Dad kept the little black notebook on the kitchen table while I read the final entry again. Grant had asked whether the security camera in the study was still working. It was such an ordinary question that, under different circumstances, I might have forgotten it by lunchtime. Now it felt like the first solid thread we had found in a room full of tangled lies.
“Where does the camera store its recordings?” I asked.
“On a small memory card,” Dad replied. “There used to be an application on my old laptop, but I haven't checked it in months.”
“Is the laptop still here?”
“Somewhere in the study. I haven't used it since I bought the new computer.”
He rose, went down the hallway, and returned carrying a dusty laptop with a faded manufacturer's sticker on the lid. He placed it beside my coffee cup and searched the drawer for its charger. I watched him work, remembering how he'd once spent an entire Sunday trying to repair a broken radio rather than admit he needed a new one.
The laptop took several minutes to start. Its fan whirred loudly, and the screen flickered before displaying the familiar desktop. Dad clicked through several folders until he found the security application. It asked for a password.
He tried two possibilities, frowned, and entered a third.
The program opened.
“That's encouraging,” I said.
“Don't celebrate yet. The last time I used this thing, it took me twenty minutes to open an email.”
The camera's archive contained recordings from several dates, but the oldest available footage was only from the previous Friday. Dad selected the afternoon file and leaned closer to the screen. The picture was grainy, the colors washed out, but the study was unmistakable. His desk stood beneath the window, the filing cabinet was against the wall, and the locked cabinet appeared in the corner.
At 4:12 p.m., Vanessa entered the room.
She was carrying a folder.
Dad stopped the recording.
“That must be when she and Grant visited.”
I nodded. Vanessa set the folder on the desk, looked around, and walked toward the filing cabinet. She opened the bottom drawer, examined its contents, and removed several papers. Then she glanced toward the door before placing the papers back.
She wasn't searching randomly. She seemed to know exactly where to look.
Dad resumed the footage.
At 4:19, Grant entered the study. He carried no folder and appeared to be talking to Vanessa, though the camera had no audio. He pointed toward the locked cabinet. Vanessa shook her head, then gestured toward the desk.
Grant pulled out a chair and sat down.
For several minutes, the two of them examined papers together. Vanessa held up one page, and Grant leaned forward to read it. Then he took something from his pocket and placed it on the desk.
The image was too blurry to identify the object.
I paused the recording and enlarged the picture as much as the application allowed. It looked like a small, dark rectangular item, perhaps a flash drive or a phone.
Dad leaned closer.
“Can you make out what that is?”
“No. But he deliberately put it down before she opened the drawer again.”
We continued watching.
At 4:27, Vanessa left the room carrying the folder. Grant remained behind. He looked toward the hallway, waited several seconds, and then approached the locked cabinet.
Dad's jaw tightened.
Grant crouched beside it.
I felt my stomach turn as he examined the lock and reached into his pocket. The camera's angle didn't reveal precisely what he did, but he remained there for nearly a minute before standing and returning to the desk.
Then he opened the bottom drawer.
He removed the envelope marked Friday.
Neither Dad nor I spoke.
Grant opened the envelope, removed the paper inside, and studied it. He appeared to read the handwritten note at the bottom. After a moment, he folded the page, placed it back inside, and slipped the envelope into his jacket.
He glanced toward the camera.
For a second, I thought he had noticed it.
Instead, he turned away and left the study.
Dad sat motionless.
“He took it,” I whispered.
“He took the envelope,” Dad corrected quietly. “We still need to know whether he returned it.”
The footage continued. At 4:41, Grant came back into the room. This time he carried a single sheet of paper. He placed it in the desk drawer, closed the drawer, and left.
I looked at Dad.
“Could that have been the document we found later?”
“Possibly. We need to compare the footage with the papers.”
We copied the relevant recording to a separate drive and saved a second copy. Dad insisted on preserving the original files as well. He didn't want anyone to accuse us of editing the footage or selecting only the parts that supported our suspicions.
Then we called Martin.
He arrived at the house just after five and watched the recording twice. During the second viewing, he asked us to stop at the moment Grant removed the envelope.
“Do you remember seeing that envelope before Friday?” Martin asked Dad.
“I don't.”
“Did you give Grant permission to take it?”
“No.”
Martin wrote down the answer.
He explained that the recording could be important, but we should avoid describing Grant's actions as a proven crime before the full circumstances were established. The footage showed him removing an envelope without Dad's knowledge, but we still needed to determine what the document was, whether he had made copies, and how it connected to the bank inquiry.
Dad agreed.
Martin asked whether the camera had captured the front entrance and hallway as well. Dad checked the archive. The system had recorded the hallway, but the camera's field of view did not include the front door.
We opened the hallway recording.
At 4:03 p.m., Vanessa and Grant had entered the house together. At 4:48, Grant left alone. Vanessa remained inside for another twelve minutes before departing.
At 5:06, someone else appeared at the far end of the hallway.
I leaned toward the screen.
The person was a woman wearing a dark coat and carrying a large handbag. She walked toward the study, paused at the doorway, and entered.
Dad frowned.
“Who is that?”
I didn't recognize her.
The woman stayed in the study for less than three minutes. When she emerged, she looked toward the front of the house, then hurried down the hallway and out of view.
Martin asked Dad whether he had invited anyone else to the house that afternoon.
“No.”
“Could it have been a neighbor?”
“Perhaps, but I can't identify her.”
We replayed the clip, but the woman's face was partly obscured by the angle of the camera. Her coat looked familiar, though I couldn't place it.
Then I noticed something.
She had been carrying a yellow envelope.
The same kind of envelope Dad had found in his desk.
I pointed at the screen.
“Look at her hand.”
Martin leaned closer.
The woman held the envelope against her side as she entered the study. When she left, her hand was empty.
Dad slowly sat back in his chair.
“Someone else was involved.”
Martin didn't disagree. He asked us to preserve the hallway footage and make a note of the time. He would review it alongside the bank inquiry and the document history.
Before leaving, he turned toward Dad.
“Frank, I need to ask you something. Is there anyone who might have a reason to help Grant with these documents without knowing the full story?”
Dad considered the question.
“I can't think of anyone.”
Martin glanced at the screen again.
“Then perhaps the person in this recording is someone who knows more than she wants us to believe.”
After he left, I returned to the footage. I watched the woman enter the study, place the envelope somewhere beyond the camera's view, and leave without it.
Something about the way she moved bothered me. She didn't look like someone who had accidentally walked into the wrong room. She seemed familiar with the house.
I enlarged the image again and focused on her left hand.
There was a silver ring on her middle finger, shaped like a narrow band with a small stone set into it.
I knew that ring.
I'd seen it at family gatherings, on a hand that had once held mine when I was frightened of thunderstorms.
I looked at Dad.
“I think I know who she is.”
He turned toward me.
“Who?”
I swallowed.
“It's Aunt Diane.”
Dad's sister had lived less than twenty minutes away for most of my childhood. She had been the person who brought casseroles after our mother died, the one who remembered every birthday, and the relative who had always insisted that family disagreements should never be discussed outside the family.
She also had a habit of appearing whenever Dad's finances or property came up.
Dad stared at the frozen image.
“Diane was here on Friday?”
“Apparently.”
He picked up his phone, then stopped before dialing.
Martin had told us not to confront anyone until we had reviewed the evidence. Dad set the phone down again.
For several minutes, we sat in silence.
Then Dad said something I hadn't expected.
“Your aunt was the one who suggested I update my estate plan last year.”
I turned toward him.
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“Because I didn't think it mattered. She said I should make sure everything was clear so you and Vanessa wouldn't fight over the house.”
He looked at the woman on the screen.
“She may have been trying to prevent a fight. Or she may have known one was coming.”
I glanced at the timestamp again. The woman had entered the study after Grant left and before Vanessa departed.
If Aunt Diane had come to the house that afternoon, she might have seen the documents. She might even have known about the missing verification page.
But why would she have taken the envelope?
My phone buzzed.
The anonymous number had sent another message.
“Now you know who visited. Ask Diane why she gave Grant the original.”
Click here to continue reading: PART 10: Aunt Diane Denied Taking the Original Document, Until Dad Asked Her About the One Promise She Had Made Years Earlier
My Sister Announced Our Father’s Death While He Sat Across From Me, and Her Next Words Revealed What She Really Wanted
Part 9 of 20
