Chapter 6 - Sarah's Mistake
Sarah came to Elena that night.
Alone.
She found her sister in the nursery, sitting beside the twins' cribs.
For the first time in years, neither woman was surrounded by lawyers or family members.
“I didn't know about seventeen million.”
Elena looked at her.
“How much did you know?”
Sarah sat down.
“Some.”
“How much?”
“Five million.”
Elena waited.
Sarah began crying quietly.
Not theatrically.
Just exhausted tears.
“Mom told me you were never coming back.”
Elena's face hardened.
“She told you I was dead?”
“No.”
Sarah wiped her cheek.
“She told me you were going to take everything and leave us with nothing.”
Elena stared.
“That sounds like Mom.”
Sarah pulled a folded paper from her handbag.
“I signed this because she told me you had already agreed.”
Elena opened it.
It was a property authorization.
But Sarah's signature was genuine.
Her mother's wasn't.
Sarah had believed she was helping Evelyn transfer assets temporarily.
She had not known the documents would be used to take Elena's properties.
“Why didn't you ask me?”
Sarah looked down.
“Because every time I called, Mom said you were angry with us.”
Elena remembered those years.
Her mother had always intercepted letters.
Changed phone numbers.
Explained missed calls.
Elena had assumed Sarah simply didn't care.
Sarah whispered:
“I thought you hated me.”
Elena's expression softened slightly.
“I thought you hated me.”
Both women sat in silence.
Then Sarah said something that changed the investigation.
“There was one thing Mom made me do that I never understood.”
“What?”
“Every time Victor came to the house, she made me leave the room.”
Elena looked up.
“How long?”
“Since I was nineteen.”
Daniel entered quietly.
He had been listening from the doorway.
“That's useful.”
Sarah shook her head.
“There was something else.”
She looked at Elena.
“Victor once asked Mom if the military officer had found the old account.”
Elena froze.
“What military officer?”
Sarah swallowed.
“You.”
The room went silent.
Elena had been deployed overseas during that period.
She had never told her family about the financial investigation she had been conducting for the Army.
Someone had known.
May you like
Someone inside the estate had been watching her.
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