Chapter 4: What My Father Wrote
I picked up the letter.
Gerald sat quietly across from me.
He didn't rush me.
He didn't speak.
He just waited the way someone waits when they know what a thing costs.
My father's handwriting was uneven in places, the letters pressed harder than they needed to be, the way his always were when he was trying to say something important and couldn't find the right words fast enough.
*My darling girl,*
*If you're reading this, then Gerald found you in time.
I hope he found you in time.*
*I need you to know that I saw what was happening.
I wasn't as blind as they thought I was.
I watched the way Ethan asked questions — always careful, always friendly, always one step removed from what he actually wanted to know.
I watched how Barbara looked at this house the first time she came for dinner.
Not like a guest.
Like someone measuring a room.*
*I didn't say anything because I didn't want to hurt you.
That was my mistake.
I should have said it out loud.*
*Everything I have is yours.
It has always been yours.
I made sure of it.
Gerald has the documents.
Trust him.*
*I love you more than I ever said properly.*
*— Dad*
I set the letter down on the table.
Gerald handed me a folded tissue from his coat pocket without being asked.
"He talked about you often," he said.
"He kept a photograph of the two of you on his desk.
The one at the lake."
I knew the one.
I was maybe twelve.
We were both squinting into the sun.
"He should have told me," I said.
"About what he suspected."
"He was protecting you," Gerald said.
"The way fathers do.
Not always wisely.
But completely."
I heard Barbara's voice again from the hallway, lower now.
I couldn't make out the words.
Then I heard the front door open and close.
I stood up.
The hallway was empty.
Through the front window I could see Barbara outside on the step, still on the phone, her back to the house.
I went to the bedroom.
Ethan was at the wardrobe.
He had a bag open on the bed — not a packed bag, more like a bag being filled quickly.
He was pulling out a dark jacket, a leather document wallet, the kind he kept in the back of the wardrobe behind his suits.
"Going somewhere?" I said.
He didn't turn around.
"I need some air."
"With your passport?"
He stopped.
I had seen it in his hand for just a second before he pushed it into the bag.
He turned around slowly.
"You've been through my things," he said.
"I've been through my house," I said.
"There's a difference."
He set the bag down on the bed.
He looked at me the way he used to look at me when we first argued — like he was calculating the fastest route to the exit, not from the room but from the conversation.
"Listen to me," he said.
"That man out there — you don't know who he is.
You don't know what he wants.
People like that don't show up with folders full of documents because they care about you.
They show up because there's something in it for them."
"Gerald worked with my father for eleven years," I said.
"That's what he told you."
"I can verify it."
"Can you?" He took a step toward me.
His voice dropped.
"And while you're verifying it, what do you think is happening to those documents?
What do you think he's doing with them?
You handed a stranger access to your father's entire estate, and you think that's — what — justice?"
It was a good argument.
It was the kind of argument Ethan was very good at — reasonable on the surface, designed to make you feel foolish for trusting your own instincts.
"Gerald's copies are with two attorneys," I said.
"He told you that in front of me.
Removing him from this house doesn't remove the documents."
Ethan's jaw tightened.
"And the letter," I said.
"That was my father's handwriting.
I've known it my whole life."
"Letters can be—"
"Don't," I said.
"Don't finish that sentence."
He looked at me for a long moment.
Something shifted in his face.
Not remorse.
Something colder than that.
A decision being made.
"You're going to regret this," he said quietly.
"I've been very patient with you.
Very patient.
But there are people involved in this that you don't know about.
People who don't have my patience."
"Is that a threat?"
He picked up the bag.
"It's a fact."
He walked past me into the hallway.
I heard him say something to Barbara outside.
Then I heard a car door.
Then the engine.
I stood in the bedroom alone for a moment.
Then I went back to the kitchen, sat down across from Gerald, and said: "He just threatened me and left.
Who are the other people he's talking about?"
May you like
Gerald looked at me steadily.
"That," he said, "is what I came to warn you about."
