A pause.
“What happened?”
“I found something my father hid.”
Tom’s tone changed immediately.
“What kind of something?”
“I don’t know yet.”
I looked at the pile of documents spread across my mother’s dining table.
“But I think it involves Derek.”
He arrived forty minutes later.
He read the documents silently.
Page after page.
His expression became increasingly serious.
Finally, he removed his glasses.
“Where did you get these?”
“My father.”
Tom stared at me.
“Roy left these?”
“Yes.”
“And you are certain no one has altered them?”
“The envelope was sealed.”
Tom leaned back.
“Iris, your father may have been investigating something before he died.”
“What?”
He pointed to a bank statement.
“Look at these dates.”
I leaned closer.
The transfers had started almost exactly two years before my father’s heart attack.
Tom circled a particular transaction.
“This one.”
“What about it?”
“Look at the recipient.”
I read the name.
M. Voss Consulting.
My blood went cold.
“Sandra?”
Tom nodded slowly.
“The same Sandra Voss currently living with Derek and Melissa?”
I couldn’t speak.
Mom was standing in the doorway.
She had heard everything.
“Sandra knew my husband?”
Tom looked at her.
“Apparently.”
Mom sank into a chair.
“I’ve known Sandra for twenty years.”
I looked at her.
“Did Dad ever mention her?”
She shook her head.
“Never.”
Tom continued reading.
Then he found something.
A photocopy of a handwritten check.
The signature was my father’s.
The recipient was Sandra Voss.
The amount was $40,000.
But the date was eight months after Sandra claimed she had first met Derek’s family.
I stared at it.
“That’s impossible.”
Tom didn’t answer.
I grabbed the next document.
It was a photograph.
My father was standing outside a restaurant.
Beside him was Sandra.
And beside Sandra was another man.
A man I had never seen before.
On the back of the photograph, my father’s handwriting said:
She knows where the money went.
My mother whispered:
“Who is that man?”
I turned the photograph over again.
There was another line.
If anything happens to me, find Daniel Mercer.
Tom’s face changed.
“Daniel Mercer.”
“You know him?”
“No.”
Tom stood.
“But I know the name.”
He walked to the window and stared outside.
“Daniel Mercer was an accountant.”
“Was?”
“He disappeared.”
“When?”
Tom turned around.
“Eight years ago.”
The same year my father died.
That night, Mom couldn’t sleep.
Neither could I.
At 2:14 a.m., I was sitting alone in the kitchen when I heard footsteps upstairs.
I froze.
Mom?
I grabbed my phone and quietly climbed the stairs.
The hallway was dark.
Then I saw the bedroom door.
It was open.
Mom was standing inside.
She was holding something.
“What are you doing?”
She turned.
Her face was pale.
“I found another envelope.”
My stomach dropped.
“Where?”
She pointed toward the closet.
“It was inside Dad’s old toolbox.”
I walked toward her.
“What does this one say?”
She handed it to me.
This envelope was smaller.
The handwriting was unmistakable.
But this time, there were only four words on the front.
DO NOT TRUST DEREK.
I looked at my mother.
She began to cry.
“Your father knew.”
I slowly opened the envelope.
Inside was a single sheet of paper.
Four sentences.
Nothing more.
Iris,
