Chapter 8
I nearly dropped the phone.
“What?”
David grabbed my shoulder.
Michael spoke quickly.
“You had heart palpitations after Lily was born.”
I remembered.
Stress.
Sleepless nights.
A doctor gave me medication briefly.
“But that prescription wasn’t mine.”
“I picked it up for you.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“Yes.”
My head started spinning.
Then a memory returned.
Michael had brought groceries one afternoon after Dad died.
He gave me a pharmacy bag.
I never opened it because my doctor had already changed my medication.
“What happened to it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then why is your name on the prescription?”
“Mom—Catherine—asked me to get it.”
My mother.
Until that moment, she had barely appeared anywhere in the investigation.
I felt cold.
“Why?”
“She said you were having heart problems.”
“She knew my doctor had changed the prescription.”
“I didn’t know that.”
Detective Collins leaned closer.
“Ask him who collected the medication.”
“Michael, did you personally pick it up?”
“No.”
“Who did?”
Silence.
“Michael.”
“Evelyn.”
David cursed.
Apparently Evelyn had manipulated another chain of people.
Prescription in Michael’s name.
Supposedly intended for me.
Collected by Evelyn.
Then found in my father’s system.
Collins ended the call after confirming details.
“We need to find Catherine.”
I stared at him.
“My mother?”
“If she initiated the prescription request, we need her statement.”
I called.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
Then Emily looked worried.
“When did you last speak to Catherine?”
“Yesterday morning.”
“What did she say?”
“She was visiting a friend.”
“Which friend?”
“I don’t know.”
Emily stood.
“That isn’t like Evelyn’s recent behavior.”
“What do you mean?”
“My mother always removes witnesses before she acts.”
My stomach dropped.
We drove to Catherine’s house with police.
The front door was unlocked.
Her purse sat on the kitchen counter.
Her phone was upstairs.
She was gone.
Then David found a note.
SARAH,
IF ANYTHING HAPPENS TO ME, OPEN ROBERT’S OLD GREENHOUSE.
I stared at it.
My father’s greenhouse had been abandoned since his death.
Police accompanied us there.
The door was locked.
Inside, beneath a loose floorboard, Collins found a waterproof container.
Documents.
Audio recordings.
A laptop.
And a handwritten confession.
Not Evelyn’s.
My mother’s.
Sarah,
Robert was not killed because of money.
He was killed because he discovered what Evelyn and I did twenty-nine years ago.
My hands shook.
“What did they do?”
The next page explained.
Catherine and Evelyn had manipulated the original Mitchell-Walker ownership records after both families nearly collapsed.
They forged signatures.
Moved properties.
Created secret accounts.
My mother had participated.
She had benefited.
Then Robert discovered everything years later.
He began building the trust to preserve assets for the next innocent generation.
Lily.
That was why the money belonged to her.
It wasn’t simply inheritance.
It was restitution.
David looked stunned.
Then I read the final paragraph.
Evelyn believes I still have the original ledger. She is wrong. I gave it to the only person she will never suspect.
My heart pounded.
“Who?”
A photograph fell from the pages.
Lily.
I stared.
Then I remembered the wooden music box my father gave Lily before he died.
She kept it beside her bed.
We raced home.
I opened the music box.
Under the velvet lining was a small flash drive.
David whispered, “Your father gave the evidence to an eight-year-old?”
“She was four when he died.”
“He knew nobody would search her toys.”
I inserted the drive into my laptop.
Hundreds of documents appeared.
Then one video.
Recorded the night before Robert died.
He looked directly into the camera.
“If Sarah is watching this, Evelyn has finally made her move.”
I covered my mouth.
He continued.
“But she isn’t the person you should fear most.”
May you like
Then he spoke my mother’s name.
“Catherine started all of it.”
