Chapter 4 - The Ledger Nobody Could Find
The police took the threatening message seriously enough to make a report and not seriously enough to assign anyone immediately. An officer photographed the screen, asked whether Michael had enemies, and advised him not to confront the sender.
"The sender is probably someone close to you," the officer said. "That is usually how these things work."
Michael thought of Gloria's steady hands and Patricia's frightened eyes.
By evening, Patricia had returned to the house. She stood in the hallway with a suitcase behind her and no makeup on her face. Michael was in the study with Thomas and Sarah, sorting copies of Eleanor's documents.
"I want to explain," Patricia said.
"Then explain without saying that your mother was trying to help."
Patricia swallowed. "She told me Eleanor had left me a letter. She said the letter proved your family never wanted me near the business."
"Did you see the letter?"
"No. Gloria read it to me when I was twenty-four."
"That was fourteen years ago."
"I believed her."
Sarah's voice sharpened. "Why did you never ask Eleanor?"
"Because Gloria said asking would humiliate me. She said Eleanor would deny it and make me look unstable."
Thomas placed the photocopied emails on the desk. "Gloria has been creating a closed system around you. Every accusation came with a reason you could not verify it."
Patricia looked at the pages. "You knew her before me."
"I knew her as an employer," Thomas said. "Not as a mother."
Michael opened the recipe book. "What is this lighthouse?"
Patricia touched the page but pulled her hand back. "Gloria used to take me to the old Harbor Light community center. She volunteered there after my father left. Eleanor helped with the children's cooking classes."
"Your father left?" Frank asked.
Patricia nodded. "He disappeared when I was six. Gloria said he abandoned us. Years later, I found a postcard from him. She tore it up before I could read it."
The room went quiet.
"Did you ever find out where he went?" Michael asked.
"Gloria said he was dead."
Thomas exchanged a look with Frank. "He was not."
Patricia turned toward him. "How do you know?"
"Because I saw him at the Harbor Light in 2012. He asked me where Eleanor lived."
"You never told me."
"Eleanor told me not to. She said your mother had convinced him that you wanted nothing to do with him."
Patricia's face crumpled. "My father was alive?"
Frank stood slowly. "Eleanor knew?"
"She tried to arrange a meeting," Thomas said. "Gloria found out. After that, Eleanor became afraid."
Michael looked at his father. "What happened to him?"
"His name is Daniel Cross," Thomas answered. "He lives in Oregon. I have not spoken to him in years."
Patricia sank into a chair. Every answer opened a deeper wound. "Why would my mother do that?"
"Because secrets are easier to control than relationships," Sarah said, then softened. "But we do not know everything yet."
Thomas unfolded Eleanor's final letter. "The ledger may explain the money, but it may not explain the whole motive. Eleanor wrote that Gloria was not acting alone."
Frank closed his eyes. "Who else?"
The letter named only an initial: R.
Michael remembered the folder Gloria had carried from the house. "What papers was she trying to make Dad sign?"
Frank went to the kitchen and returned with a torn envelope. It had been pushed beneath the fruit bowl. Inside was a property transfer agreement for the house and the adjoining lot. The buyer was a company called Harbor Lantern Holdings.
Thomas read the registration number and went pale. "This company was incorporated last month."
"By whom?"
"The listed manager is Rebecca Shaw."
Sarah frowned. "Who is Rebecca Shaw?"
Thomas looked at Frank. "Your brother's former partner."
Frank's face changed. "Richard died twenty years ago."
"Rebecca did not," Thomas said. "She was the one who handled the scholarship fund after Gloria left."
Patricia rose from the chair. "My mother was working with someone else."
Michael placed the transfer agreement beside the recipe book. "And they think Eleanor's house is worth more than the land."
Thomas pointed to the small lighthouse in the margin. "Or what is buried beneath it."
That night, Patricia did not leave. She slept on the couch while Michael locked the study door. At three in the morning, the house alarm chirped once and went silent.
Michael hurried downstairs. The front door was still locked. Nothing appeared disturbed.
May you like
Then Patricia called from the study.
The blue recipe book lay open on the floor. The page with the lighthouse had been cut out.
