I looked at the signature authorizing the transfer.
It was not mine.
It was not Grandma’s.
It was Mom’s.
My breath caught.
She leaned forward.
“I didn’t take that money for myself,” she said quickly. “You have to believe me.”
I held up the document.
“Then where did it go?”
Mom looked toward the hallway, where Grandma’s old desk stood beneath a framed photograph.
“I followed the instructions,” she whispered.
“What instructions?”
“The ones your grandmother gave me.”
I stared at her.
“What did she tell you to do?”
Mom reached into the tin one final time and removed a folded piece of paper.
This one had been written by Grandma only weeks before she died.
But when I unfolded it, I saw that the first line was not addressed to me.
It was addressed to someone whose name I had never seen in connection with our family.
And beneath that name, Grandma had written:
If anything happens before she learns where the money went, take her to the storage unit. She must see what her mother found there.
-END OF PART 2, –PRESS NEX PART IN BOTTOM OF PAGE TO READ NEXT PART
The name at the top of the page was **Daniel Mercer**.
Mom’s husband.
For several seconds, I couldn’t make sense of what I was seeing. The letters seemed to separate and rearrange themselves across the paper.
Daniel had always been a distant figure in my life, present only in the edges of photographs and the occasional background voice when Mom called. He had never been unkind to me. He had simply behaved as if I belonged to a chapter of Mom’s life he didn’t know how to enter.
I looked up.
“Why is Daniel’s name on this?”
Mom closed her eyes.
“Because he found the storage unit.”
“What storage unit?”
“The one your grandmother rented years ago.”
“Why would Grandma need a storage unit? Everything she owned was in this house.”
“Not everything.”
I unfolded the note completely.
The handwriting was weaker than the writing in the old letters, the lines uneven where Grandma’s hand had trembled.
If anything happens before she learns where the money went, take her to the storage unit. She must see what her mother found there.
Do not let Daniel throw anything away.
Do not let anyone tell her the papers are meaningless.
