Chapter 3 - What My Father HidThe police arrived eleven minutes later.
That told me almost as much as Margaret’s call had.
“Claire?” Margaret said. “Can you hear me?”
“Yes.”
“Go inside. Lock the door if you can.”
I turned away from Calvin and Tabitha and started toward the house.
Calvin moved after me.
“We’re not finished.”
I kept walking.
“We are for today.”
“Claire.”
Something in his voice had changed.
The smugness was gone.
Now there was urgency.
Fear, maybe.
I reached the back terrace and slipped through the French doors.
Calvin grabbed the handle before I could close them.
I stared at his hand.
“Let go.”
“We need to discuss tomorrow.”
“Through our attorneys.”
“This doesn’t need to become ugly.”
I almost smiled.
That sentence had been Calvin’s favorite during our divorce too.
He’d said it after I discovered hotel charges.
He’d said it when I found messages between him and Tabitha.
He’d said it when he offered me a settlement that would have required me to sign a nondisclosure agreement preventing me from ever discussing his affair or his handling of money inside Bennett Architectural Group.
Apparently, things only became “ugly” when someone refused to let Calvin control the story.
“Take your hand off my father’s door.”
For several seconds, neither of us moved.
Then Tabitha called from the garden.
“Calvin!”
He released the handle.
I shut the door.
Locked it.
And pulled the curtain.
“Margaret?”
“I’m here.”
“What happened?”
“I received an automated security notification at 2:14 this morning. Someone attempted to log into the digital estate archive using Arthur’s old credentials.”
“Could it have been random?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because whoever did it knew the private client number, the archive provider, and Arthur’s security question.”
Cold crept up my arms.
“Did they get in?”
“Not completely. Two-factor authentication stopped them.”
“To whose phone?”
“Mine.”
I sat at the kitchen table.
Dad’s coffee mug was still in the drying rack.
I hadn’t had the strength to move it.
“Margaret, what’s in that archive?”
“His estate plan. Trust documents. Business succession papers. Property records. And a sealed memorandum Arthur asked me not to open until the reading.”
My eyes drifted toward the hallway.
At the end of it stood Dad’s study.
The door had remained locked since the funeral.
“What kind of memorandum?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re his attorney.”
“And your father enjoyed making even his lawyer follow instructions.”
Despite everything, that sounded exactly like Dad.
Margaret lowered her voice.
“Claire, has anyone been inside the house since his death besides you?”
“Family, people from the funeral, the housekeeper, Calvin briefly after the service.”
Silence.
“What?”
“How long was Calvin alone?”
I thought back.
The funeral reception had been held here.
Neighbors filled the downstairs rooms. Food covered every surface. I remembered going upstairs because I couldn’t breathe.
Calvin had disappeared for perhaps twenty minutes.
At the time, I’d assumed he was making a phone call.
“I don’t know.”
“Claire, check Arthur’s study.”
“It’s locked.”
“Do you have the key?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t touch anything before you take photographs.”
My heartbeat quickened.
“Why?”
“Because your father called me three days before he died and said something had been disturbed in that room.”
I stood so quickly the chair scraped the floor.
“What?”
“He believed someone had searched his desk.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“He specifically told me not to. Arthur was worried you were already under enough stress.”
Anger flared through my grief.
That was Dad.
Protective until protection became secrecy.
I opened the kitchen drawer where I kept spare keys.
The brass key to his study sat beneath a stack of takeout menus.
I grabbed it.
“Stay on the phone.”
I walked through the hallway.
Dad’s study door was walnut, darker than the others.
My hand shook as I inserted the key.
Click.
The room smelled like leather, paper, and the faint cedar scent of my father’s cologne.
Everything seemed normal.
His reading glasses rested beside the lamp.
A yellow legal pad sat near his chair.
His framed photograph of Mom faced the desk.
“Photograph the entire room before touching anything,” Margaret instructed.
I took pictures from the doorway.
Then stepped inside.
My eyes went to the desk drawers.
Closed.
The filing cabinet.
Locked.
The bookshelf.
Undisturbed.
“Nothing looks wrong.”
“Check the upper right drawer.”
I photographed it.
Then opened it.
Pens.
Paper clips.
An old pocketknife.
Nothing else.
“What should be there?”
“A flash drive.”
My stomach dropped.
“What flash drive?”
“Arthur said he had copied certain company records onto one.”
I searched the drawer.
Nothing.
“It’s gone.”
Margaret exhaled.
“All right. Don’t panic.”
“I’m not panicking.”
I absolutely was.
“What records?”
“I don’t know exactly. He told me only that he had concerns regarding transactions made while Calvin was still CFO.”
I closed my eyes.
Calvin had left Bennett Architectural Group eight months after our separation.
Officially, he resigned to pursue private consulting.
Unofficially, Dad had pushed him out.
Neither man ever told me why.
“Was Calvin stealing?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Did Dad suspect him?”
“I believe Arthur suspected financial misconduct involving someone in senior management.”
“Someone?”
“He refused to name the person until he had proof.”
A soft noise sounded outside the study.
I froze.
“Claire?”
Someone was at the back door.
Then came a knock.
Three hard strikes.
“Claire!” Calvin shouted. “Open the door.”
Margaret heard him.
“Do not let him into that study.”
“I won’t.”
Another knock.
“Claire, we need to talk now.”
I moved toward the window overlooking the side garden.
Tabitha was pacing beside Calvin.
She looked furious.
He looked terrified.
A strange reversal from twenty minutes earlier.
“Margaret, can you tell me what Dad’s current will says?”
“Not until tomorrow.”
“Even after someone tried to hack the archive?”
“I can tell you one thing.”
I waited.
“Calvin was removed as a beneficiary.”
I gripped the phone.
“When?”
“Six weeks ago.”
My guess had been right.
“Completely?”
“Yes.”
“What about Tabitha?”
“She was never named.”
Outside, Calvin pounded on the door again.
“Then why does he think he’s getting the house?”
“I don’t know.”
Unless he had seen something.
Or believed he had changed something.
I turned slowly toward Dad’s desk.
A memory surfaced.
The week before his death, Dad had been sitting in this exact chair.
He looked exhausted.
I had brought him tea.
“Claire,” he said, “if Calvin ever tells you a document gives him something, look at the date before you look at the signature.”
At the time, I thought he was warning me about the divorce.
Now I wasn’t so sure.
I walked to the filing cabinet.
“Margaret, do you know what Dad meant when he said I should look at dates on documents?”
She went silent.
That silence answered me.
“You do.”
“He mentioned forged corporate records.”
My skin prickled.
“Forged?”
“He suspected someone had backdated documents.”
The pounding stopped.
I looked toward the hallway.
Too quiet.
Then I heard the electronic beep of the front-door keypad.
Calvin still knew the old code.
The lock clicked.
I stared toward the foyer.
“Margaret.”
“What?”
“They’re coming inside.”
“Call the police.”
Footsteps entered the house.
Tabitha spoke first.
“This is ridiculous. We have every right to be here.”
I ended the call with Margaret and dialed 911.
Then I heard Calvin’s footsteps approaching the study.
The handle moved.
Locked.
“Claire.”
I didn’t answer.
“We need to settle this privately.”
The handle jerked harder.
“Open the door.”
I backed toward Dad’s desk.
My hand touched something underneath the desktop.
Tape.
I bent down.
A small envelope had been secured to the underside of the desk.
My name was written across it in my father’s handwriting.
CLAIRE — ONLY IF SOMETHING HAPPENS TO ME BEFORE TOMORROW.
My breath disappeared.
Outside, Calvin struck the door with his palm.
“Claire!”
I tore open the envelope.
Inside was a tiny brass key and one handwritten line.
The key is for the greenhouse cabinet. Do not let Calvin find what’s inside.
I stared at the words.
May you like
Dad had written them the day before he died.
And suddenly his death no longer felt quite as simple as everyone had said.
Related Stories
