Part4 : MY NINETEEN-YEAR-OLD GRANDSON

I didn’t answer Caleb immediately.

I could hear him crying on the other end of the phone.

“Grandma, please.”

I sat down slowly.

“Tell me everything.”

“I can’t.”

“You already told me enough to change everything.”

“No,” he whispered. “You don’t understand.”

“Then make me understand.”

There was a long silence.

Finally, he said, “Dad wasn’t the one who started it.”

My fingers tightened around the phone.

“Who was?”

“I don’t know her name.”

“Whose name?”

“Vanessa’s.”

I stopped breathing for a moment.

“My mother?”

“Yes.”

Caleb swallowed.

“She found out about your will months ago. She knew you were planning to leave the house to someone else.”

“Who?”

He didn’t answer.

“Caleb.”

“You were going to give it to a charity.”

I stared at the wall.

He was right.

I’d told Margaret that months ago.

I had planned to leave the majority of my estate to a local organization that provided meals and housing assistance for elderly people.

I had never told Daniel.

At least, I didn’t think I had.

“Why would Vanessa care?”

“Because Dad is in debt.”

Everything suddenly made sense.

The expensive car.

The new renovations.

The vacations they kept posting online.

The constant requests for money disguised as family emergencies.

I had always thought they were simply living beyond their means.

I had been wrong.

“How much?” I asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Caleb, how much?”

“Almost three hundred thousand dollars.”

My stomach dropped.

Three hundred thousand.

They weren’t trying to get my attention.

They were trying to get my house.

My phone beeped.

A new message had arrived.

From Margaret.

Don’t speak to anyone else. Come to my office immediately.

I looked at Caleb.

“Are you still there?”

“Yes.”

“Caleb, listen carefully.”

“Okay.”

“If you are telling me the truth, you need to tell me everything to my attorney.”

He started crying again.

“Will you hate me?”

I closed my eyes.

“I don’t know.”

That was the truth.

“I don’t know what I’ll feel after I know everything.”

I ended the call.

When I arrived at Margaret’s office, she was waiting with another folder.

She placed it on the desk.

“Evelyn, we found something.”

“What?”

She opened the folder.

Inside was a copy of a document I had never signed.

My hands began to shake.

It was a power of attorney.

And at the bottom was my name.

My signature.

Except I hadn’t signed it.

Margaret looked at me carefully.

“This document would have given Daniel authority over several of your financial accounts.”

“When was it created?”

“Two months ago.”

I stared at the forged signature.

Then I remembered something.

Two months ago, Vanessa had visited me.

She had brought me tea.

She had insisted on helping me organize my paperwork.

At the time, I thought she was being thoughtful.

Now I realized what she had really been doing.

I looked at Margaret.

“What happens now?”

She closed the folder.

“Now we stop them.”

For the first time since the lake, I felt something other than fear.

I felt prepared.

But when I walked out of her office, there was a message waiting on my phone.

This one wasn’t from Caleb.

It was from Daniel.

Mom, we need to talk before you make a mistake you’ll regret.

I stared at the screen.

Then another message arrived.

Because if you tell anyone what happened at the lake, I won’t be the only one who gets hurt.

I read it twice.

And suddenly I realized Daniel wasn’t threatening me.

He was warning me.

There was someone else involved.

Someone my son was afraid of.

And whoever that person was…

they had been watching me for much longer than I realized.

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