Three months after Walter's funeral, I stopped measuring my days by what I had lost.
That did not mean I stopped missing him.
It meant I could wake up without immediately reaching toward the other side of the bed. I could make breakfast without expecting footsteps in the hallway. I could sit in his chair without feeling guilty.
The house had begun to change in small ways.
I moved the dining table closer to the window because I liked the morning light there. I replaced the worn curtains in the kitchen. I planted herbs along the back steps.
Walter would have complained that I spent too much money on curtains.
Then he would have admitted they looked better.
I was learning to have conversations with him in my head without allowing those conversations to decide what I did.
One Tuesday morning, Bennett called.
“Eleanor, I have something you should know.”
I put down my coffee.
“That usually means something unpleasant.”
“Not necessarily.”
“Then what is it?”
“There has been activity concerning one of the old accounts.”
My stomach tightened.
“What kind of activity?”
“Someone requested information about an account connected to Walter.”
“Who?”
“I don't know yet.”
I stared through the window.
The garden was bright with sunlight.
“Could it be Denise?”
“I don't think so.”
“Roman?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
“That is what I'm trying to establish.”
He asked me to come to his office.
I arrived shortly after lunch.
Bennett had already assembled the documents.
“The account is not part of the trust,” he said.
“Then what is it?”
“An old investment account.”
“How old?”
“Forty-two years.”
I frowned.
“I thought we knew everything.”
“So did I.”
He handed me the statement.
The account had been opened in Walter's name alone.
The balance was modest compared with the trust.
But there had been no withdrawals.
No transfers.
Nothing.
Until two weeks earlier.
Someone had requested a copy of the account history.
“Who has authority to request this?”
“Normally the account holder, the executor, or someone with legal authorization.”
“Walter is dead.”
“Yes.”
“And I am the beneficiary.”
“Yes.”
“Then who requested it?”
Bennett pointed to the signature line.
I recognized it immediately.
My hand went cold.
Denise.
“She shouldn't have access.”
“She doesn't.”
“Then how did she request this?”
“She didn't.”
I looked at him.
“What?”
“The signature resembles hers, but it isn't hers.”
I stared at the page.
“Then whose?”
“We're still checking.”
Bennett turned another document toward me.
There was a mailing address.
Not Denise's.
Not Roman's.
Not Janet's.
A post office box in another town.
I had never seen it before.
“Who uses that?”
“We don't know.”
I sat back.
Walter's secrets had always seemed like old things.
This felt different.
This was happening now.
“Why would someone care about an account that old?”
“That is the right question.”
I took a photograph of the documents.
Then I remembered Walter's notebook.
“Could there be something connected to it?”
“Possibly.”
We returned to the lake house that afternoon.
The attic was empty now.
But I had memorized the arrangement of the boxes before we removed them.
I searched the rafters.
Bennett searched the floorboards.
Nothing.
Then I remembered the black notebook.
Walter had written about the property.
About Denise.
About the trust.
But perhaps he had written about the old investment account too.
I called Janet.
“Do you remember Dad ever mentioning an investment account from the eighties?”
“No.”
“Think.”
She was silent.
Then she said, “He used to talk about a company called Bellmore.”
My pulse quickened.
“What company?”
“I don't know. Some manufacturing company. Dad had shares.”
“Did he ever sell them?”
“I don't think so.”
Bennett heard her answer.
“Bellmore,” he repeated.
He began searching through the records.
Twenty minutes later, he found it.
Walter had purchased the original shares before we married.
The company had changed names twice.
Then it had been acquired.
The account should have been closed or converted.
But it wasn't.
Bennett looked at the paperwork.
“There is something strange.”
“What?”
“The account value isn't what it should be.”
“How much is there?”
He hesitated.
“More than the trust account Walter established for you.”
I stared at him.
“How much more?”
He gave me the figure.
I couldn't speak.
Walter had apparently owned an asset worth several million dollars.
And neither I nor the rest of the family had known about it.
Bennett continued.
“That still doesn't explain the recent request.”
“No.”
I thought about Walter's final letter.
When you stop asking what I would have wanted, you'll know I succeeded.
I had believed that was the end of his secrets.
Apparently it wasn't.
That evening, I returned home alone.
I opened the old wooden box where I kept Walter's letters.
At the bottom was a small key.
I recognized it.
I had seen it many times.
I had never known what it opened.
The key had been attached to Walter's old key ring.
I carried it to the study.
One drawer of his desk had always been locked.
I tried the key.
It opened.
Inside was one envelope.
No name.
No date.
Just one sentence on the front.
“Only open this if someone asks about Bellmore.”
I sat down.
My hands were shaking.
I opened it.
Inside was a single photograph.
Walter stood beside a younger man I didn't recognize.
On the back, Walter had written:
“This is the man who knows where the money came from.”
I stared at the photograph.
Then I saw the date.
Forty-one years earlier.
And beneath it was a name.
Thomas Reed.
I had never heard of him.
But someone had.
Because when my phone rang a few minutes later, the caller identified himself before I could speak.
“My name is Thomas Reed,” the voice said.
“I believe we need to talk about Walter.”
Click here to continue reading: PART 10: Thomas Reed Claimed Walter Had Trusted Him With a Secret for Decades, but His First Question Made Me Question Everything Again
The Morning I Learned My Husband Had Left Me Nothing, Everyone Suddenly Wanted to Decide What Was Best for Me
Part 9 of 20
