Chapter 4 - THE SHED
My father refused to open the shed.
Not at first.
“No.”
“Dad.”
“No, Elise.”
“You've been hiding something.”
He looked away.
“Your mother asked me to.”
My heart stopped.
“What did Mom ask you to hide?”
He sat down.
For a long time, he said nothing.
Then he pulled a key from around his neck.
“I promised myself I'd never use this again.”
He handed it to me.
The shed smelled like old wood, soil, and gasoline.
Inside were gardening tools.
Boxes.
Old photographs.
And a metal filing cabinet.
Dad opened the cabinet.
Inside was a single black binder.
He placed it on the table.
“This is why I never trusted banks.”
I opened it.
The first page contained company names.
Hundreds of them.
Investment companies.
Construction firms.
Transportation businesses.
Private lenders.
At the bottom of every page was one recurring name.
Blackridge Financial.
“What's this?”
“Your mother discovered them.”
“What did they do?”
“They bought distressed properties.”
“That isn't illegal.”
“No.”
Dad looked at me.
“But they made people desperate first.”
He explained.
Blackridge would secretly acquire debts.
Then they would manipulate property valuations.
When families couldn't repay loans, Blackridge would take their land.
I turned another page.
My father's orchard was there.
The farmhouse.
The hillside.
Everything.
“But you still own it.”
Dad nodded.
“Because your mother stopped them.”
“How?”
“She found evidence of fraud.”
I looked at him.
“Where is that evidence?”
He didn't answer.
I opened the next page.
There was a photograph of my mother.
Standing beside a man I didn't recognize.
Underneath it was a handwritten note.
He knows where the money came from.
I stared.
“Who is he?”
Dad whispered:
“Vincent's father.”
I couldn't breathe.
“My father-in-law?”
“Yes.”
Dad looked ashamed.
“I knew something was wrong when Vincent proposed to you.”
“Then why didn't you stop me?”
“Because your mother made me promise.”
“Promise what?”
“That you would choose your own life.”
I closed the binder.
“So Vincent married me because of this?”
“I don't know.”
Then Dad looked at the photograph again.
“But I think he was sent.”
The room became silent.
My phone buzzed.
A message from an unknown number.
Your father is lying to you.
Then another:
Ask him what happened the night your mother died.
May you like
I looked at Dad.
He had already gone pale.
