Chapter 6
Susan's face went blank.
Not shocked.
Blank.
That was worse.
Jacob saw it.
“So you knew.”
She shook her head.
“No.”
“You knew.”
“I didn't.”
He stepped into the house without being invited.
I didn't stop him.
Ashley backed away from the door.
Jacob looked at her.
“You must be Ashley.”
She nodded.
He gave a humorless smile.
“I've seen pictures.”
“Where?”
“Kevin.”
Susan whispered, “This is impossible.”
Jacob turned toward her.
“No. What's impossible is spending forty years believing your mother gave you away because she didn't want you.”
Susan covered her mouth.
“I was seventeen.”
“I know.”
“She made me.”
“I know that too.”
That surprised her.
He held up the envelope.
“Your mother wrote me letters.”
Susan froze.
“My mother?”
“Carol.”
“She didn't know where you were.”
“She found me when I was eighteen.”
Susan sank into a chair.
“No.”
“She never told you?”
Susan shook her head.
Jacob laughed bitterly.
“Perfect.”
Ashley looked at him.
“What did Grandma say?”
Jacob opened the envelope.
Inside were letters.
Old.
Folded.
He handed one to Susan.
She didn't take it.
I did.
Carol's handwriting was unmistakable.
I had seen it on birthday cards for years.
The letter began:
Dear Jacob,
Your mother did not abandon you willingly.
I forced her.
My eyes moved over the page.
Carol apologized.
She described Susan's pregnancy.
Her fear.
Her strict husband.
The pressure they placed on seventeen-year-old Susan.
Then a name appeared.
Kevin.
I looked up.
“Susan.”
She shook her head.
“I don't understand.”
Jacob took the letter from me.
“Kevin was nineteen.”
Ashley stared.
“He knew Mom before me?”
Jacob nodded.
Susan stood.
“I dated Kevin when I was nineteen.”
“No.”
Jacob's voice was calm.
“You dated him when you were sixteen.”
Susan went pale.
“No.”
“I have letters.”
“That doesn't mean—”
“I have his letters too.”
He pulled another bundle from the envelope.
“Carol kept everything.”
Susan looked like she might faint.
I caught her arm.
She pulled away.
“I don't remember.”
Jacob studied her.
Then his expression shifted.
“You genuinely don't.”
She shook her head.
Tears filled her eyes.
“My father…”
Her voice trailed off.
Ashley stepped closer.
“What about Grandpa?”
Susan sat again.
“When I was seventeen, after the adoption, I had a breakdown.”
I had never heard this either.
“I was in a hospital for six weeks.”
Jacob's anger softened slightly.
Susan stared at nothing.
“They gave me medication. I barely remember that year.”
“Mom?”
Ashley knelt in front of her.
Susan touched her daughter's hair.
“My parents told me the baby's father was a boy named Eric from school.”
Jacob shook his head.
“There was no Eric.”
“How do you know?”
“Because Kevin took a DNA test.”
Everyone looked at him.
He reached into the envelope.
Pulled out a report.
“Three years ago.”
I took it.
Probability of paternity: 99.99%.
Kevin Marshall.
Jacob's biological father.
Ashley looked sick.
“So Kevin had a child with Mom, let him be adopted, then came back years later and had me?”
Jacob nodded.
Susan stood abruptly.
“No.”
She paced.
“This doesn't make sense.”
Then she stopped.
“My parents hated Kevin.”
Jacob watched her.
“They had reason to.”
Susan turned.
“What does that mean?”
“Read the next letter.”
She did.
Her hands shook harder with every paragraph.
Then she dropped it.
I picked it up.
Carol wrote that Kevin had been controlling.
Jealous.
Violent.
That Susan had tried to end the relationship.
That he had pressured her to keep seeing him.
Carol believed the pregnancy trapped Susan emotionally.
When the baby was born, Susan's father threatened Kevin and arranged the adoption.
After Susan's hospitalization, they told her a different story.
They erased Kevin from it.
Ashley whispered, “Grandma lied too.”
Jacob nodded.
“Apparently lying runs in the family.”
Susan looked at him.
“Why did Kevin find you?”
“Money.”
Of course.
“He told me Carol left money for me.”
Susan stared at the hidden account.
“I was trying to find you so I could give it to you.”
Jacob laughed.
“Kevin said you'd stolen it.”
“I didn't.”
“I know.”
That surprised all of us.
“I hired an attorney.”
He looked at me.
“I also hired an investigator.”
I suddenly understood something.
“You know more than you've said.”
“Yes.”
“What?”
Jacob looked at Ashley.
“Kevin didn't come back because he wanted either of us.”
Ashley's eyes dropped.
“He came back because he's dying.”
Susan stopped breathing.
“What?”
“Pancreatic cancer.”
Nobody spoke.
“He was diagnosed four months ago.”
Ashley sat down slowly.
“He never told me.”
“He doesn't want sympathy.”
Jacob gave a bitter smile.
“He wants money.”
“For treatment?”
“No.”
“For what?”
“Debts.”
Of course.
Jacob continued.
“He owes people. A lot.”
“How much?”
“Nearly four hundred thousand.”
I felt my anger sharpen.
“Gambling?”
“Mostly.”
Susan closed her eyes.
“He never changed.”
“No.”
Jacob looked at me.
“And he discovered that you had money.”
“I'm not wealthy.”
“To him, you are.”
Ashley whispered, “He asked about Dad's finances.”
Jacob nodded.
“He asked me too.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That I didn't know anything.”
“And he believed you?”
“No.”
Jacob looked toward my office.
“He thinks you received a large insurance settlement years ago.”
I frowned.
“I didn't.”
“He thinks you have seven hundred thousand dollars hidden somewhere.”
I almost laughed.
“I wish.”
Susan suddenly looked at me.
Then away.
I caught it.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Susan.”
She closed her eyes.
“Not again.”
“What aren't you telling me?”
She whispered, “Your father.”
My patience snapped.
“What about my father?”
“When he died…”
“I know what happened when my father died.”
“He left something.”
I stared at her.
“My father died with twelve thousand dollars in the bank.”
“Not money.”
“What?”
“Land.”
I shook my head.
“No.”
“Your uncle called me after the funeral.”
My heart started pounding.
“What land?”
“A property in Montana.”
I laughed.
“This is ridiculous.”
“It belonged to your grandfather.”
“My father sold that before I was born.”
“No.”
She looked terrified.
“He transferred it into a trust.”
“For who?”
“You.”
My voice came out flat.
“And you never told me.”
“He asked me not to.”
My vision narrowed.
“My father asked my wife to hide my inheritance?”
“No.”
“Then explain.”
Susan rubbed her forehead.
“He called me two months before he died. He said the property had become valuable because a development company wanted mineral rights.”
“How valuable?”
She swallowed.
“At the time? Maybe six hundred thousand.”
Jacob looked away.
Ashley stared at her mother.
I felt strangely detached.
“And now?”
“I don't know.”
“Where are the documents?”
“In a safety deposit box.”
“Whose name?”
“Mine.”
I stood completely still.
Susan rushed toward me.
“Mark, he was afraid you'd sell it.”
“So he gave it to you?”
“No, the trust is yours.”
“Then why don't I know it exists?”
“He said you were impulsive when it came to helping family.”
I laughed.
That one actually hurt.
Because my father wasn't wrong.
I had spent my entire adult life giving.
To Susan.
To Ashley.
To anyone I loved.
Susan continued.
“He wanted you to have it when you turned fifty.”
“I turned fifty last year.”
“I know.”
“You still didn't tell me.”
“I was going to.”
“When?”
She had no answer.
I turned away from everyone.
For twenty-one years, I had built my identity around one simple belief.
Family meant trust.
I had been wrong.
My family meant secrets.
Money hidden in accounts.
Children hidden in the past.
Inheritance hidden in safety deposit boxes.
Men paid to disappear.
Men paid to return.
I reached for my keys.
Ashley stood.
“Where are you going?”
“A hotel.”
Susan grabbed my arm.
“Mark, please.”
I looked at her hand.
She released me.
“I can't stay here tonight.”
Ashley started crying.
“Dad, don't.”
I looked at her.
She had rejected me three days earlier.
Now she looked terrified I might actually leave.
“I need space.”
“Are you coming back?”
I couldn't answer.
That frightened her more.
As I opened the door, Jacob spoke.
“Mark.”
I turned.
“There is something else.”
I almost laughed.
“Of course there is.”
He looked at the USB drive.
“Kevin didn't give that to Daniel because he wanted Ashley to know the truth.”
“Then why?”
“He wanted all of you fighting.”
“I figured that out.”
“No.”
Jacob shook his head.
“He needed you out of this house tonight.”
Cold moved through my chest.
“What?”
Jacob reached for his phone.
“My investigator has been watching Kevin.”
He showed me a message received eight minutes earlier.
A photograph.
My house.
Taken from across the street.
A dark sedan was parked two houses away.
May you like
Jacob looked toward the back of the house.
“He's here.”
