Chapter 1
Three days after Grandma left me her entire estate, my brother Tyler shoved me off our second-floor deck at his own birthday party. As I hit the ground, I heard him shout one sentence that told me this wasn’t about jealousy.
My grandmother Evelyn had died quietly in her sleep at her home outside Denver.
At the reading of her will, everyone expected Tyler and me to split everything.
Instead, the attorney looked directly at me.
“Charlotte receives the house, investments, and remaining estate.”
Tyler laughed at first.
Then he realized nobody else was laughing.
“You’re joking.”
The attorney shook his head.
My mother stared at me like I had stolen something.
Tyler stormed out without saying goodbye.
Three days later, our parents insisted I attend his birthday party.
“Don’t let money destroy this family,” Mom told me.
I almost stayed home.
I wish I had.
Tyler acted strangely calm when I arrived.
He even hugged me.
“Forget the will,” he whispered. “You’re still my sister.”
For an hour, everything seemed normal.
Then he asked me to step onto the upstairs deck.
“I want to apologize privately.”
The moment the door closed behind us, his smile vanished.
“You’re going to give it back.”
“Give what back?”
“Grandma’s money.”
“She left it to me.”
His jaw tightened.
“She wasn’t supposed to.”
I started toward the door.
Tyler grabbed my arm.
“Let go.”
He shoved me against the railing.
People below started screaming.
Then he pushed me.
I remember falling.
Then nothing until I opened my eyes on the grass with someone holding my head still.
Tyler stood above me on the deck.
Instead of looking horrified, he was yelling at our mother.
“You said the fall would make the will invalid!”
Everything around me went silent.
Mom’s face changed instantly.
“Tyler, shut up!”
An off-duty paramedic at the party told everyone not to move me.
Someone called 911.
Then Grandma’s attorney, Mr. Harris, stepped through the crowd.
I hadn’t even known he was invited.
He looked from Tyler to my mother and pulled an envelope from inside his jacket.
“Evelyn warned me something like this might happen.”
My mother went pale.
“What are you talking about?”
He crouched beside me and held up the sealed envelope.
“Your grandmother didn’t leave Charlotte the estate because she loved her more.”
Tyler gripped the railing.
“Then why?”
May you like
Mr. Harris looked directly at my mother.
“Because Evelyn discovered what you two had been doing to her accounts.”
