Chapter 7 - THE PERSON INSIDE OUR HOUSE
Only four people had routine access to our private rooms.
Me.
Luke.
Our house manager, Evelyn Price.
And Isabella.
Not Vanessa.
Not Grant.
Evelyn had worked for Luke's family for twenty-two years.
She packed our honeymoon luggage.
Helped organize our wedding.
Once stayed beside me in the emergency room when Luke was overseas.
I trusted her.
That meant almost nothing now.
We confronted her with Maya present.
Evelyn didn't deny taking the card.
She cried immediately.
Isabella asked her to photograph documents from our bedroom.
“At first.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“She said Luke was careless with trust paperwork.”
“And later?”
“Grant paid me.”
“How much?”
“Forty thousand.”
My stomach turned.
Forty thousand for access to our private life.
She photographed signatures.
Tax records.
My father's estate papers.
Medical insurance cards.
Everything.
Luke looked at her like he didn't recognize her.
“You watched Sophia for them?”
Evelyn nodded.
“For years.”
That explained how Isabella knew about pregnancy before I told anyone.
Evelyn found the prenatal lab invoice in my bag.
Took a photograph.
Sent it to Isabella.
I stared.
“You went through my purse?”
“Yes.”
Something about that tiny invasion hurt more than the land for one second.
My purse.
My home.
Nothing had been private.
Then Evelyn said:
“There's something else.”
Of course.
“Grant asked me to search for a blue folder.”
“What blue folder?”
“I never found it.”
Luke looked at me.
I knew.
Dad's documents.
My father gave me a blue accordion folder shortly before he died.
I hadn't opened it in years.
I thought it held old business tax records.
Where was it?
Storage unit.
I had moved Dad's remaining boxes there after marriage.
Grant knew it existed but couldn't find it.
Meaning Dad had left something important.
We went with Maya.
The storage unit looked untouched.
The blue folder sat beneath old kitchenware.
Inside:
Invoices.
Morgan shipping records.
Emails Dad printed.
Bank-transfer copies.
Evidence of the fraud he had found.
Then a sealed envelope:
SOPHIA.
I opened it.
Honey,
If anything happens to me before I finish this, don't let Morgan money convince you that what happened to my company was ordinary business failure.
I had to sit down.
Dad knew.
He named Grant.
Russell Capital.
Samuel Price.
Then wrote one sentence about Luke.
Luke Morgan isn't involved. He's younger, and from what I can tell, he doesn't even know what his family does when protecting itself.
Dad had known Luke existed before I met him.
Not personally.
By reputation.
Then came the shock.
Dad hadn't died from a random heart attack.
At least he hadn't believed it would be random.
His final page said:
Grant threatened me yesterday. If I end up dead, ask for an autopsy.
There had been no autopsy.
I had declined one.
May you like
Because Isabella Morgan—then almost a stranger to me—had advised me not to “put myself through more pain.”
Years before I married her son, Isabella had influenced how my father's death was handled.
