Part 3 — The Trap
Nancy froze.
“What did you say?”
Charles opened the briefcase.
“I said you walked directly into the trap Thomas prepared.”
Her hands began to tremble.
“Thomas loved me.”
“I know.”
“He asked me to marry him.”
“I know.”
“He was dying.”
“I know.”
“Then what are you talking about?”
Charles removed a folder.
“He wanted you to believe the marriage was about love.”
Nancy stared at him.
“What was it about?”
Charles slid a document across the table.
“Protection.”
Nancy looked down.
The document contained Thomas’s signature.
She read the first paragraph.
Then the second.
Her face slowly changed.
“This says I inherit everything.”
Charles nodded.
“The house. The company. The investments. The trusts.”
Nancy pushed the paper away.
“I don’t understand.”
“There is more.”
Charles removed another document.
“This is a letter Thomas left for me to give you only after his funeral.”
Nancy stared at the envelope.
Her name was written across it.
She opened it.
Thomas’s handwriting filled the page.
Nancy,
If Charles is reading this letter to you, then I am gone.
I know you are angry.
You have every right to be.
But I needed you to marry me because there was no other way to protect you.
Nancy stopped reading.
“Protect me from what?”
Charles answered quietly.
“Your cousin Raymond.”
Nancy looked up.
“What?”
“Raymond has been investigating your finances since you returned to Bellweather.”
Charles opened another folder.
Inside were bank statements, property records, copies of emails, and photographs.
Nancy’s face went pale.
“He knew you were vulnerable,” Charles continued. “He knew you were living alone. He knew you had savings and that you had no immediate family.”
Nancy remembered every telephone call.
Every question.
Every time Raymond had mentioned her money.
Her stomach tightened.
“He was trying to convince you to give him power of attorney.”
Charles nodded.
“And if you had done that, he would have controlled everything.”
Nancy covered her mouth.
“But why would Thomas involve himself?”
“Because Thomas discovered what Raymond was doing.”
Charles showed her another document.
Thomas had been investigating Raymond for months.
He had hired Charles privately.
He had discovered that Raymond had already manipulated an elderly relative years earlier and had attempted to gain control of her estate.
“He was going to come after you,” Charles said.
Nancy stared at the evidence.
“Then why didn’t Thomas simply tell me?”
“Because he knew you wouldn’t believe him.”
Nancy shook her head.
“He could have tried.”
“He did.”
Charles pointed to the letter.
“Keep reading.”
Nancy continued.
I knew you would refuse money.
I knew you would refuse protection.
And I knew you would never accept help simply because I asked you to.
So I gave you something you could not refuse.
My name.
Nancy’s eyes filled with tears.
When you became my wife, every legal document protecting my estate also protected you.
Raymond cannot touch what I left you.
But there is one more thing you need to know.
Nancy stopped.
Her heart began pounding.
“What?”
Charles leaned forward.
“Keep reading.”
She continued.
The house is not the real inheritance.
Nancy looked confused.
There is something hidden inside it.
Something your family has been searching for for decades.
Nancy looked at Charles.
“What is hidden?”
He shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
“You’re his lawyer!”
“I know the legal documents. Thomas never told me exactly what he hid.”
Nancy returned to the letter.
Go to the attic.
Behind the old clock.
You will find a key.
The key opens the box beneath the floorboard in my father’s study.
Nancy’s breathing became shallow.
Charles closed the briefcase.
“There is one more problem.”
“What?”
“Raymond knows you inherited everything.”
Nancy stared at him.
“How?”
“He was at the funeral.”
She remembered seeing him standing beneath an umbrella.
Watching.
Waiting.
Charles lowered his voice.
“He knows Thomas left you the house.”
Nancy looked toward the window.
A black car was parked across the street.
She couldn’t see the driver.
But she knew immediately.
Raymond had come.
Charles stood.
“You cannot trust anyone who suddenly becomes friendly.”
Nancy looked back at the letter.
For fifty-six years, she had believed her greatest mistake was leaving Thomas.
Now she understood.
Her real mistake would have been leaving him again.
She folded the letter carefully.
“Take me to the attic.”
Charles nodded.
They climbed the stairs.
At the end of the hallway stood an enormous antique clock.
Nancy pulled it away from the wall.
Behind it was a small wooden compartment.
Inside lay an old brass key.
Nancy picked it up.
Her hands were shaking.
Charles stared at the key.
“What did Thomas leave you?”
Nancy looked at him.
“I don’t know.”
Then they heard a sound downstairs.
A door opening.
Charles turned sharply.
“Someone is in the house.”
Nancy tightened her grip around the key.
And from downstairs came Raymond’s voice.
“Nancy?”
She looked at Charles.
Raymond called again.
“It’s me.”
Nancy whispered:
“He’s here.”
Charles reached for the attic door.
“Then we need to find out what Thomas was protecting before Raymond finds it first.”
See more on the next page
