Chapter 4 - The Life My Mother Had Built in My NameBy midnight, the wedding seemed almost irrelevant.
I was sitting in a hospital bed with a mild concussion, a bruised hip, and Detective Elena Ruiz asking me whether I had ever opened a credit card with a department store in Milwaukee.
“No.”
“A personal loan through Harbor Financial?”
“No.”
“A business credit line?”
“No.”
She placed another sheet of paper on the tray beside my bed.
“Car lease?”
I stared at her.
“I don’t drive a Mercedes.”
Detective Ruiz nodded.
“Your mother does.”
My mouth went dry.
The lease was in my name.
So was a $14,000 personal loan.
Two retail credit cards.
And the Lake County bank account.
The detective had only begun searching.
“We’ll need a full credit report,” she said. “Possibly a forensic accountant.”
I looked toward the window.
Rain had begun falling outside.
“What happens to her?”
“That depends on what we find and what you decide to report.”
“She shoved me in front of ten witnesses.”
“The physical assault is separate.”
I swallowed.
“Do I get a choice about that?”
“The prosecutor ultimately decides whether to file charges. But your cooperation matters.”
I nodded.
Detective Ruiz paused.
“This kind of financial abuse inside families can go unnoticed for years.”
I almost laughed.
Financial abuse.
There was something obscene about hearing clinical language applied to the woman who packed my lunches in elementary school.
My mother taught me to tie my shoes.
My mother held my hand during my first day of kindergarten.
My mother stole my identity.
Human beings are inconveniently complicated.
Daniel waited in the hallway.
Emily waited three floors below because I had asked not to see her yet.
I wasn’t ready.
At 1:20 a.m., Daniel came in carrying coffee.
“You look terrible,” I said.
His tuxedo shirt was wrinkled. The bow tie was gone. His hair looked like he had dragged his hands through it fifty times.
“You’re one to talk.”
I smiled despite myself.
He placed the coffee where I could reach it.
“Patricia went home with my dad.”
“How are they?”
“Embarrassed.”
“They shouldn’t be.”
“They believed things about you that weren’t true.”
“So did Emily.”
His face closed.
I regretted saying it.
Not because it was false.
Because he was already hurting.
“Sorry.”
“No. You’re right.”
He sat beside the bed.
For a while, neither of us spoke.
Then he said, “Your sister is still downstairs.”
“I know.”
“She won’t leave.”
“That sounds like Emily.”
“She keeps asking whether you’re okay.”
“I’m not.”
He nodded.
“Fair.”
I sipped the coffee.
Terrible.
Hospital coffee should probably qualify as a controlled substance.
“Are you done with her?”
Daniel stared at his hands.
“I don’t know.”
“That’s allowed.”
“I was supposed to be married twelve hours ago.”
“I’m probably the wrong person to ask.”
He looked at me.
“You’re probably the only person who understands why I stopped it.”
I did.
Daniel wasn’t furious because Emily had made one horrible decision.
He was terrified that the decision revealed something about her character.
Marriage requires you to trust who someone is when nobody is watching.
Emily had chosen appearances over her sister.
Then lied about it.
That mattered.
“Did she know about the money?” I asked.
“I don’t think so.”
“Neither do I.”
His eyebrows rose.
“You believe her?”
“About that part.”
“Why?”
“Because Emily is a terrible liar.”
He almost smiled.
I continued.
“She knew Mom took credit for some of the wedding expenses. I think she chose not to question it because believing Mom was easier than admitting I paid for almost everything.”
“That’s still awful.”
“Yes.”
“But it isn’t fraud.”
“No.”
Daniel looked toward the hallway.
“She asked me whether postponing the wedding means we’re still engaged.”
“What did you say?”
“That I need time.”
“Good answer.”
He nodded.
Then he reached into his pocket.
The velvet ring box.
“I nearly forgot.”
He handed it to me.
“You should keep this.”
“Technically, it belongs to Emily.”
“I think jewelry ownership is the least complicated legal issue in your family tonight.”
This time I laughed.
Then something caught my eye.
The lining inside the box had lifted where the receipt had been hidden.
Beneath it was a tiny slit.
“What?”
Daniel asked.
“Give me your phone.”
He turned on the flashlight.
I lifted the velvet lining.
There was something else underneath.
A small brass key.
Daniel stared.
“Did you put that there?”
“No.”
He picked it up.
A number was stamped into the metal.
317.
Storage locker?
Safe-deposit box?
Hotel locker?
Neither of us knew.
But someone had hidden a bank receipt and a key beneath my grandmother’s wedding ring.
Someone wanted them found.
The question was who.
And why.
At two in the morning, Detective Ruiz returned.
She studied the key.
“Safe-deposit keys often have bank-specific markings. This one doesn’t.”
She took a photograph.
“We’ll look into it.”
Then she asked me where the ring box had been before Mom brought it to my apartment.
“My father’s desk.”
“Who had access?”
“Mom.”
“Anyone else?”
I hesitated.
Dad’s younger brother, Uncle Robert, had helped Mom clear the house after Dad died.
And there was one other person.
Our father’s longtime attorney.
Thomas Bell.
He had handled the estate.
I gave Ruiz both names.
At 2:30, the hospital discharged me.
Daniel drove me home.
Emily was waiting near the hospital entrance.
Still in her wedding dress.
Someone had given her a gray sweatshirt, but white lace spilled from beneath it.
She looked ridiculous.
And heartbreakingly young.
When she saw me, she hurried forward, then stopped a few feet away.
“Can I talk to you?”
Daniel walked toward the car without saying anything.
I looked at my sister.
“Five minutes.”
She nodded.
“I deserve everything you’re thinking about me.”
“I’m not sure what I’m thinking.”
“I knew Mom didn’t want you in the photographs.”
There was no point pretending.
“I know.”
“I should have said no.”
“Yes.”
“I should have told her if you weren’t there, there wouldn’t be a wedding.”
“Yes.”
She cried silently.
“I wanted everything to look perfect.”
I glanced at her wedding dress.
“Did it?”
She laughed through tears.
Then covered her face.
“I’m so sorry.”
I watched her.
Emily had always been beautiful in a way people noticed immediately.
She was charming.
Warm.
Sometimes selfish.
Far too concerned with approval.
But evil?
No.
Cowardly, maybe.
And cowardice can hurt people just as badly as cruelty.
“I love you,” I said.
Her face crumpled.
“But I don’t trust you right now.”
She nodded.
“You shouldn’t.”
“I need space.”
“How much?”
“I don’t know.”
She took a shaky breath.
“Okay.”
I started toward Daniel’s car.
“Claire?”
I looked back.
“I didn’t know about Mom taking your identity.”
“I believe you.”
Relief flashed across her face.
“But that doesn’t erase everything else.”
“I know.”
Daniel drove me home.
At 3:17 a.m., after he left, I wheeled into my bedroom.
My apartment felt impossibly quiet.
I placed the brass key beside the ring box.
Then I noticed something I had missed before.
A number written in pencil beneath the velvet lining.
Not 317.
A phone number.
I recognized the area code.
Wisconsin.
I called.
It rang four times.
A man answered.
“Hello?”
I almost hung up.
Then I said, “My name is Claire Morgan. I found your number inside a jewelry box that belonged to my father.”
Silence.
Then the man inhaled sharply.
“Claire?”
“Yes.”
“My God.”
“Who is this?”
Another pause.
“My name is Thomas Bell.”
Dad’s attorney.
I gripped the phone.
“How did your number get inside my grandmother’s ring box?”
He exhaled.
“Your father put it there.”
“My father has been dead for two years.”
“I know.”
“Why would he hide your number?”
Thomas Bell said nothing for several seconds.
Then:
“Because he was afraid your mother would find what he left for you.”
My skin went cold.
“What did he leave?”
“The truth.”
I stared at the brass key.
May you like
Thomas continued.
“And if Margaret knows you found that key, Claire, do not meet her alone.”
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