My breathing stopped.
“When?”
“Before you were born.”
I shook my head.
“Grandpa, that doesn’t make sense.”
“It does if you understand what happened.”
He carefully placed my daughter in the portable bassinet beside the porch chair.
Then he sat down.
For the first time in my life, my grandfather looked old.
Not simply older.
Old.
Like a man who had been carrying a weight for decades and had finally run out of strength to hold it.
“Your parents didn’t die in an ordinary accident,” he said.
My entire body went cold.
I stared at him.
“What did you just say?”
He looked down.
“I’ve lied to you about that too.”
“No.”
“Mara—”
“No.”
I stepped backward.
“You told me they were killed by a drunk driver.”
“They were.”
“Then what’s the lie?”
Samuel’s jaw tightened.
“The accident wasn’t random.”
My hands began to shake.
“What does that mean?”
He looked at my daughter.
Then back at me.
“Your father had discovered something.”
“What?”
“A financial scheme.”
I waited.
“He discovered that someone was using several companies to move stolen money through legitimate businesses.”
My heart pounded harder.
“Who?”
“Daniel.”
The name seemed to echo between us.
