Chapter 3
The emergency room doctor confirmed I had a mild concussion, bruising on my shoulder, and a scalp injury from Diane pulling my hair.
I kept thinking that the physical pain would be the worst part.
It was not.
The worst part was remembering Diane’s face while she hurt me.
She had enjoyed having power over me.
Ethan sat beside my hospital bed for hours.
He did not make excuses.
He did not say Diane had been stressed.
He did not ask me to forgive anyone.
He only said, “I should have protected you before it reached this point.”
I looked at him carefully.
“Why did they think they could do this?”
His eyes filled.
“Because I let them believe there would never be consequences.”
That answer hurt.
But it was honest.
Lena arrived with a folder after midnight.
She had already reviewed the safe footage.
“The police found something important,” she said.
Vanessa had not only tried to open the safe. She had entered a combination repeatedly, using a list Diane had written down.
The list included dates from Ethan’s childhood, the anniversary of his father’s death, and the date of my wedding.
“They were guessing,” I said.
“Not entirely,” Lena replied. “Your father changed the safe combination shortly before he died. He left a note in his estate documents about a separate account.”
Ethan looked up.
“What account?”
Lena opened another file.
My father had set aside money in a private trust. The trust had been created after he discovered someone had attempted to access his investment records years earlier.
That someone was Ethan’s late father.
I stared at the papers.
“Your father-in-law?” I asked.
Lena nodded.
“He did not complete the theft. But he apparently discussed the account with Diane.”
The room went still.
Diane had not been obsessed with my inheritance because she was greedy.
She had been obsessed because she believed part of it belonged to her.
My father had discovered something about Ethan’s father before he died.
Something that had made him protect the account from the entire family.
Lena pointed to a handwritten note from my father.
If Diane Brooks ever approaches Natalie about the Blackwood account, seek counsel immediately.
My hands went cold.
Diane had used the name Blackwood once.
At a Christmas dinner, she asked whether my father had left “those old Blackwood bonds.”
I had assumed she was being nosy.
Now I understood.
She knew exactly what she was looking for.
The next morning, Detective Hall came to speak with me.
Diane and Vanessa had been charged with assault, attempted burglary, and conspiracy.
But the detective had another question.
“Did your father ever mention a man named Robert Blackwood?”
I shook my head.
Detective Hall placed an old photograph on my blanket.
It showed my father standing beside Ethan’s father and a third man I had never seen.
Robert Blackwood.
Behind them was a warehouse near the river.
“There may be more to this than a family theft,” Detective Hall said.
And suddenly, Diane’s whisper made sense.
May you like
I did not know what I was protecting.
But I was about to find out.
