Three days after I sent Olivia that message, she came to the house with her two children.
Mason ran through the front door before she could stop him, shouting my name as though nothing in our family had ever been broken.
“Aunt Amelia!”
I caught him when he reached me.
Behind him, his younger sister hovered shyly beside Olivia, clutching a stuffed rabbit by one ear.
For a moment, the scene felt ordinary.
That almost made it harder.
Olivia stood near the doorway, looking around the renovated kitchen. The new cabinets were in. Grandma’s old table had been sanded and refinished. I had kept the little scratches along one edge because they reminded me of Sunday breakfasts.
“You changed it,” Olivia said.
“Some things.”
She nodded.
“I like it.”
Mason was already asking whether the greenhouse was haunted.
I laughed.
“Only by bad gardeners.”
He looked delighted.
Olivia watched him run toward the back door.
Then she said quietly, “I wanted to see the place before I told them we couldn't come anymore.”
I frowned.
“Why wouldn't you?”
She looked at me.
“Because Mom called me yesterday.”
I waited.
“She said you were trying to destroy Dad.”
I closed my eyes briefly.
“I'm not.”
“I know.”
That answer mattered.
Olivia lowered herself into one of the kitchen chairs.
“She also said Grandma manipulated you.”
I poured coffee for both of us.
“Did you believe her?”
“No.”
I placed the cup in front of her.
“Why?”
“Because I've started reading the documents.”
My hand stopped halfway back toward the counter.
“What documents?”
“The ones Lawrence gave me after the investigation.”
I sat down.
Olivia pulled a folder from her bag.
“I asked him for copies.”
She opened it.
Inside were pages I had seen before, but there was one document I hadn't.
It was a handwritten ledger.
Grandma’s handwriting covered nearly every page.
“What is that?”
“I don't know.”
Olivia turned it toward me.
At first, the entries looked like ordinary notes.
Dates.
Amounts.
Names.
Then I noticed something strange.
Several names had been circled.
Daniel.
Rebecca.
Thomas Avery.
Charles Avery.
And one name I had never seen before.
Eleanor Hale.
“Who is Eleanor?”
Olivia shook her head.
“That was my question.”
I read the next line.
September 4, 1999 — Eleanor called again. She says Rebecca left something with her before the accident.
I looked up.
“Lawrence didn't show me this.”
“Maybe he didn't have it.”
“Grandma had it.”
“Apparently.”
The children were playing outside now.
Their laughter drifted through the open window.
I turned another page.
Eleanor Hale had apparently been Rebecca's aunt.
She lived in Wisconsin.
Grandma had written that Eleanor had contacted her shortly after Rebecca's death.
She claimed Rebecca had given her a small envelope.
An envelope containing copies of financial records.
But before Eleanor could deliver it, someone broke into her apartment.
The envelope disappeared.
My skin prickled.
“Did Grandma ever find her?”
Olivia shook her head.
“There's more.”
She pointed to a final entry.
November 17, 1999 — Eleanor says she knows who Thomas was meeting before his death.
Thomas.
The name made me look closer.
“What happened to him?”
“Grandma wrote that Thomas died six years ago.”
“I know.”
“No,” Olivia said. “Look at the date.”
I did.
Then I understood.
Thomas Avery had died six years ago.
But Grandma's ledger showed she had been communicating with him twelve years after Rebecca's death.
That meant the story we had been told about Thomas was incomplete.
“Why would Grandma write this?”
“I don't know.”
I stood.
“I need to call Lawrence.”
Before I could reach my phone, it rang.
Lawrence.
I answered.
“Did you find the ledger?”
I froze.
“How did you know I had it?”
“I left it there deliberately.”
My pulse quickened.
“You knew?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“Because your grandmother instructed me not to.”
I looked at Olivia.
“She knew we'd find it?”
“She hoped you would.”
I sat again.
“Lawrence, who is Eleanor Hale?”
There was a long pause.
“Rebecca's aunt.”
“I know that. What don't I know?”
He sighed.
“She contacted your grandmother shortly after Rebecca died.”
“What did she know?”
“She believed Rebecca had been meeting someone shortly before the accident.”
“Thomas?”
“Yes.”
“Then why did Grandma write that Thomas died six years ago?”
“Because he did.”
“That doesn't explain why she was speaking with him years after Rebecca's death.”
Another pause.
Then Lawrence said something that made the room go cold.
“She wasn't.”
I stared at the phone.
“What?”
“The man your grandmother spoke with wasn't Thomas.”
I felt a chill move down my arms.
“Then who was it?”
“We don't know.”
Olivia stood.
“What did he call himself?”
I repeated the question.
Lawrence said, “Thomas Avery.”
My stomach dropped.
“But he wasn't Thomas.”
“No.”
“Then who was he?”
“I don't know.”
I walked toward the window.
The children were chasing each other through the garden.
The roses moved in the afternoon wind.
Everything looked peaceful.
Too peaceful.
“Did Grandma know?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Years ago.”
“Why didn't she tell me?”
“Because she believed the person using Thomas's identity was still watching her.”
I turned.
“Is that why she was afraid?”
“Yes.”
Olivia had gone pale.
“Amelia,” she whispered.
I covered the phone.
“What?”
She pointed toward the garden.
A man was standing beside the fence.
He wasn't watching the house.
He was watching the children.
I looked again.
He turned away immediately.
By the time I opened the back door, he was already walking toward the street.
I ran outside.
“Hey!”
He didn't stop.
I reached the fence.
The man looked back once.
I didn't recognize him.
Then he disappeared around the corner.
I returned to the kitchen.
Olivia was holding Mason close.
“Who was that?”
“I don't know.”
My phone was still connected.
Lawrence had heard everything.
“Amelia,” he said, “listen carefully.”
I raised the phone.
“If someone is watching the house, don't confront them.”
“Why?”
“Because your grandmother believed the original threat never ended.”
I looked at the ledger.
The final page had one sentence written heavily enough to tear the paper.
If Amelia ever discovers the second identity, tell her to look beneath the floor.
I stared at it.
Then at the old hallway.
“Beneath which floor?”
Lawrence answered quietly.
“The floor in the room where Rebecca slept.”
My heart stopped.
Grandma had never told me Rebecca slept in this house.
And I suddenly understood that there was one room I had never been allowed to enter.
Grandma's locked sewing room.
I looked toward the hallway.
The door was still closed.
The key was missing.
Click here to continue reading: PART 6: Grandma Had Kept One Room Locked for Twenty-Seven Years, and the Key Was Hidden Somewhere I Had Walked Past Since Childhood
My Sister Wanted Half of Grandma’s Estate Before the Funeral Flowers Had Wilted, but One Warning Made Me Realize Something Was Already Wrong
Part 5 of 20
