Chapter 2
The room went dead silent.
Derek stood frozen mid-step, his arm still outstretched toward the television. Vanessa's coffee mug slipped from her fingers and shattered on the hardwood floor. Neither of them moved to clean it up.
On the screen, the last frame lingered—Allison's terrified eyes, the door handle behind her jiggling violently. Then it went black.
"Play the rest," I said. My voice sounded calmer than I felt. Inside, my heart was hammering so hard I thought Chloe might feel it through my chest.
Benjamin pressed a few buttons. "That's all there is, Mrs. Hale. The file ends there."
"That's convenient," Derek spat. He was recovering fast, his face shifting from shock to outrage. "A conveniently edited clip. She was paranoid. She'd been drinking. You can't possibly—"
"She wasn't drinking," I cut in. "Allison hadn't touched alcohol since Chloe was born. Not even a glass of wine on her birthday."
Vanessa laughed. It was a sharp, brittle sound. "Oh, please. You don't know what was going on behind closed doors. She was unraveling. Everyone at the agency saw it. The late nights, the mood swings, the wild accusations—"
"Accusations about you?" Benjamin asked mildly.
Vanessa's mouth snapped shut. She glanced at Derek, then quickly looked away. That small, guilty flicker of the eyes told me everything I needed to know.
"Let's be clear about where we stand," Benjamin said, setting the letter on the coffee table where everyone could see it. "Allison's last will and testament, executed three weeks ago, supersedes all previous versions. The entire estate—the house, the design agency, the investment accounts, the life insurance policy—goes into a trust for Chloe. Evelyn Hale is named the sole trustee and primary guardian."
Derek's face turned the color of bruised plums. "You can't do that. I'm her father. I have rights."
"You have the right to supervised visitation," Benjamin corrected. "Twice a week, in a neutral location, with a court-appointed monitor present. And that's only if you cooperate fully with the police investigation into Allison's death."
"Investigation?" Derek laughed, but there was no humor in it. "It was ruled an accident. Case closed."
"Not anymore," Benjamin said. He tapped the USB drive. "This video, combined with the new medical evidence Allison ordered two days before she died, is enough to reopen the case. The DA's office already signed off on it this morning."
Vanessa stumbled backward until her legs hit the sofa. She sat down hard, one hand flying to her throat. The diamond bracelet winked in the afternoon light. My bracelet. Allison's bracelet.
"Medical evidence?" Derek's voice cracked. "What medical evidence?"
Benjamin didn't answer. He turned to me. "Mrs. Hale, I think it would be best if you and Chloe packed a few things and came with me. I've arranged for you to stay somewhere secure until the custody hearing next week."
"I'm not leaving my daughter's house," I said.
"Evelyn—"
"This is where she lived. This is where she raised Chloe. This is where she hid whatever she was talking about on that phone call. I'm not going anywhere until I find it."
Derek's head snapped toward me. "Find what?"
I stared him dead in the eye. "You tell me. You were the one listening through the door, weren't you? The night she made that video. You and Vanessa. You knew she was up to something. So you hurried up your plans."
"That's absurd," Derek said, but his hands were shaking now. The crisp, composed man from the funeral was unraveling before my eyes. "I loved Allison. I would never—"
"Then why were you sleeping with her employee for eighteen months?"
The words hung in the air like smoke.
Vanessa stood up so fast the sofa cushions shifted. "How dare you. You have no proof—"
"I have the credit card statements," I lied smoothly. "Allison showed me. Three-star hotels in San Antonio. Dinner bills for two at places she'd never heard of. Jewelry purchases that never made it to her jewelry box. Like that bracelet on your wrist, Vanessa. The one I gave my daughter when Chloe was born. The one Derek 'lost' last Christmas."
Vanessa's hand flew to the bracelet as if it had burned her.
Derek took a step toward me. "You're making this up. You're grieving, you're confused—"
"Don't come near me," I said, shifting Chloe in my arms so she was shielded by my body. "Or I will call the police right now and tell them everything. Starting with the bruise on Allison's forehead that the coroner missed. Starting with the fact that you had her body cremated less than forty-eight hours after she died, against my explicit wishes. Starting with the fact that you tried to sell her agency three days before the funeral."
The room went silent again.
Benjamin watched Derek closely. "Is that true, Mr. Lawson? Did you attempt to liquidate Ms. Hale's business before she was even buried?"
"She would have wanted it that way," Derek muttered. "The agency was failing. She was in debt—"
"Her quarterly reports show seven-figure revenue," Benjamin said. "I've seen the books. She was debt-free. The house was paid off. The only outstanding loan was a small business line of credit you took out in her name six months ago without her signature. That's fraud, Mr. Lawson. That's five to ten years in federal prison right there, before we even get to the murder."
The word "murder" landed like a physical blow.
Derek's face crumpled. For a second, I thought he was going to break down and confess. Then Vanessa stepped between us, her shoulders squared, her eyes hard as flint.
"This is harassment," she said, her voice steady now, cold and calculated. "You have no evidence. A rambling video from a depressed woman, a bunch of out-of-context financial records, a grieving mother's wild accusations. None of it will hold up in court. Derek is still Chloe's father. He will get his rights. And when he does, Evelyn, you will never see that little girl again."
Chose stirred in my arms, waking from her nap. She rubbed her eyes with her small fist and looked around the room, confused by all the shouting.
"Grammy?" she whispered.
"I'm here, baby," I said, kissing the top of her head. "Grammy's right here."
"Where's Mommy?"
My throat tightened until I could barely breathe. I looked past Chloe, past Vanessa and Derek, at the framed photograph on the mantel—Allison holding Chloe on her first day of preschool, both of them grinning, sunflowers in the background.
"Mommy's watching over us," I said.
Derek and Vanessa exchanged a look. It was quick, but I caught it. A look of shared fear. A look that said they had not expected this. They had not expected Allison to be three steps ahead of them, even from the grave.
"Get out," I said quietly.
"Excuse me?" Derek said.
"This is my daughter's house. It belongs to Chloe now. You are not welcome here. Take your lover and leave. If I see either of you on this property again before the custody hearing, I will file a restraining order so fast your heads will spin."
"You can't kick us out," Vanessa sneered. "Derek still has half the rights to—"
"Actually," Benjamin interrupted, pulling another document from his briefcase, "he doesn't. Allison filed for divorce ten days before she died. The papers were served at his office. He just never told anyone. As of right now, Derek Lawson has no legal claim to this house, its contents, or any part of Allison's estate. He has exactly ten minutes to collect his personal belongings and leave the premises. After that, I call the police and have him arrested for trespassing."
Derek went pale. Then red. Then pale again.
"You knew," he whispered, staring at the divorce papers in Benjamin's hand. "She was going to leave me. She was going to take everything—"
"And leave you with nothing but the fraud charges and the alimony," Vanessa finished for him, her voice dripping with contempt. "Nice work, Derek. You really played this perfectly."
"Shut up," Derek snapped.
"Don't you tell me to shut up. I left my apartment for you. I quit my job for you. I told you we should have waited—"
"I said shut up!"
They were turning on each other. Just like Allison said they would. In her final phone call, she had told me: "They're held together by greed, Mom. Not love. As soon as the money disappears, they'll tear each other apart."
I stood there, holding my granddaughter, and watched it begin.
Derek grabbed Vanessa's arm. She slapped him. Hard. The sound echoed through the silent house.
"Don't you ever touch me again," she hissed.
"Both of you, out," Benjamin said, stepping between them. "Now. Or I call the police."
They left. Not together. Derek stormed out first, slamming the front door so hard the windows rattled. Vanessa followed a minute later, pausing at the threshold to look back at me. Her eyes were full of pure, unadulterated hatred.
"This isn't over," she said. "You think you've won? You have no idea what we're capable of. You have no idea what Allison was really hiding."
Then she was gone.
The house was quiet at last. Too quiet.
Chloe snuggled against my neck. "Grammy? Why was Daddy yelling?"
I carried her to the sofa and sat down, holding her as tight as I dared without hurting her. Benjamin packed up his briefcase, but he didn't leave. He sat down across from me, his face grave.
"She was right, you know," he said softly. "Vanessa. You don't know the half of it."
"What do you mean?"
"Allison came to me three weeks ago. Scared out of her mind. She said Derek and Vanessa weren't just having an affair. She said they were planning to kill her for the insurance money. Two million dollars. She said she had proof. Emails. Text messages. Recordings. She said she was going to hide it somewhere they would never think to look. Somewhere only you would know."
My mind raced. Somewhere only I would know.
Allison and I had a hundred hiding places from when she was a child. The loose floorboard under her bed. The hollowed-out copy of Pride and Prejudice on her bookshelf. The old dollhouse in the attic with the secret compartment in the roof.
But she was thirty-two now. A mother. A businesswoman. She wouldn't hide something this important in a childhood hiding spot. She would be smarter than that.
"She said one more thing," Benjamin continued. "She said if anything happened to her, I was to give you this."
May you like
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, folded piece of paper. I recognized Allison's handwriting immediately. It was a single line, scrawled in a frantic rush:
*"Follow the sunflowers, Mom. They always face the truth."*
