“Call the police.”
Dad was already reaching for his phone.
“I did yesterday.”
He selected a number.
A woman answered almost immediately.
“Mr. Cole?”
“They found a red folder in my office,” Dad said. “Grant took something from it. Now the cameras are down.”
Her tone sharpened. “Stay where you are.”
“Who is this?” I asked.
Dad switched to speaker.
“Sheriff Mercer,” the woman said. “Your father contacted my office after his bank flagged a suspicious transaction.”
A radio crackled behind her voice.
Then a deputy reported that two people were leaving Dad's property in a silver SUV.
Sheriff Mercer ordered the vehicle stopped.
Dad stared at the dead security screen.
His hands trembled.
I had watched him endure unemployment, surgery, and Mom's funeral without seeing him shake like that.
“What happened the night Mom died?”
He closed his eyes.
“Natalie.”
“Grant just said there was something I wasn't supposed to discover.”
“I heard him.”
“Then tell me what you know.”
Dad sat.
For a long moment he stared at his hands.
“The story Vanessa gave you wasn't entirely true.”
Cold moved through me.
“She said Mom collapsed while you were helping Harold at his cabin.”
“I wasn't at the cabin.”
“Where were you?”
“St. Matthew's Hospital.”
I frowned.
“Why?”
“Harold called me that evening. Said he had chest pain. I drove him to the emergency department.”
“Why would Vanessa lie about that?”
“Harold didn't want people knowing he'd ignored symptoms for days. He asked me to keep it private.”
“That still doesn't explain Vanessa.”
“No.”
Dad's voice was barely audible.
“It doesn't.”
Sheriff Mercer's radio interrupted us.
The SUV had been stopped.
Both occupants were arguing with deputies.
Then a deputy said he could see a red folder on the back seat.
“Secure it,” Mercer ordered.
Grant's voice exploded in the distance.
“You can't take that!”
Vanessa shouted at him to be quiet.
A moment later the deputy began listing other items found in the vehicle.
Jewelry.
Financial documents.
Cash.
Prescription bottles.
Dad straightened.
“Whose prescriptions?”
The deputy checked.
“Eleanor Cole.”
My mother's name.
Dad gripped the table.
“No.”
“What?” I asked.
“Her medication disappeared after she died.”
“Vanessa told me the hospital took it.”
“She told me the paramedics did.”
Sheriff Mercer became silent for a moment.
Then she said, “Mr. Cole, you and Natalie need to return here. Don't contact either suspect.”
Eleven hours separated my house from Dad's town.
“I'll drive.”
We packed quickly.
Dad brought the metal box, the laptop, and every document from the lawyer.
He barely spoke for the first several hours.
Rain followed us across two counties, thin and steady, making the highway shine beneath the headlights.
Around midday, Dad finally spoke.
“The paramedic told me something after your mother died.”
I waited.
“He believed she'd remained conscious for some time after she collapsed.”
“How long?”
“At least half an hour.”
My hands tightened around the steering wheel.
“Vanessa told me Mom died almost immediately.”
“She told me the same.”
“Why didn't anyone investigate?”
“Your mother had a diagnosed heart condition. There was nothing obviously suspicious. Vanessa said she'd arrived shortly before calling emergency services.”
“And you believed her.”
Dad turned toward the window.
“She was my daughter.”
We reached the sheriff's office after dark.
Mercer met us in a conference room with fluorescent lights and a scratched wooden table.
The red folder sat inside an evidence bag.
Beside it were Mom's prescription bottles, jewelry, cash, the forged power of attorney, and the unsigned will.
Vanessa and Grant were being questioned separately.
Dad pointed at the folder.
“What is in it?”
Sheriff Mercer put on gloves.
“That's what we're about to establish.”
The first document was a private investigator's report dated less than a week before Mom died.
Dad didn't recognize the investigator.
The photographs inside showed Vanessa outside Dad's bank.
Others showed Grant using Mom's credit card.
There were copied checks, withdrawals, account records.
One handwritten note appeared in Mom's familiar blue ink.
The amount recorded beside it was $61,400.
Dad stared.
“She knew they were stealing.”
Another document was a letter.
This one was addressed to me.
Mom had written that if something happened to her, nobody should rely solely on Vanessa's account of events.
She wanted the folder given to Natalie.
Me.
My vision blurred.
“She knew she might be in danger.”
Mercer didn't answer immediately.
Instead, she removed a flash drive.
A date had been written on it.
The night Mom died.
“There's an audio file,” Mercer said.
Dad's face changed.
“Play it.”
The recording began with ordinary household sounds.
A refrigerator.
A chair.
Mom breathing.
Then her voice.
She accused Vanessa and Grant of taking money.
Vanessa insisted they had only borrowed it.
Mom rejected the excuse.
She said she had spoken with a lawyer and intended to give the evidence to me.
Vanessa's resentment surfaced immediately.
She accused Mom of always choosing me.
Mom answered that I had never stolen from her.
Then Grant entered the argument.
A chair scraped.
Something fell.
Mom's breathing changed.
“What did you give me?” her recorded voice asked.
Dad stood.
Nobody in the room moved to stop him.
Vanessa sounded frightened.
Grant told her to remove the medication bottles.
Mom called for help.
Her voice weakened.
Then came the sound of her falling.
I pressed both hands against the table.
On the recording Mom asked them to call an ambulance.
Vanessa cried.
Grant wanted to know where Mom had placed the original evidence.
Mom refused.
Then Grant asked again.
“Where is it?”
Mom's answer came faintly.
“Natalie.”
My stomach dropped.
Grant apparently moved closer.
Mom told him I would find it.
Then Vanessa asked whether she should call emergency services.
Grant refused.
Not yet.
Not until Mom told them where the evidence was.
We listened to twenty-three minutes of my mother asking for medical help.
Twenty-three minutes.
Vanessa cried more than once.
Grant searched the room.
Mom's voice weakened.
Nobody called.
By the time the emergency call was finally placed, Mom no longer responded.
Dad lowered his head.
A sound came from him that I had never heard before.
Not ordinary crying.
Something deeper.
Something torn loose after three years of believing the wrong version of his wife's final minutes.
I couldn't comfort him.
I couldn't move.
Mom had said I possessed the original evidence.
But I had never received any documents.
Then I remembered the package.
A week before she died, Mom had mailed me something from my childhood.
A blue music box.
I had been busy when it arrived and left the package unopened in my closet.
After the funeral, opening anything from Mom had felt unbearable.
It was still there.
Eleven hours away.
“I know what she sent me.”
Dad lifted his head.
“The music box.”
Sheriff Mercer stood.
“Where is it?”
“My bedroom closet.”
“Can somebody retrieve it?”
“My neighbor has a key.”
I pulled out my phone.
Before I could call him, a notification appeared.
Motion detected.
Back door.
I opened my home security application.
A man stepped into my kitchen.
He wasn't forcing the door.
He used a key.
Dad leaned toward the screen.
His face went white.
“No.”
I recognized the man too.
Harold Pike.
Dad's oldest friend.
The man who had taken him to ball games when he was young.
The man who stood beside Dad at his wedding.
The man who helped arrange Mom's funeral.
Harold moved through my house with confidence.
He knew exactly where he was going.
He raised his phone.
“I'm inside,” he said.
A pause.
Then:
“Tell Grant not to panic. I'll destroy the original before Natalie gets home.”
Dad stared at the screen.
The betrayal inside that room suddenly became larger than Vanessa and Grant.
Someone Dad trusted almost as much as family had been part of it.
And Harold was walking straight toward the last thing my mother had ever sent me.
Click here to continue reading: PART 4: Harold Broke Into My Bedroom for Mom’s Music Box, but the Tiny Key Inside Led Us Toward a Far Older Family Secret
My Sister Announced Our Father’s Death Before Sunrise, but the Man Eating Breakfast Across From Me Had Other Plans
Part 3 of 20
