Chapter 10
I felt the blood drain from my face.
“What are you talking about?”
Ethan looked at Martin.
Then at the phone.
Then back at me.
“Ask your precious attorney why your father changed his estate documents six weeks before he died.”
Martin's expression tightened.
“Ethan, I strongly advise you to stop speaking.”
But Ethan smiled.
It was an ugly smile.
The kind people wear when they know they're losing and want to make sure everyone else suffers too.
“Go ahead, Martin. Tell her.”
I turned toward the attorney.
“Tell me what?”
Martin didn't answer immediately.
Instead, he looked down at the thick folder in front of him.
Then he removed a sealed envelope I hadn't noticed before.
My name was written across it.
Not in Martin's handwriting.
In Dad's.
My chest tightened.
“Lydia,” Martin said carefully, “your father did change his estate plan six weeks before his death.”
I stared at the envelope.
“Why?”
Martin's eyes softened.
“Because he discovered something about Ethan.”
Ethan's smile vanished.
Martin continued.
“And because he was afraid that if you learned the truth too soon, you might not be safe.”
Outside, thunder rolled across the gray morning sky.
The lights flickered once.
I barely noticed.
All I could see was my father's handwriting.
Martin placed the envelope in front of me.
“Your father asked that you read this only after hearing the recordings.”
My fingers hovered above the paper.
Ethan took one step toward the table.
“Don't open that.”
I looked at him.
His face had changed completely.
The arrogance was gone.
The anger was gone.
What remained was something far more frightening.
Desperation.
“Lydia,” he whispered, “please.”
For three years, I had heard that word only when he wanted something.
Money.
Forgiveness.
Silence.
Another chance.
I placed one finger beneath the envelope flap.
Then I looked directly into my husband's eyes.
“Whatever is in here,” I said, “you already know.”
He didn't answer.
I tore the envelope open.
Inside was a single photograph.
And beneath it, a handwritten note from my father.
I lifted the photograph.
The room seemed to fall away.
It showed Ethan standing outside a bank beside a woman I had never seen before.
She was holding a little boy's hand.
The boy looked about five years old.
He had Ethan's brown eyes.
Ethan's dark hair.
And the same small dimple in his left cheek.
On the back of the photograph, Dad had written a date.