Chapter 4
The photograph had been taken three months earlier.
A date was printed in the lower corner.
Olivia stood beside Nora with one hand on her shoulder, smiling as though they were old friends.
On the back, my father had written an address.
Rosewood Books, Cedar Falls.
“I’m going there,” I told Samuel.
“We should contact the authorities first.”
“If Olivia already found Nora, I can’t wait.”
Samuel studied the photograph.
“Then I’m coming with you.”
Cedar Falls was two hours away.
During the drive, Samuel explained that my trust had been funded through shares in my father’s construction company. Evelyn had sold most of the company after his death, but the trust’s assets should have remained untouched.
“If the original will was deliberately replaced, we’re dealing with more than family betrayal,” he said. “We’re dealing with fraud, forgery, and possibly conspiracy.”
“What about Dad’s death?”
Samuel hesitated.
“Robert died after falling down the basement stairs. It was ruled an accident.”
“Were Mom and Olivia home?”
“Evelyn said she found him. Olivia gave a statement confirming she had been upstairs.”
I remembered that night.
Mom called me at 2:14 in the morning.
She told me Dad was dead before the ambulance had even reached the house.
When I arrived, Olivia was crying in the kitchen.
Mom stood beside the basement door, strangely calm.
At Rosewood Books, a silver bell rang as we entered.
The store smelled of paper and coffee.
A woman behind the counter looked up.
She had gray streaks in her dark hair and my eyes.
The book in her hands fell to the floor.
“Daniel?”
No one had ever said my name like that.
Not Mom.
Not Dad.
Her voice held thirty years of waiting.
I couldn’t move.
Neither could she.
Then Nora came around the counter and stopped several feet away, as though afraid touching me might make me disappear.
“You’re alive,” she whispered.
“So are you.”
Tears filled her eyes.
“They told you I was dead?”
I handed her the clipping.
She read it and covered her mouth.
“Oh, Daniel.”
“Why was Olivia here?”
Fear replaced her grief.
“She came three months ago. She said you were dying.”
My chest tightened.
“What?”
“She said you had a rare heart condition. She claimed you needed money for treatment, but you were too proud to contact me.”
“How much did you give her?”
“Forty thousand dollars.”
Samuel stepped forward.
“Do you have proof?”
Nora nodded.
“Bank records. Messages. Everything.”
She locked the front door and led us upstairs to a small apartment.
The walls were covered with photographs.
Some were of me.
School pictures.
Graduation.
My wedding, even though the marriage had ended years ago.
“How did you get these?” I asked.
“Your father sent them until he died. After that, I found what I could online.”
She opened a wooden chest filled with returned letters.
Every envelope bore my name.
Most had been stamped REFUSED BY RECIPIENT.
“I never refused them.”
“I know that now.”
She took out her phone and showed us Olivia’s messages.
They were cruelly convincing.
Daniel doesn’t want you to see him weak.
He needs an experimental procedure.
Please don’t contact him directly. Stress could kill him.
The last message had arrived six days ago.
We need another $75,000. If you refuse, Daniel may not survive the month.
Nora looked at me.
“I was preparing to sell the bookstore.”
Anger burned through me.
Olivia had stolen from everyone.
But this was worse than money.
She had turned my mother’s love into a weapon.
“Why didn’t you ever come to see me?” I asked.
“I tried.”
Nora removed a folder from the chest.
Inside was a restraining order filed when I was six.
It accused her of threatening to kidnap me.
The signature at the bottom was my father’s.
“He signed this?”
“He told me Evelyn threatened to accuse him of fraud and send him to prison. She controlled the company’s accounts. He said if I fought them, you would be placed in foster care during the trial.”
Samuel examined the order.
“This signature doesn’t look like Robert’s.”
Nora nodded.
“He later admitted Evelyn forged it.”
The room felt smaller.
I sat beside her.
“Mom said you caused the affair.”
“I worked for your father, but I never knew he was married. He used his middle name and rented an apartment. By the time I learned the truth, I was pregnant.”
She reached for my hand, then stopped.
I closed the distance.
Her fingers trembled around mine.
A loud crash came from downstairs.
The bookstore door had been forced open.
Samuel stood.
“Stay here.”
Heavy footsteps crossed the shop.
Then smoke curled beneath the apartment door.
Someone had set fire to the stairs.
Nora grabbed my arm.
“There’s a back exit.”
We ran toward the bedroom, but a voice rose from below.
“Give me the evidence, Nora!”
Olivia.
Nora froze.
I opened the window and looked down at the alley.
A metal fire escape hung below us.
Samuel climbed out first.
Nora followed.
As I lowered myself onto the ladder, the apartment door burst open.
Olivia appeared through the smoke.
Her face was twisted with rage.
May you like
In one hand, she held a gasoline can.
In the other, she held my father’s missing journal.
