Chapter 4 - THE GARAGE CABINET
The cabinet was opened later with proper witnesses present.
Inside:
David’s laptop.
Bank records.
Melissa’s missing documents.
My birth certificate.
My Social Security card.
Her passport.
Greg had centralized everything he could use to control us.
Then came financial records.
Transfers from Melissa’s inheritance account.
Small at first.
$5,000.
$8,000.
$12,000.
Then larger.
Companies Melissa had never heard of.
One belonged to Greg.
Another to Greg’s brother.
The “bad investments” weren’t hers.
Greg had moved the money.
Then Melissa found an audio file on David’s laptop.
Recorded weeks before his death.
My father’s voice.
“If anything happens to me, Melissa needs to check the North Valley account.”
Mom stopped breathing.
North Valley?
She didn’t know it.
Neither did Greg, apparently.
The account contained money David had placed separately.
Not $400,000.
$126,000.
Untouched.
David had apparently become suspicious someone was accessing their finances before his death.
Who?
Greg wasn’t married to Mom then.
But he knew David.
That was the next shock.
Greg and David had worked together.
Mom never told me.
Because she barely knew.
Greg presented himself years later as an old acquaintance who wanted to help the grieving family.
But emails showed Greg and David had been arguing about money before Dad died.
Then we found one message from David:
Greg, stay away from my family.
I stared at my stepfather through the hospital-room window.
May you like
He hadn’t entered our lives after my father died by coincidence.
He had already been there.
