Chapter 6 - MY MOTHER'S HOUSE
I didn't believe Thomas.
Not immediately.
Grant didn't either.
Rosa wanted to leave.
I didn't blame her.
But DNA answered what memory couldn't.
Grant and Rosa shared a biological father.
Walter Briggs.
My mother had been involved with Walter before marrying Edward Ellison.
Grant was born eleven months after the wedding.
Edward knew.
He raised Grant anyway.
For forty-seven years.
That mattered.
Thomas explained the rest.
Walter never accepted it.
As Ellison Textiles grew, he convinced himself Grant deserved half the company because Grant was his biological son.
Edward disagreed.
Not because he considered Grant less his child.
The opposite.
He intended equal inheritance.
But Walter wanted control.
He began siphoning money.
Thomas discovered it.
Edward prepared to expose him.
Then another secret emerged.
My parents' marriage had been collapsing for years.
My mother, Evelyn, feared divorce would expose her affair and destroy her social standing.
But ordering murder?
Thomas had no proof.
Only Walter's claim.
“Walter told me Evelyn approved it.”
“Walter lies,” I said.
“Yes.”
“So why believe him?”
“I don't.”
That was important.
Thomas had spent seventeen years believing my mother guilty because Walter wanted him to.
We needed evidence.
My mother had left her papers to a historical archive.
I had never opened them.
Too painful.
Inside we found letters.
Hundreds.
Including one written to Edward the night he died.
I know about Walter.
I know what he has done.
Please don't confront him alone.
I am ashamed of what happened between us years ago, but Grant is your son in every way that matters.
Come home.
My mother hadn't ordered the murder.
She'd tried to stop it.
Thomas sat with the letter for a long time.
“I hated her for seventeen years.”
Grant whispered:
“So did Dad know?”
“Yes.”
“He knew I wasn't biologically his?”
“Yes.”
“And he never treated me differently.”
“No.”
Grant cried.
Rosa quietly left the room.
I followed.
She stood in the hallway.
“You okay?”
She laughed softly.
“Your brother is my brother.”
“Half brother.”
“That's not the strange part.”
“What is?”
“I cleaned his coffee off your floor last Christmas.”
Despite everything, I laughed.
So did she.
Then she covered her mouth.
“Sorry.”
“Don't be.”
We needed that laugh.
“You don't have to become family because DNA says so,” I told her.
She looked at me.
“That's unexpectedly sensible.”
“I'm having a difficult month.”
She smiled.
Then the lights went out.
Adrian shouted from the archive room.
A fire alarm screamed.
Smoke rolled beneath the door.
Walter.
Again.
We evacuated.
But the archive burned.
My mother's papers.
The letters.
Evidence.
Gone.
Almost.
Rosa had taken a photograph of the letter.
Not because she understood its legal value.
Because one sentence had moved her.
Grant is your son in every way that matters.
Walter had spent seventeen years underestimating people.
That night he underestimated a housekeeper with a phone.
It would cost him.
Then my phone rang.
Unknown number.
Walter.
“Marcus.”
“You burned the wrong copy.”
He laughed.
“You think this is about evidence?”
“What do you want?”
“My son.”
I looked at Grant.
“He isn't yours.”
“He has my blood.”
“He had a father.”
Silence.
Then Walter's voice hardened.
“Bring Grant to Pier 19 tomorrow night.”
“Why?”
“Because Thomas has something I need.”
“What?”
“The real ledger.”
I looked at Thomas.
He went pale.
Walter continued:
“And if you don't bring Grant, I'll start with the little girl.”
Every person in the room became still.
Rosa's face changed.
Not fear.
Something far more dangerous.
A mother's rage.
Walter had finally made the worst mistake of his life.
May you like
He threatened Lily.
---
