Chapter 10 - The Room Behind the Furnace
Mom called from a number I did not recognize. I almost let it go to voicemail, but something in me knew she would not call from anywhere else unless she was afraid.
“I’m at the house,” she said. “Your father went to the pharmacy. I found another box.”
“Where?”
“Behind the furnace. There is a panel I never knew opened.”
I drove there with Priya’s permission and my phone recording. Mom met me in the basement, where the air smelled of dust and hot metal. She had moved a shelf away from the wall. Behind it was a narrow wooden door.
“Dad built this when I was a child,” I said.
“He told me it was part of the ventilation.”
The room was barely large enough for two people. Cardboard boxes lined the walls. Inside them were old invoices, canceled checks, tax notices, and a black ledger bound with a rubber band.
Mom touched the ledger as if it might burn her. “I found the key in your father’s desk.”
I opened it. The first pages listed Buckeye Ridge projects. The final year became increasingly frantic. Payments were crossed out. Names were replaced with initials. Several pages carried the same phrase: Rachel will cover it.
I turned the page. A handwritten schedule showed my payments beside dates, followed by transfers to Briarwood. The entries matched the accounting files Eric had copied.
Then I saw a page dated four months before my first mortgage payment. It listed a settlement from an insurance company: $118,000. Beside it, Dad had written: Pay debts, protect house, keep children calm.
“There was insurance money,” I said.
Mom’s face went pale. “He told me the claim was denied.”
The settlement had been deposited into the Buckeye Ridge account. Within six weeks, $40,000 went to an equipment lender. $22,000 went to the IRS. $18,000 moved to Briarwood. The remaining $38,000 was divided into cash withdrawals and checks made out to Derek.
“He used the insurance money before asking me to pay,” I said.
Mom sat on an overturned bucket. “He said the payment had not arrived.”
“He lied.”
“Yes.”
The word seemed to empty the basement of air.
We photographed every page and left the ledger in place. Priya said the original could be important, but taking it without permission might complicate the evidence. She arranged for a process server and a formal demand that Dad preserve all financial records.
That night, Eric came to my townhouse. He stood on the porch holding a grocery bag.
“I brought Mom food,” he said.
“She’s still at the house.”
“I know.”
He looked at my face and understood. “You found the ledger.”
“You knew about the insurance money.”
“Not all of it.”
“How much did you know?”
“Dad told me the insurance check was only seventy thousand. He said most went to taxes.”
“He told everyone a different number.”
Eric lowered his voice. “There’s another account.”
I stepped aside. “Come in.”
He remained on the porch. “I saw it once. A savings account at a credit union in Delaware. Dad called it the rainy-day fund.”
“How much?”
“I don’t know. Maybe sixty thousand.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I thought it was for Mom.”
“And now?”
“Now I think Dad was hiding it from all of us.”
He handed me the grocery bag. Inside were soup, bread, and Mom’s blood pressure medication.
“I’m going to tell Priya,” he said.
“You need to tell the police everything.”
He nodded, then looked toward my living room. “Do you hate us?”
I considered the question. “I hate what you all decided I could survive.”
He accepted that answer without defending himself.
Before he left, I called after him. “Eric.”
He turned.
“No more partial truths.”
May you like
“No more,” he promised.
For the first time, I believed he meant it. I just did not know whether meaning it would be enough.
