Chapter 4 - Robert’s Cabinet
Inside the cabinet were no tools.
Only files.
Bank statements.
Property records.
Printed emails.
Margaret looked confused.
“Robert hated paperwork.”
I pulled out one folder.
LAURA.
Margaret sat down.
“No.”
She opened it.
Credit-card statements.
Copies of checks.
Several documents carried Margaret’s signature.
She stared.
“I never signed this.”
Charlie jumped onto the workbench.
I pressed play.
Robert’s voice filled the garage.
Margaret covered her mouth.
The recording continued.
“Margaret, I need you to know I was not trying to scare you. I was trying to prove it first.”
He paused.
“Laura has been taking money from the joint account.”
Margaret whispered, “No.”
“I confronted her two weeks ago. She said she was borrowing it.”
The recorder crackled.
“There is more. I found a second mortgage application. Your signature is on it. I don’t think you signed it.”
Margaret’s eyes filled with tears.
Robert continued:
“I changed the garage lock. I moved the documents because I no longer trusted the house.”
I looked at her.
“The box at Lakeside.”
She nodded slowly.
Robert had chosen the rescue as a backup.
Why?
The recording answered.
“If I die before this is settled, Charlie will keep looking for me. Claire will notice. She notices animals nobody else hears.”
I had met Robert twice.
He brought Charlie in for vaccines.
We barely spoke.
Yet he remembered me.
The recording continued.
“I put the first box where Charlie would recognize my scent.”
Margaret began sobbing.
Then Robert said something that changed the room.
The recording stopped.
Margaret stared at me.
Robert had died from a heart attack in his driveway.
At least that was what everyone had been told.
May you like
Charlie lowered his head and began crying again.
This time, he was facing the garage floor.
