She was still completely occupied with bath time.
I crept up the stairs, avoiding the creaky steps.
I slipped into my home office and locked the door behind me.
My hands shook as I spun the dial on my hidden wall safe.
I pulled the heavy steel door open.
The folders holding the deeds to my parents’ estate were entirely gone.
My heart dropped into my stomach.
“No, no, no,” I muttered, frantically digging through the empty shelves.
Everything was gone, including my daughter’s birth certificate and our passports.
I grabbed my laptop and logged into our shared banking portal.
The screen loaded slowly, revealing a massive pending deposit for the estate.
The buyer listed on the transfer was a corporate firm.
But the money wasn’t going into our joint savings.
It was being routed to an offshore account I had never seen before.
Then, I saw Melissa’s old iPad sitting on her desk.
I opened it, praying her messaging app was still synced to her phone.
It was.
The newest message thread was with a contact named Marcus.
I clicked on it, my hands trembling over the screen.
Don’t miss
“Are the funds from the developer cleared yet?” Melissa had texted him an hour ago.
