Chapter 14
But why would Julian have been allowed to use it?
“Did the store release the earrings to him because he knew my mother?” I asked.
“Maybe,” Priya said. “Or because he had documents claiming to act on your behalf.”
I thought of the week he had asked to review my inheritance papers. He had been gentle about it, almost casual. He had said a new accountant could help me reduce administrative fees and consolidate old accounts.
I had handed him a folder.
Not the originals, I told myself. Only copies.
But copies could reveal names, addresses, account numbers, company registrations. They could show him where my mother had placed her trust.
The door opened.
Margaret Hale stood in the hallway wearing a dark wool coat over pajamas, her silver hair pulled back in a hurried knot. She held a leather file box against her chest.
I rose quickly. “What are you doing here?”
“I came as soon as I found something.”
Priya moved aside to let her enter.
Margaret placed the box on the table and opened it with shaking hands. Inside were folders marked with my mother’s careful handwriting.
“I remembered a letter,” she said. “Eleanor gave it to me shortly before she died. I had forgotten it was filed under the inactive companies.”
She withdrew a cream-colored envelope.
My name was written across the front.
Not Nora Vance.
Nora, when the time is right.
The handwriting was unmistakably my mother’s.
I looked at Margaret. “Why didn’t you give this to me before?”
“Because she instructed me not to release it until you asked about Vance Family Ventures.”
The room seemed to fall silent around those words.
My fingers trembled as I opened the envelope.
Inside was a single sheet of paper and a small brass key.
The letter began:
My darling Nora,
If you are reading this, someone has tried to use the company we kept dormant. That means they have found records they were never meant to see.
I stopped breathing.
Beneath the first paragraph, my mother had written an account number, a date, and one final sentence:
Do not trust the person who tells you he discovered this before you did.
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PART 4 - ENDING: PART 2: The audit exposed Julian’s secret, but the missing earrings held one more clue 1025
PART 4 - ENDING