Chapter 8 - THE VERMONT HOUSE
Mom went pale when I said Vermont.
That was all the confirmation I needed.
We were in Kate’s guest room with Emma asleep down the hall.
“Start talking.”
Mom sat slowly.
“Your father bought a cabin outside Stowe before he got sick.”
“I never heard about it.”
“He didn’t want Ryan to know.”
“Why?”
She looked at me for a long moment.
“Because your father didn’t trust him.”
The room went quiet.
Dad had liked Ryan in public, but apparently he had been watching.
Mom explained that six months before Dad died, he discovered Ryan had used my name as a guarantor on a business line of credit.
Dad forced Ryan to remove me. Ryan later called it a bank error.
It wasn’t.
“The cabin is in a separate trust,” Mom said. “Emma receives it when she turns eighteen. Until then, you control it.”
“How much is it worth?”
“About nine hundred thousand now.”
I closed my eyes.
There it was.
Not one reason.
Two.
Money.
Control.
And a child placed in the middle.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Your father made me promise unless there was a reason.”
“You decided my husband trying to steal from me wasn’t a reason?”
“I was wrong.”
“You were silent.”
That hurt more than I expected.
Mom reached for her purse.
“Your father left this too.”
A small brass key tagged STOWE.
“He kept documents at the cabin.”
“What documents?”
“I don’t know.”
I almost screamed.
Instead, I took the key.
That afternoon, Officer Jensen called.
Forensics had found prints on the clonazepam bottle.
Not Ryan’s.
Not Margaret’s.
Alan Price’s.
The attorney had planted medication in my car.
But before I could process that, Jensen added something else.
“There’s a third print.”
“Whose?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“Why not?”
“It’s not in the criminal database.”
I looked at the brass key in my hand.
Jensen continued.
“And there’s something strange about the prescription label. The pharmacy says the bottle number belongs to a different patient.”
“Who?”
He hesitated.
May you like
“Diane Walsh.”
My mother.
