Chapter 1 - The Note Rebecca Never Wanted Me to Read
My seven-year-old daughter came running into the sitting room crying so hard she could barely breathe.
“Daddy…”
She shoved a crumpled piece of paper into my hand.
“Rebecca said you could never see this.”
My name is Daniel Miller. I was thirty-nine years old, halfway through an engagement weekend at my family’s Aspen lodge, when my daughter handed me the first thing that made me question everything I believed about my late wife’s death.
The note was written in Emily’s handwriting.
Chloe’s mother.
My wife.
Dead for three years.
Before I could read more than the first line, Rebecca stormed into the room.
Her face changed when she saw:
the paper.
“Give me that.”
She reached for it.
I jerked my hand away.
“What is this?”
“Nothing.”
“Then why are you trying to take it?”
Her expression hardened.
“Her mother’s dead, Daniel. Stop letting that kid use a corpse to control you.”
Chloe recoiled behind:
me.
I stared at Rebecca.
“Don’t speak about Emily like that.”
Rebecca pointed toward Chloe.
“Once we’re married, she learns her place—or she can disappear like her mother did.”
Everything in me went:
cold.
Rebecca reached toward Chloe.
I caught her wrist.
Pushed her hand away.
“You threaten my daughter again, this engagement ends here.”
Her face changed.
“You’re overreacting.”
I pulled the engagement watch she had given me from my wrist.
Threw it onto the wooden floor.
The crystal cracked.
“Try me.”
Chloe grabbed the back of my sweater.
Rebecca looked at the watch.
Then at:
me.
For the first time all weekend, she looked uncertain.
I crouched toward Chloe.
“Where did you find the note?”
“In Rebecca’s suitcase.”
Rebecca snapped:
“She was going through my things?”
Chloe started crying again.
“She put Mommy’s box in there!”
My chest tightened.
“What box?”
“The one from the closet.”
Emily had left behind a cedar keepsake box containing:
letters,
family photographs,
Chloe’s baby bracelet,
and several personal papers I had never fully sorted after her death.
Rebecca had no reason to have:
it.
I stood.
“Why is Emily’s box in your suitcase?”
Rebecca said:
“I was organizing old things.”
Without asking:
me.
Then Chloe whispered:
“Daddy…”
I looked down.
“I heard Rebecca talking to a man last night.”
Rebecca froze.
“What did you hear?”
Chloe looked directly at her.
“Rebecca said Mommy’s crash had to look accidental.”
For several seconds nobody:
moved.
Then Rebecca laughed.
Too quickly.
“She misunderstood.”
I looked at:
her.
“What exactly did she misunderstand?”
“It was a conversation about insurance.”
“With who?”
“My attorney.”
“Name.”
She hesitated.
That hesitation was small.
Enough.
I unfolded Emily’s note.
The first sentence read:
Daniel, if Rebecca tells you I’m paranoid, ask her what happened to the Northstar account.
I stared at:
Rebecca.
Northstar.
I knew the name.
It belonged to an investment account Emily had asked me about three days before her fatal car crash.
I had told her I didn’t know what she meant.
Rebecca had been sitting at our kitchen table when she asked.
And suddenly I remembered something else.
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After Emily died, Rebecca was the person who told me Northstar had been nothing more than a bookkeeping mistake.
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