Chapter 7 - The Messages
The fake messages were good.
Not perfect.
Eleanor supposedly wrote:
Isabella is polished but shallow.
She will never understand where Charles comes from.
Farm life makes you see character faster than money does.
Isabella had read those lines before every family dinner for six months.
"Why didn't you ask me?" Eleanor said.
"Because I believed him."
"Why?"
"Because part of me already thought you disliked me."
A weakness Victor had used.
Eleanor handed the pages back.
"He didn't make you say what you said in church."
"I know."
"Good."
Charles arrived twenty minutes later and stopped when he saw Isabella on the porch.
"What are you doing here?"
"Apologizing."
Eleanor showed him the forged messages.
"Victor did this?"
"We don't know who created them," Eleanor said.
"He gave them to me."
"And you never thought to ask my mother if they were real?"
"No."
"Why?"
"Because I was arrogant."
No "but."
Then Isabella added:
"And because my father has been telling me for years that people secretly resent us."
Charles said:
"Sometimes people resent being treated badly."
"I know."
Before she left, Isabella gave Eleanor one more thing.
A screenshot from her father's phone she'd photographed that morning.
Victor to Mason:
GET THE FARM RECEIPTS BEFORE THE AUDITORS DO.
"What receipts?"
The sale of the north acreage had been handled through a small farm office behind the barn.
Proof the money came directly from her land sale.
They ran to the office.
The lock was broken.
May you like
Inside, file drawers stood open.
The Rose Creek donation folder was gone.
