The next morning, Daniel showed me the photograph he had found in the old house.
It looked ordinary at first.
My mother stood beside a younger man I didn't recognize. Daniel was in her arms. I was nowhere in the picture.
But written on the back were four words.
Property transferred before birth.
I read them aloud.
Ian frowned.
“What does that mean?”
Daniel shook his head.
“I don't know.”
I turned the photograph over again.
There was a date.
Three months before I was born.
My mother had been arranging something before my birth.
Something involving property.
I called Rachel.
She didn't answer.
I tried again.
Nothing.
Daniel paced the kitchen.
“She knew this would happen.”
“What?”
“That someone would come looking.”
I looked at him.
“You sound like you've been expecting this.”
“I've spent my whole life wondering why Mom kept me hidden.”
“And now?”
“Now I think she was afraid of someone much more powerful than either of us.”
Ian took the photograph.
“Then we need to find out who owned the property.”
Daniel opened the old address book.
A name had been circled repeatedly.
Elliot Bell.
I recognized the surname.
“Bellamy?”
“No,” Daniel said. “Bell.”
Ian stared at the page.
“That's the same family.”
I looked at him.
“How do you know?”
“Because Bellamy & Sons was founded by Elliot Bell's son.”
The room went quiet.
The jeweler.
The locket.
The letters.
The property.
They weren't separate.
They were pieces of the same history.
We drove back to the jewelry shop.
The older woman was waiting.
Her name was Evelyn Bellamy.
She looked at me for a long moment.
“Rachel called me.”
“What did she tell you?”
“That the time had come.”
I hated those words.
Everyone seemed to have known there would be a time.
Everyone except me.
I placed the photograph on the counter.
“Tell me what this means.”
Evelyn studied it.
Then she opened a locked drawer.
From it, she removed a leather folder.
“This belonged to your mother.”
My heart began racing.
“Why was it here?”
“She asked my father to keep it.”
“What's inside?”
“Documents.”
I opened the folder.
The first page was a property deed.
The owner was Margaret Hale.
My mother.
The property was held in trust.
For Daniel.
I stared.
“Why?”
Evelyn continued.
“Because your mother believed Victor would try to take everything.”
“What did he want?”
“The property.”
“Why?”
“Because it was worth far more than she ever admitted.”
I looked at Daniel.
“How much?”
Evelyn gave him a sad smile.
“Enough to make dangerous people patient.”
The next document named another beneficiary.
Me.
My hands shook.
“My mother put both our names on this?”
“Yes.”
“Then why didn't we know?”
“Because the trust was sealed.”
“Until when?”
Evelyn pointed to a date.
My twenty-ninth birthday.
I was twenty-nine.
The date was only weeks away.
I looked at Ian.
“You knew?”
“No.”
“Did you know about the trust?”
“I knew your mother had left something for you.”
“Not this.”
“No.”
Daniel leaned against the counter.
“Why would Victor care about a trust that hasn't opened yet?”
Evelyn's expression changed.
“Because he may have a claim.”
“On what?”
“The original estate.”
She opened another document.
A signature appeared at the bottom.
Victor Hale.
I stared at the name.
“Hale?”
“Yes.”
“My mother's first husband.”
Evelyn nodded.
Then she said something I wasn't prepared for.
“Victor was also Daniel's legal guardian.”
Daniel went completely still.
“What?”
Evelyn looked at him.
“Your mother removed him.”
“When?”
“Shortly before she left.”
Daniel's face hardened.
“Why?”
Evelyn didn't answer.
I looked at the documents.
There was a page missing.
“Where is the rest?”
Evelyn's eyes dropped.
“What?”
“The document has page three. I have page one, page two, and page four.”
She swallowed.
“Page three disappeared years ago.”
“What was on it?”
“We don't know.”
“You don't know?”
“No.”
I looked at Ian.
His face had gone serious.
“Someone removed it.”
Evelyn nodded.
“That was always our suspicion.”
“Victor?”
“Possibly.”
I took the folder.
“I need copies.”
Evelyn hesitated.
“You shouldn't keep the originals.”
“I won't.”
She photocopied everything.
As we prepared to leave, she stopped me.
“There is one more thing.”
“What?”
She opened a small drawer.
Inside was a key.
Not the brass key Ian had hidden in his tuxedo.
A different one.
Larger.
Black.
“Your mother left this too.”
I stared at it.
“What does it open?”
Evelyn shook her head.
“She never told us.”
Daniel took the key.
There was a tiny number stamped into the metal.
17.
Ian looked at it.
“Locker.”
“Where?”
He didn't answer.
I knew.
“The station.”
We drove there immediately.
The station was crowded with travelers.
Locker seventeen stood at the end of a narrow row.
I inserted the key.
It turned.
Inside was a sealed envelope.
My name was written across it.
Underneath was another name.
Daniel.
We opened it together.
Inside was a single letter.
My mother's words were short.
If you are reading this together, then the worst thing I feared did not happen.
You found each other.
I covered my mouth.
The next sentence made Daniel sit down.
Victor was never afraid of losing the property.
He was afraid that Daniel would discover who his real father was.
Daniel looked at me.
“What?”
I couldn't speak.
The letter continued.
Your father was not the man you remember.
Daniel's hands began shaking.
The letter ended with a sentence that seemed to drain all the air from the room.
His father knows where you are.
A sound came from behind us.
Footsteps.
We turned.
A man in a dark coat stood near the station entrance.
He wasn't looking at us.
He was looking at the locker.
Ian quietly closed the envelope.
“Don't move.”
The man reached into his pocket.
Then stopped.
Someone called his name.
He turned.
And for one second, I saw his face.
I didn't know him.
But Daniel did.
His lips went pale.
“That's Victor.”
Click here to continue reading: PART 7: Daniel Finally Learned Who His Father Was, While the Man We Had Spent Years Fearing Appeared Where He Had No Reason to Be
The Morning After Saying “I Do,” One Tiny Object Turned My Husband’s Perfect Tuxedo Into Something I Suddenly Feared
Part 6 of 10
