Chapter 3 - MY MOTHER’S PHONE
Melissa called again.
Different number.
Neighbor’s phone.
She had left the house.
Good.
Safe location.
Better.
Then she told Sarah something that changed everything.
She had finally opened Greg’s desk.
The drawer he always kept locked.
Inside were documents bearing her signature.
She hadn’t signed them.
Loan applications.
Insurance forms.
A second mortgage inquiry.
Greg had been using her identity.
Then she found photographs of my bruises.
Just like evidence.
Except Greg had labeled them:
PLAYGROUND.
BIKE.
SPORTS.
ACCIDENT.
He had been building explanations before anyone asked questions.
Dr. Reed looked at my wrists again.
“How long has this been happening?”
I whispered:
“Since Christmas.”
Six months.
Melissa cried when Sarah told her.
“I didn’t know.”
I believed her.
But part of me was angry too.
Because she knew some things.
She knew Greg shouted.
Knew he grabbed.
Knew doors slammed.
She just didn’t know how far it had gone.
Then Melissa mentioned the garage cabinet.
My head snapped up.
“You know?”
“I found the key missing.”
It had originally belonged to my father.
David.
After David died, Melissa stored his documents in that cabinet.
Greg later changed the lock.
Why?
“He said there were termites.”
Even at nine, I knew that made no sense.
Then Melissa told us the biggest thing.
David’s laptop had disappeared from her closet three months earlier.
Greg claimed she misplaced it.
But I had seen it in the garage.
Behind the locked cabinet door.
Why would Greg steal a dead man’s computer?
Melissa went silent.
Then:
“David kept financial records on it.”
“What records?”
“My inheritance.”
Greg turned away.
There.
Reaction.
My grandfather left Mom money before David died.
About $400,000.
Most supposedly disappeared through bad investments after Greg married her.
Melissa had blamed herself.
But David’s laptop contained the original account information.
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And Greg had spent three years making sure she never saw it.
The key inside my swollen cheek could open the cabinet containing proof of what happened to my mother’s money.
