Chapter 4 - THE JOURNAL MY MOTHER HID
My mother had been dead for thirty-one years.
That night was the first time anyone told me she had been trying to escape.
Lauren sat on the kitchen floor beneath the refrigerator photograph while rain began tapping against Gran’s windows.
“She told me not to tell you,” Lauren said.
“You were eleven.”
“I knew enough.”
“What exactly did she say?”
Lauren stared at the floor.
“She said Dad had done things with money that could ruin people.”
My mother, Claire White, had worked as a bookkeeper for the first company Dad ever owned.
Dad always described her job as helping with “little office things.”
According to Lauren, that was another lie.
Mom managed payroll.
Vendor accounts.
Tax records.
Everything.
“She started keeping copies,” Lauren continued. “She thought he was moving money through fake invoices.”
My heartbeat slowed into something heavy.
“Why didn’t Gran tell me?”
“Maybe she was protecting you.”
I hated that answer because it sounded possible.
Mom died when I was nine.
Gran became the only adult in the family who ever made me feel safe.
If she believed Mom’s records could put me in danger, she might have hidden everything.
Reyes entered with another box from behind the study wall.
Inside were old calendars.
Letters.
Receipts.
One calendar belonged to Gran.
The week of Mom’s death was heavily marked.
Tuesday:
Claire called. Terrified.
Wednesday:
Meet attorney.
Thursday:
Ronald knows.
Friday:
Claire gone.
Saturday:
Police.
No accusation.
No dramatic statement.
Just four lines.
But Lauren and I stared at them as if they were written in blood.
I forced myself to breathe.
“We are not assuming Dad had anything to do with Mom’s accident.”
Lauren nodded immediately.
I needed to say that aloud.
Suspicion was not evidence.
I had spent my career learning the difference.
Reyes agreed.
“But it does establish a financial dispute existed before her death.”
We searched until nearly midnight.
Nothing resembling a journal appeared.
Then I remembered Gran’s clue.
Not in the room where he was born.
In the room where he learned who he was.
We had assumed she meant the study.
What if that clue referred to more than one hiding place?
Dad learned who he was in this house.
Gran had once told me he discovered my grandfather’s financial troubles as a teenager and became obsessed with never appearing poor.
I went upstairs.
Dad’s old bedroom had been converted into storage.
Boxes filled the floor.
Old football trophies.
School yearbooks.
A broken turntable.
Then I saw the closet.
On the upper shelf was a blue wooden box.
Locked.
Not with a key.
With a three-number combination.
Lauren stared at it.
“I know the code.”
I looked at her.
“How?”
“Dad used it on everything when we were kids.”
She turned the dial.
9-14-72.
The date Dad opened his first business.
The lock clicked.
Inside was not Mom’s journal.
It was worse.
Photocopies of Mom’s journal.
Dozens of pages.
Someone had removed the originals and copied selected sections.
I read one.
Ronald says vendors will never trace the invoices. I told him I’m done signing anything.
Another:
If he refuses to stop, I am taking the girls to Margaret’s.
Gran.
Then:
I met with Daniel today. He says I need proof before I leave.
Daniel.
I looked at Lauren.
“Who is Daniel?”
She shook her head.
The final copied page was dated two days before Mom died.
Ronald found one of the account books. He knows I kept records. I moved the originals. If anything happens to me, Margaret knows—
The sentence ended there.
The next page was missing.
Every page after it was missing.
Lauren covered her mouth.
Someone had deliberately copied only part of the journal.
My phone rang.
Rebecca.
“I got an emergency response from Hawthorne Clinical.”
“That was fast.”
“They’re scared.”
“Of what?”
“One of the doctors listed in your father’s evidence says he never examined your grandmother.”
I went still.
Rebecca continued.
“He says his signature on the competency report was copied from another document.”
Forged medical evidence.
That alone could destroy Dad’s civil case.
But Rebecca wasn’t finished.
“There’s something else. Hawthorne gave us the person who ordered the reports.”
“Dad?”
“No.”
I looked at Lauren.
“Who?”
May you like
Rebecca hesitated.
“Gerald Foss.”
