Chapter 7 - The Box in the AtticMy hands froze on the car door handle. The rain poured down around us, but time seemed to stand still.
"What box, Lily?" I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.
"I found it two years ago when I was looking for old winter blankets," Lily sniffled, wiping her nose with her sleeve. "It has letters. Letters from Grandma Margaret. Written right before she died."
A cold spike of dread drove deep into my chest. Margaret had died twelve years ago in a hospital bed, surrounded by flowers, her hand held tightly in mine. She had succumbed to aggressive stage-four pancreatic cancer. Or so I had believed.
"Stay here, Lily," I said. "Lock the doors."
I turned back toward the house. The police were putting Dean into the back of a squad car. Rachel was sitting on the front porch steps, sobbing hysterically as a female officer questioned her.
I didn't ask for permission. I walked right past the police, through the open front door, and pushed up the attic pull-down ladder in the second-floor hallway.
"Hey! You can't go up there!" an officer called out from downstairs.
"It’s my family’s property!" I shouted back, stepping up into the dark, dusty attic.
The air up there was thick with the smell of old insulation and dry rot. I pulled out my phone, switched on the flashlight, and searched the floorboards near the central chimney, just as Lily had described.
Underneath a loose piece of plywood, sitting in the dust, was a small, rusted steel document safe.
It wasn't locked.
I reached down with trembling hands and lifted the lid.
Inside were three thick envelopes tied together with a faded blue ribbon. And beside them was a thick ledger notebook, along with several prescription pill bottles.
I picked up the first envelope. On the front, written in elegant, unmistakable handwriting that brought a sudden rush of tears to my eyes, were the words:
To my beloved Arthur. Read this only if I am gone and Rachel has broken her promise.
My breath caught in my throat. I sat down on a dusty wooden crate, my knees giving out.
I untied the ribbon and opened the letter.
"My dearest Arthur,
If you are reading this, it means my fear has come true. It means Rachel’s greed has finally consumed her, and she has failed to protect our sweet grandbaby.
There are things I kept from you during my final months, Arthur. Things I was too ashamed to tell you because I wanted to protect you from the crushing pain of knowing the truth about our daughter.
Rachel didn't just stumble into financial debt after I got sick. She caused it. Two months before my diagnosis, I discovered that Rachel had been stealing from my personal accounts. But that wasn't the worst part...
Arthur, Dean was not a stranger who met Rachel in college. Dean was the man who orchestrated the embezzlement of my life insurance policy while I was still breathing in that hospital bed. And the money you think you’ve been sending for Lily’s care? Rachel and Dean have been using it to pay off a blackmail debt to a man named Victor Vance."
I stopped reading. My head was spinning. Victor Vance? Who was Victor Vance?
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I turned the page, my eyes scanning the faded blue ink frantically.
"Victor Vance knows the truth about Lily's biological father. Arthur... Dean is not Lily's father. And neither was the man Rachel claimed to marry in Chicago."
