Chapter 4: Emma’s Last Warning
“Who was helping her?” I asked.
Diana laughed, but the sound broke in the middle.
“You’re trusting a faded note over the woman you planned to marry?”
“I’m trusting Emma.”
“There it is,” Diana snapped.
“I would always come second to a woman who isn’t here.”
“You put yourself second when you hurt Oliver.”
Marcus stepped between us.
“This celebration is over.
Diana, we’re leaving.”
“No,” Lorraine said.
“Not before she explains account 417.”
Diana picked up her coat.
“Ask your precious Emma.”
Oliver flinched, and I caught Diana’s arm before she could pass.
“Do not speak about his mother that way.”
“Take your hand off me.”
I released her.
“Give me the ring.”
Diana twisted it from her finger and dropped it into the icing beside the damaged locket.
“You’ll regret humiliating me,” she said.
“By morning, you may not have a house to take your son home to.”
She left with Marcus.
The ballroom doors closed behind them, and Oliver began to cry.
“Dad, did I do something bad?”
I knelt and wrapped both arms around him.
“You told the truth.
That is never something bad.”
“But Diana said we’ll lose our house.”
“She won’t take it,” I said, though my voice did not sound certain.
Lorraine crouched beside us.
“Emma prepared for this.
We just have to find out how.”
A woman in a hotel uniform approached.
Her name tag read MAE.
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” she said.
“Did you say that woman’s name was Diana Vale?”
“Yes,” I replied.
“Why?”
Mae glanced toward the doors.
“She used to call herself Diana Mercer.
She worked at the care foundation where your wife received financial counseling.”
Lorraine stood.
“You knew Emma?”
“I served tea on the volunteer floor.
Emma always asked me about my grandchildren.”
“Why didn’t you say something earlier?” I asked.
Mae lowered her eyes.
“Diana had people dismissed when they questioned her.
I needed that job.”
“You don’t work there now.”
“No.
She made sure of that.”
Mae took an old phone from her apron and placed it in my hand.
“I kept this after I left,” she said.
“Emma called me the week before she was gone.
I couldn’t answer, but she left a message.”
“Why keep the phone for three years?”
“Because Diana came looking for it.”
Mae tapped the screen.
Emma’s voice filled the empty ballroom.
“Mae, Diana knows about my condition because she opened a sealed file.
She says I signed something, but I didn’t.
If anything happens to the papers, tell Daniel—”
The recording ended.
“Is that all?” I asked.
Mae nodded.
“The phone cut her off.”
Lorraine gripped the back of a chair.
“Emma was trying to protect Oliver’s trust.”
“What trust?”
She looked at me.
“The one Emma created with money from her father.
She didn’t tell you because she knew you would refuse it.”
“Why would I refuse money meant for my son?”
“Because her father spent years treating you like you weren’t good enough.”
I lowered my head.
Emma and I had argued about her family’s money more than once.
Lorraine touched my shoulder.
“She wasn’t choosing money over you, Daniel.
She was trying to leave Oliver secure.”
“You should have told me.”
“I promised her I would wait until Oliver turned eighteen.”
“You kept this from me for three years?”
“She believed the trust was safe.”
I slapped the table with my palm, then stopped when Oliver recoiled.
The sound had frightened him.
“Dad,” he whispered, “are you mad at Grandma?”
I looked at Lorraine’s wet eyes.
“I’m angry that Emma carried this alone.”
“So am I,” Lorraine said.
“And I have to live with helping her do it.”
Mae opened the phone’s photo folder.
“There’s something else.
Emma sent this after the message.”
The image showed a transfer document marked ACCOUNT 417.
At the bottom was my signature.
I stared at it.
“I never signed that.”
May you like
Mae enlarged the witness line.
The second signature belonged to my younger brother, Paul.
