lawn in her stocking feet.
A dark car waited in the alley.
The passenger door opened.
Lucas Hale was behind the wheel.
Margaret jumped inside.
The car sped away.
Rebecca looked at the silver key Margaret had dropped near the gate.
She picked it up.
A number was engraved on one side.
317.
Rebecca’s expression changed.
“I know what this opens.”
Ryan stared at her.
“What?”
“A safe-deposit box.”
May you like
She closed her hand around the key.
“And if Margaret is willing to steal your house to protect what is inside it, then whatever she has hidden there could destroy all of us.”
