Chapter 7 - Michael
My older brother Michael lived two states away.
Or so I thought.
We had barely spoken since Dad’s funeral.
He blamed me for inheriting voting control of the family company.
I blamed him for showing up drunk to the reading of the will and calling Mom a parasite.
Now Grant claimed Michael had returned three days earlier.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because I called him,” Grant admitted.
“You what?”
Grant kept talking.
“When Thomas died, Michael threatened to expose the trust transfers. Diane paid him to stay quiet.”
I stared at my mother.
She shouted at the phone.
“That is not what happened.”
Grant said, “Then tell Claire why her brother got $300,000.”
Mom’s face turned gray.
Michael had found one of Dad’s bank statements after the funeral.
He saw a Westbridge payment.
He confronted Diane.
She called it a family settlement.
He called it hush money.
Noah asked Grant:
“Did Michael know about the audit?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Diane told me Noah was looking. I told Michael because I thought he still had copies of Thomas’s files.”
Everyone had been telling everyone except me.
My family had turned my life into a group project I wasn’t invited to.
Then the call cut out.
Police found Grant’s car an hour later at a gas station.
No sign of violence.
His phone was in the cup holder.
He had left voluntarily or wanted it to look that way.
At 2:00 a.m., I finally went upstairs.
Noah stayed in the kitchen.
I sat on the edge of our bed and saw a manila envelope under my pillow.
My name was written across the front.
CLAIRE — READ THIS BEFORE YOU BELIEVE ANY OF THEM.
Inside were hotel receipts.
The same hotel name I had seen in Noah’s coat.
But the room was booked under a different name.
RACHEL KIM.
Noah’s forensic accountant.
There were meeting notes attached.
Audit questions.
The hotel had been a quiet place to meet away from the office.
The receipt that convinced me Noah might be cheating had not been proof of an affair at all.
At the bottom of the envelope was a handwritten message.
Mom’s handwriting.
PUT THIS WHERE SHE’LL FIND IT.
May you like
My knees went weak.
Diane had planted the receipt.
