Chapter 10 - THE ORIGINAL TAPE
The original tape was not in the burned archive.
Michael had it.
Or had hidden it.
He survived surgery.
Police guarded his room.
I refused to visit at first.
Then Lily asked:
"Is Uncle Michael dying?"
"No."
"Do you hate him?"
I could not give her a clean answer.
"I'm angry at him."
"Because he took my medicine?"
"Yes."
"Can people be bad and scared?"
I looked at my daughter.
"Yes."
"Can they be sorry?"
"Yes."
"Does sorry fix it?"
"No."
She nodded like that made sense.
Children sometimes understand accountability faster than adults.
I visited Michael that evening.
"You came."
"For answers."
"Where is the tape?"
"Safe."
"From who?"
"Evelyn."
"What is on it?"
"Margaret's last night."
Michael had found it two months earlier in a locked cabinet at Hart Family Holdings.
He learned Evelyn had been lying about Margaret's estate.
She admitted taking the inheritance.
Help remove me as Lily's trustee.
Gain access to Lily's trust.
Use part of the money to repay what the Hart family "owed" him.
"Why did you believe her again?"
"Because I wanted the lie to be true."
That answer was ugly and honest.
If Lily's money was really his lost inheritance, stealing it could feel like justice.
It was stealing from a child.
Then Michael described the luncheon plan.
He agreed to remove one EpiPen.
Evelyn said she had arranged a minor kitchen error.
Enough to make me look careless.
Michael removed the backup.
Then saw Evelyn switch the desserts.
"Why didn't you stop her?"
"I left."
"You left Lily there."
"I told myself she wouldn't actually do it."
The family disease.
"Who stabbed you?"
"I don't know."
"Was it Evelyn?"
"No."
"You saw?"
"No."
"Then how do you know?"
"Because she sent someone."
"Who?"
"Peter."
"Peter was attacked too."
Michael stared at me.
"Then there is someone else."
The original tape, he said, contained a male voice.
Not Charles.
Not Peter.
A man arguing with Margaret the night she died.
Michael had recognized the voice.
"Your father."
Robert Hale.
My father.
The man who raised Michael as his son.
The man who had been dead for eleven years.
May you like
And suddenly the secret was no longer Hart against Hale.
Both families had buried Margaret together.
