Chapter 5 - GRANDMA JUNE’S LETTERGrandma’s letter was six pages long.
The first two pages were about the property.
The third was about my mother.
The fourth was about Charles Mercer.
By page five, my father was sitting down because his legs would no longer hold him.
I didn’t read the entire thing aloud.
Some words belonged to Grandma and me.
But one paragraph belonged to all of us.
I read it slowly.
“Diane believes Rosewood cost her the life she deserved. She has believed that since she was twenty-two. Charlie Mercer offered to buy the farm cheaply when your grandfather was dying. Diane wanted us to accept. We refused. Charlie told her the town would expand around us and one day the land would be worth millions. He was right about that. What he did not understand was that money was never the reason we stayed.”
Dad stared at Mom.
She had stopped arguing.
I continued.
“Your mother blamed us for years. She believed if we had sold, Charlie would have taken her with him when he left Virginia. Instead, she stayed and married Richard.”
Dad stood.
“Stop.”
I lowered the phone.
His voice cracked.
“You married me because he left?”
Mom finally spoke.
“It wasn’t like that.”
“That is exactly what your mother wrote.”
“We were twenty-two.”
“And you’ve been meeting him for three years.”
“I married you. I built a family with you.”
“While trying to sell your mother’s land to him behind everyone’s back.”
Olivia whispered, “Mom, were you having an affair?”
“No.”
Mom answered too quickly.
Dad heard it.
So did everyone else.
He shut his eyes.
“I asked you a question.”
“It was emotional, not physical.”
That sentence ended my parents’ thirty-eight-year marriage.
Not legally.
Not yet.
But I saw it happen.
Dad removed his wedding ring.
Mom stared at him.
“Richard, don’t be melodramatic.”
He placed the ring on the table.
Thirty-eight years reduced to a small circle of gold beside a stack of forged mortgage documents.
“I’m going home,” he said.
“You can’t leave me here.”
He looked at her with more sadness than anger.
“I think you’ve been leaving me for years.”
Then he walked out.
Mom started after him.
Rebecca said, “Mrs. Whitmore, investigators may need to speak with you further.”
Mom whipped around.
“Am I under arrest?”
“No.”
“Then I’m leaving.”
Rebecca didn’t stop her.
Neither did I.
Olivia remained behind.
For the first time that day, she and I were alone.
She still wore the wedding gown.
It was extraordinary.
Hand-beaded bodice.
Silk skirt.
Cathedral train.
Mom had told everyone it cost $18,000.
Maybe that number was true.
Maybe nothing was anymore.
Olivia stared at the discarded veil lying across a sofa.
“Hannah?”
I waited.
“I’m sorry.”
There were a thousand things I could have said.
You should be.
Too late.
I’ll never forgive you.
Instead I asked, “Why?”
She wiped her face.
“You really want to know?”
“Yes.”
She laughed bitterly.
“Because I was terrified.”
“Of what?”
“Being ordinary.”
I said nothing.
“All my life Mom told me I was the successful one. The pretty one. The one who would marry well and have the right house and the right life.”
“And she told me I was the disappointment.”
Olivia nodded.
“I thought you didn’t care.”
“I cared.”
“You never acted like it.”
“Because reacting gave her more ammunition.”
Olivia looked toward the ballroom.
“I didn’t know how expensive everything would get.”
“You could have changed the wedding.”
“Mom said people were expecting something extraordinary.”
“Which people?”
She laughed again.
“Exactly.”
I sat opposite her.
She looked suddenly younger.
Not innocent.
Just small.
“I didn’t forge the first documents,” she said.
My expression changed.
“What?”
“Mom did.”
“The mortgage application?”
“She started it. Then the broker said there had to be a video verification. Mom asked me to do it.”
“And you agreed.”
“Yes.”
“Did you know it was illegal?”
“Yes.”
At least she didn’t lie.
“Why did you imitate my signature?”
“Mom had samples.”
“From where?”
“Old birthday cards. Documents.”
My stomach tightened.
“How many documents?”
“I don’t know.”
“Olivia.”
“I don’t.”
She began crying again.
“I swear.”
I forced myself to stay calm.
“Did you access my business account today?”
“No.”
“Did you give Charles Mercer my passwords?”
“No.”
“Did Mom?”
“I don’t know.”
I believed that answer.
“Did you ever meet him?”
“Twice.”
“Where?”
“At Mom’s club.”
“What did you discuss?”
“Rosewood.”
My voice dropped.
“What exactly?”
She looked ashamed.
“Ways to make you sell.”
I stared at her.
“He said if the property became expensive enough to hold, eventually you’d give up.”
“Expensive how?”
“Taxes. Maintenance. Debt.”
There it was.
The plan.
Not necessarily steal Rosewood outright.
Burden it.
Create mortgage debt in my name.
Make payments fail.
Damage my credit.
Then offer salvation through a sale.
Maybe I would never know who had engineered the crisis.
Maybe Mom would appear helpful.
Maybe Charles Mercer would acquire seventeen acres worth far more to him as part of a larger development.
“How much was he going to pay Mom?”
Olivia wiped her nose with a tissue.
“I heard two hundred fifty thousand.”
My chest tightened.
“For what?”
“Consulting.”
Of course.
Mom would get a quarter-million-dollar “consulting fee” once I sold property she never owned.
“And you?”
Olivia looked down.
“The condo.”
I nodded slowly.
That was her reward.
A Charleston condo.
A dream wedding.
A life that looked successful from the outside.
All financed by someone else’s property.
“You knew.”
She whispered, “Not all of it.”
“You knew enough.”
“Yes.”
That admission mattered.
Not because it fixed anything.
Because for once she wasn’t hiding behind Mom.
I stood.
“You need a lawyer.”
“Are you going to press charges?”
“That may not be entirely my decision.”
“But if it is?”
I looked at her.
“I won’t lie to protect you.”
Her face crumpled.
“Hannah.”
“You used my identity. You put my home at risk. You helped steal hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
“I’m your sister.”
“And I was yours when you did it.”
She looked away.
I picked up my purse.
At the door she called after me.
“Mom told me something else.”
I stopped.
“What?”
“She said Grandma left you more than Rosewood.”
“I know about the savings account.”
“No.”
I turned.
Olivia shook her head.
“Something in the barn.”
“What?”
“I don’t know. Mom has been looking for it since Grandma died.”
The barn.
I thought about Grandma’s desk, her old gardening tools, Granddad’s tractor, boxes nobody had opened in twenty years.
“What did she say it was?”
“Proof.”
My pulse quickened.
“Proof of what?”
“She never said.”
I drove to Rosewood before sunset.
The gate was open.
I always kept it locked.
My heart began pounding before I even reached the house.
The front door was intact.
Nothing looked disturbed.
Then I saw tire tracks leading through the grass toward the barn.
Fresh tracks.
Someone had arrived before me.
I called Daniel.
“Where are you?”
“At the office.”
“Call the sheriff.”
“Hannah?”
“Someone’s at Rosewood.”
I ended the call and stayed in my car.
I wasn’t going inside alone.
Five minutes later, the barn door opened.
A man stepped out carrying one of Grandma’s old metal document boxes.
Gray hair.
Expensive coat.
I had never met him in person.
But I recognized him from Mercer Land Holdings’ website.
Charles Mercer stopped when he saw my car.
For several seconds, neither of us moved.
Then he smiled.
May you like
And held up Grandma’s box.
“I think,” he called across the yard, “you and I should finally talk.”
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