\u201cWhy did Rebecca disappear?\u201d<\/p>\n
I asked the question once more through Lawrence\u2019s locked office door.<\/p>\n
Dad finally answered.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe left.\u201d<\/p>\n
His voice sounded different now. Smaller.<\/p>\n
\u201cLeft where?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat isn\u2019t what Grandma believed.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYour grandmother believed whatever suited her.\u201d<\/p>\n
I unlocked the door before Lawrence could stop me.<\/p>\n
Dad stood directly outside.<\/p>\n
Mom was several feet behind him. Olivia leaned against the opposite wall, no longer angry. She looked confused and frightened.<\/p>\n
I held up the photograph of Rebecca with the baby.<\/p>\n
\u201cWho is she?\u201d<\/p>\n
Dad\u2019s eyes fixed on the picture.<\/p>\n
His face drained of color.<\/p>\n
Olivia stepped closer.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat is that?\u201d<\/p>\n
Neither parent answered.<\/p>\n
I turned the photograph toward my sister.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat baby is apparently me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Olivia frowned.<\/p>\n
\u201cWho\u2019s holding you?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cRebecca Hale.\u201d<\/p>\n
No recognition.<\/p>\n
At least Olivia had been kept outside the secret too.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was Dad\u2019s first wife.\u201d<\/p>\n
Olivia looked at him.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n
Mom closed her eyes.<\/p>\n
Dad\u2019s jaw hardened.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhitfield had no right to show you that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lawrence stepped beside me.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe documents belong to Amelia.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dad pointed at him.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have been manipulating my mother for years.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDaniel,\u201d Lawrence said, \u201cyou should be extremely careful about what you say next.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dad ignored him.<\/p>\n
He looked at me.<\/p>\n
\u201cRebecca was troubled.\u201d<\/p>\n
The description sounded rehearsed.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was unstable.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAccording to whom?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAccording to everyone who knew her.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lawrence made a quiet sound that was almost a sigh.<\/p>\n
I looked at Dad.<\/p>\n
\u201cGrandma knew her.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYour grandmother saw what she wanted.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cRebecca wrote Grandma a letter saying she was afraid of you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mom\u2019s head snapped toward me.<\/p>\n
That reaction mattered.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve seen the letter?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n
I turned slowly.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou knew it existed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mom\u2019s mouth opened.<\/p>\n
Dad cut in.<\/p>\n
\u201cEnough.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo,\u201d I said. \u201cNot anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n
Olivia looked between us.<\/p>\n
\u201cWould somebody tell me what is happening?\u201d<\/p>\n
I handed her the photograph.<\/p>\n
She studied it.<\/p>\n
Dad reached for it.<\/p>\n
Olivia pulled it away.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
He stared at her.<\/p>\n
She had probably never told him no that quickly in her life.<\/p>\n
\u201cWas Amelia adopted?\u201d Olivia asked.<\/p>\n
Mom began crying.<\/p>\n
The answer was suddenly obvious.<\/p>\n
I felt no triumph.<\/p>\n
Only exhaustion.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat happened to Rebecca?\u201d<\/p>\n
Dad rubbed both hands over his face.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe died.\u201d<\/p>\n
Olivia\u2019s mouth fell open.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cCar accident.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen?\u201d<\/p>\n
He didn\u2019t answer.<\/p>\n
I did.<\/p>\n
\u201cTwenty-seven years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n
Olivia looked at me.<\/p>\n
The significance registered slowly.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s how old\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHow long they\u2019ve been lying.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mom stepped toward me.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were protecting you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom knowing who my mother was?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou were a child.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI stopped being a child twelve years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe didn\u2019t know how to tell you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou managed to tell yourselves every day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dad\u2019s temper broke.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou think this is simple because Ruth gave you a folder?\u201d<\/p>\n
His voice echoed through the office.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have no idea what Rebecca was doing. You have no idea what that time was like.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThen explain it.\u201d<\/p>\n
He stared at me.<\/p>\n
\u201cExplain why she was afraid of you. Explain why Grandma marked your burglary report false. Explain why Rebecca said you weren\u2019t my father.\u201d<\/p>\n
His face changed at that last sentence.<\/p>\n
Mom looked at him.<\/p>\n
There was something in that glance I couldn\u2019t interpret.<\/p>\n
Not surprise.<\/p>\n
History.<\/p>\n
I stepped closer.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou knew.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dad said nothing.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou knew I wasn\u2019t biologically yours.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mom whispered, \u201cAmelia.\u201d<\/p>\n
I turned to her.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd you knew too.\u201d<\/p>\n
She began crying harder.<\/p>\n
Olivia lowered the photograph.<\/p>\n
\u201cMom, what did you do?\u201d<\/p>\n
Dad moved toward me and grabbed my arm.<\/p>\n
The contact lasted perhaps one second.<\/p>\n
Lawrence immediately stepped between us.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo not touch her.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dad released me.<\/p>\n
I looked at the place where his fingers had been.<\/p>\n
Something inside me settled.<\/p>\n
I had spent my childhood trying to prevent my father from becoming angry. I chose words carefully. I apologized early. I learned when to disappear upstairs.<\/p>\n
Now I realized his anger had always worked because everyone cooperated with it.<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t have to anymore.<\/p>\n
\u201cLawrence,\u201d I said, \u201cI want to leave.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dad blocked the hallway.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou walk away now, you will regret it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMove.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re destroying this family.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo. I\u2019m asking questions.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSame thing to you, apparently,\u201d Olivia said quietly.<\/p>\n
Everyone looked at her.<\/p>\n
Dad\u2019s face tightened.<\/p>\n
\u201cStay out of this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Olivia gave a stunned laugh.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou dragged me into it over the inheritance.\u201d<\/p>\n
He moved aside.<\/p>\n
Lawrence and I left.<\/p>\n
Back in the conference room, he placed every document from the blue folder into archival sleeves.<\/p>\n
I sat without speaking for nearly an hour.<\/p>\n
My phone vibrated repeatedly.<\/p>\n
I turned it off.<\/p>\n
Eventually Lawrence opened the leather case again.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is another letter.\u201d<\/p>\n
I looked up.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom Rebecca?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom Ruth.\u201d<\/p>\n
He handed me an envelope.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was delivered to me two months ago. Your grandmother instructed me not to give it to you until you knew Rebecca existed.\u201d<\/p>\n
I opened it carefully.<\/p>\n
Grandma\u2019s handwriting was less steady than in the first note.<\/p>\n
She began by apologizing.<\/p>\n
For twenty-seven years, she wrote, she had wondered whether she had failed Rebecca.<\/p>\n
Rebecca had been Dad\u2019s first wife.<\/p>\n
Grandma described her as bright, stubborn and courageous, someone who refused to ignore numbers that did not add up.<\/p>\n
That detail made me stop.<\/p>\n
It sounded like me.<\/p>\n
Grandma said Rebecca discovered Dad had been stealing money from the company where he worked.<\/p>\n
Not small amounts.<\/p>\n
Enough to frighten her.<\/p>\n
She found financial records and confronted him.<\/p>\n
Dad promised to repay it.<\/p>\n
Rebecca didn\u2019t believe him.<\/p>\n
She began copying documents.<\/p>\n
Three weeks later, she died.<\/p>\n
I lowered the letter.<\/p>\n
\u201cLawrence.\u201d<\/p>\n
He was watching me.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe accident.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Grandma had never believed it was simply an accident.<\/p>\n
Rebecca\u2019s car left the road on a curve early one morning.<\/p>\n
Investigators found a mechanical failure involving the brakes.<\/p>\n
The case was closed.<\/p>\n
Grandma disagreed with the conclusion because Rebecca had come to her house the previous night carrying me.<\/p>\n
She had been frightened.<\/p>\n
She told Grandma that Daniel knew she had copied financial records.<\/p>\n
She gave Grandma a letter and asked her to protect me if anything happened.<\/p>\n
The next morning Rebecca was dead.<\/p>\n
I pressed my fingers against my forehead.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy didn\u2019t Grandma go to the police?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe did.\u201d<\/p>\n
I looked up.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen what happened?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYour father had already spoken with investigators.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat did he tell them?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat Rebecca had been emotionally unstable, that their marriage was collapsing, and that she had threatened to disappear.\u201d<\/p>\n
I remembered Dad using the same word less than an hour earlier.<\/p>\n
Unstable.<\/p>\n
A story polished by twenty-seven years of repetition.<\/p>\n
I returned to Grandma\u2019s letter.<\/p>\n
She wrote that she had planned to tell me when I turned eighteen.<\/p>\n
Then she waited until twenty-one.<\/p>\n
Then graduation.<\/p>\n
Then after I moved to Chicago.<\/p>\n
Each time, she convinced herself she needed stronger proof.<\/p>\n
Her shame filled the page.<\/p>\n
But there was something else.<\/p>\n
She had not feared only Dad.<\/p>\n
Margaret knew.<\/p>\n
I stopped reading.<\/p>\n
My mother.<\/p>\n
According to Grandma, Mom knew Rebecca had feared Daniel. She knew he was hiding money.<\/p>\n
And she knew Daniel was not my biological father.<\/p>\n
I looked at Lawrence.<\/p>\n
\u201cMom knew everything?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNot everything.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat did she know?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cKeep reading.\u201d<\/p>\n
I did.<\/p>\n
The next paragraph confused me at first.<\/p>\n
Grandma wrote about a pregnancy and the complicated sequence of relationships surrounding my birth. Some details remained uncertain in the records she had gathered, but one fact had become clear to her: Daniel had knowingly raised a child who was not biologically his while the adults around me constructed a version of my origin they expected never to be questioned.<\/p>\n
Rebecca had been the person determined to preserve the truth.<\/p>\n
Grandma had spent years trying to identify the man Rebecca believed was my biological father.<\/p>\n
Eight months earlier, Rebecca\u2019s brother Marcus contacted her.<\/p>\n
He had discovered a box of his sister\u2019s belongings.<\/p>\n
Inside was another letter.<\/p>\n
That letter named a man.<\/p>\n
Thomas Avery.<\/p>\n
I said the name aloud.<\/p>\n
Nothing.<\/p>\n
No memory.<\/p>\n
No childhood visitor.<\/p>\n
No mysterious uncle.<\/p>\n
Nobody.<\/p>\n
\u201cWho was he?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYour grandmother investigated him.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIs he alive?\u201d<\/p>\n
Lawrence shook his head.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe died six years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n
I sat back.<\/p>\n
A father I had known all my life apparently wasn\u2019t my father.<\/p>\n
A woman I had never heard of might have been my mother.<\/p>\n
And a man whose name I had learned thirty seconds earlier might be the missing biological connection between them.<\/p>\n
I felt less like a person than the subject of an investigation.<\/p>\n
\u201cDid Grandma prove Thomas was my father?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNot conclusively.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThen why include the name?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause Rebecca believed he was.\u201d<\/p>\n
I folded the letter against my lap.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy leave me everything?\u201d<\/p>\n
Lawrence\u2019s answer came quietly.<\/p>\n
\u201cRuth believed money was the mechanism your family used to control people. She wanted you to have enough independence that nobody could force you to accept their version of events.\u201d<\/p>\n
I thought of Mom\u2019s text.<\/p>\n
Transfer Olivia her fair share or don\u2019t bother coming home.<\/p>\n
Grandma had known us better than I wanted to admit.<\/p>\n
I returned to the final page.<\/p>\n
One paragraph remained.<\/p>\n
The house contains what I could never prove.<\/p>\n
I read the sentence twice.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat does that mean?\u201d<\/p>\n
Lawrence leaned forward.<\/p>\n
\u201cRuth believed Rebecca hid evidence somewhere inside the property.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cEvidence of Dad stealing?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPossibly.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cEvidence about the accident?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPossibly.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t know?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDid Grandma know where it was?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf she did, she never told me.\u201d<\/p>\n
I laughed, though nothing was funny.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe left me a mystery inside a house my father is desperate to enter.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is one way to describe it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s the other?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAn evidentiary problem involving people who have already demonstrated they are willing to interfere.\u201d<\/p>\n
That sounded more like a lawyer.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat do we do?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe secure the property properly. We document everything. And you do not search alone.\u201d<\/p>\n
By afternoon we returned to Grandma\u2019s house with a locksmith and an off-duty security officer Lawrence had hired.<\/p>\n
My parents and Olivia were still there.<\/p>\n
Nobody argued this time.<\/p>\n
Dad stood near the driveway watching the locksmith replace the front lock.<\/p>\n
His face looked gray.<\/p>\n
Mom sat in her car.<\/p>\n
Olivia approached me.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI know.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI swear.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her eyes filled.<\/p>\n
\u201cIs this why Grandma left you everything?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s part of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Olivia glanced toward Dad.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you think he killed her?\u201d<\/p>\n
I followed her gaze.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n
For once, neither of us tried to fill the silence.<\/p>\n
When the locksmith finished, Lawrence handed me the new key.<\/p>\n
I unlocked Grandma\u2019s door.<\/p>\n
The familiar smell nearly undid me.<\/p>\n
Cedar from the hall closet.<\/p>\n
Lavender sachets.<\/p>\n
Old books.<\/p>\n
A trace of the tea Grandma drank every afternoon.<\/p>\n
For one second I expected her to call from the kitchen.<\/p>\n
I walked slowly through the rooms.<\/p>\n
Dad remained near the entrance.<\/p>\n
He seemed unwilling to go farther.<\/p>\n
That alone told me the house contained something he feared.<\/p>\n
I went upstairs.<\/p>\n
Grandma\u2019s bedroom looked almost untouched.<\/p>\n
Her reading glasses rested beside an unfinished crossword.<\/p>\n
A blue cardigan hung over the back of a chair.<\/p>\n
I touched the dresser.<\/p>\n
Then I remembered the cedar chest.<\/p>\n
Grandma had kept it beneath the bedroom window for decades.<\/p>\n
Inside were folded quilts, old Christmas ornaments and boxes of photographs.<\/p>\n
At the bottom sat a small wooden box I had never seen before.<\/p>\n
I lifted it out.<\/p>\n
Inside was a brass key.<\/p>\n
Beneath it was a note.<\/p>\n
Find the place where I taught you to tell the truth.<\/p>\n
I stared at the sentence.<\/p>\n
Then memory arrived.<\/p>\n
The garden.<\/p>\n
When I was eight, I had broken one of Grandma\u2019s ceramic planters while playing and blamed the neighbor\u2019s cat.<\/p>\n
She had known immediately.<\/p>\n
Instead of punishing me, she took me into the garden and made me help repot the damaged plant.<\/p>\n
\u201cLiving things show what happened to them,\u201d she had told me. \u201cYou can hide a broken pot. You can\u2019t hide what the roots have been through.\u201d<\/p>\n
I ran downstairs.<\/p>\n
Lawrence followed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere are you going?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe greenhouse.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dad heard me.<\/p>\n
His reaction was immediate.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
I stopped.<\/p>\n
Everyone did.<\/p>\n
Dad had gone pale.<\/p>\n
That was all the confirmation I needed.<\/p>\n
I crossed the garden.<\/p>\n
The old greenhouse stood behind a row of overgrown roses, its glass clouded with dust.<\/p>\n
The brass key fit.<\/p>\n
Inside, cobwebs stretched between empty pots and rusted tools.<\/p>\n
I went to Grandma\u2019s old workbench.<\/p>\n
When I was a child, she had kept seed packets in a metal container underneath it.<\/p>\n
I knelt.<\/p>\n
The box was still there.<\/p>\n
But it had a lock now.<\/p>\n
My hands shook as I inserted the key.<\/p>\n
The mechanism clicked.<\/p>\n
Inside lay a cassette tape.<\/p>\n
A flash drive.<\/p>\n
Several photographs.<\/p>\n
And a folded letter with Rebecca\u2019s name across the bottom.<\/p>\n
Behind me, Dad whispered one word.<\/p>\n
\u201cAmelia.\u201d<\/p>\n
I turned.<\/p>\n
He stood in the greenhouse doorway.<\/p>\n
For the first time since this began, my father did not look angry.<\/p>\n
He looked defeated.<\/p>\n
I lifted Rebecca\u2019s letter.<\/p>\n
\u201cTell me what\u2019s on this before I read it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dad stared at the paper.<\/p>\n
Mom had followed him into the garden. Olivia stood behind her. Lawrence remained beside me.<\/p>\n
Nobody moved.<\/p>\n
\u201cDad.\u201d<\/p>\n
His shoulders sank.<\/p>\n
\u201cPlease.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTwenty-seven years of \u2018please\u2019 is enough.\u201d<\/p>\n
I unfolded the letter.<\/p>\n
The first lines confirmed what Grandma had suspected.<\/p>\n
Rebecca had discovered Dad\u2019s theft.<\/p>\n
She had copied the records.<\/p>\n
She believed he was capable of hurting her.<\/p>\n
She named Thomas as my biological father.<\/p>\n
Then I reached the final paragraph.<\/p>\n
Daniel did not marry me for love.<\/p>\n
He married me because he wanted access to money belonging to my family.<\/p>\n
I looked up.<\/p>\n
Dad had closed his eyes.<\/p>\n
\u201cIs it true?\u201d<\/p>\n
He opened them.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhich part?\u201d<\/p>\n
Mom began crying.<\/p>\n
Dad sat heavily on the old wooden bench.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was in debt.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHow much?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat isn\u2019t a number.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt mattered enough for Rebecca to die with evidence hidden in a greenhouse.\u201d<\/p>\n
His face tightened.<\/p>\n
\u201cI did not kill her.\u201d<\/p>\n
The answer came immediately.<\/p>\n
I believed that he believed it.<\/p>\n
That wasn\u2019t the same as believing him.<\/p>\n
\u201cDid you damage her car?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDid you threaten her?\u201d<\/p>\n
His silence lasted one second too long.<\/p>\n
\u201cDad.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mom covered her mouth.<\/p>\n
Olivia stared at him.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat did you say?\u201d<\/p>\n
Dad looked toward the dusty greenhouse windows.<\/p>\n
\u201cI told her if she exposed me, she would destroy all of us.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDid you know somebody else wanted her silent?\u201d<\/p>\n
He looked at me.<\/p>\n
Something moved behind his eyes.<\/p>\n
Fear again.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
My skin went cold.<\/p>\n
\u201cWho?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t know then.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know now?\u201d<\/p>\n
He stared at the flash drive in my hand.<\/p>\n
Lawrence stepped closer.<\/p>\n
\u201cDaniel, if you have information related to Rebecca\u2019s death, this is the moment to speak.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dad rubbed his palms together.<\/p>\n
\u201cI followed Rebecca to this house the night before she died.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mom made a small sound.<\/p>\n
Apparently even she hadn\u2019t known that.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe argued,\u201d Dad continued. \u201cShe told me she was taking Amelia and leaving. She said she had sent copies of the financial records to someone else.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWho?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe wouldn\u2019t tell me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat happened after you left?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe stayed here with Ruth.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd the next morning?\u201d<\/p>\n
Dad\u2019s face collapsed.<\/p>\n
\u201cRebecca was dead.\u201d<\/p>\n
I held up the flash drive.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen whatever she wanted Grandma to know may be on this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dad stood abruptly.<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t plug that into anything.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lawrence moved between us.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy?\u201d<\/p>\n
Dad looked from him to me.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause Rebecca wasn\u2019t only investigating me.\u201d<\/p>\n
The greenhouse went silent.<\/p>\n
\u201cWho else?\u201d<\/p>\n
Dad swallowed.<\/p>\n
\u201cA man named Charles Avery.\u201d<\/p>\n
The surname struck me.<\/p>\n
\u201cAvery?\u201d<\/p>\n
He nodded.<\/p>\n
\u201cThomas Avery\u2019s brother.\u201d<\/p>\n
I looked at the flash drive.<\/p>\n
Dad\u2019s voice dropped almost to a whisper.<\/p>\n
\u201cCharles had more reason to fear Rebecca than I did.\u201d<\/p>\n
I closed my fingers around the drive.<\/p>\n
For twenty-seven years, my father had hidden the truth because it could expose his crimes.<\/p>\n
But perhaps Rebecca\u2019s death had been protecting someone else too.<\/p>\n
And the evidence was finally in my hand.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy did Rebecca disappear?\u201d I asked the question once more through Lawrence\u2019s locked office door. Dad finally answered. \u201cShe left.\u201d His voice sounded different now. Smaller. \u201cLeft where?\u201d \u201cI don\u2019t … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1863,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chapter-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thechapterstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thechapterstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thechapterstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thechapterstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thechapterstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1867"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thechapterstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1867\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1879,"href":"https:\/\/thechapterstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1867\/revisions\/1879"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thechapterstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thechapterstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thechapterstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thechapterstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}