Chapter 2: The Sealed Envelope
The gate clicked shut with a heavy iron sound.
Vanessa stopped smiling.
"Open it." Her voice dropped.
"Right now."
"No."
Her mother stepped forward.
"Do you have any idea who we are?"
"I do." I stayed in my rocking chair.
"And it doesn't change my answer."
Vanessa pulled out her phone and called Jared.
I could hear him through the speaker from where I sat.
"Just come home," he told her.
"We'll figure something else out."
"Figure something else out?" She spun toward the gate.
"There is no something else.
We need this property, Jared."
I set down my glass of iced tea.
"Need it for what, exactly?"
Vanessa went quiet.
Her parents exchanged a look I wasn't supposed to catch.
Then her father said, too carefully, "The penthouse situation has become complicated."
I stood slowly and walked to the edge of the porch.
"What kind of complicated?"
No one answered.
But I noticed something then.
Vanessa wasn't angry anymore.
She looked scared.
And that was when I remembered the second envelope in Thomas's notebook.
The sealed one.
The one with Jared's name on the outside and a single word written underneath it.
*Later.*
I had assumed it was a sentimental note.
A goodbye from a father to his son.
Now I wasn't sure.
---
What was inside that second envelope — and why did Vanessa look frightened the moment I mentioned it?
The full truth is in the link below.
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