I noticed the middle name.
I had stopped signing my full middle name when I was sixteen.
Even my driver’s license used only my middle initial.
“I didn’t sign that,” I said.
“Are you certain?”
“Absolutely.”
“Where were you Wednesday morning?”
“At the Briar Glen Public Library.
I work there.
We have electronic time records and security cameras.”
The detective wrote down my supervisor’s name.
Then she turned over another page.
It stated that Grandma had personally approved the transfer on Wednesday and that her signature had been witnessed by someone authorized to notarize documents.
The name at the bottom belonged to Marissa Vale.
My stepmother.
“She knew Grandma was dead,” I said.
“She helped me choose the clothes for her burial.”
Detective Pike studied the page.
“We’re going to verify the notarial record and the circumstances under which these papers were created.”
That was when Daniel’s telephone rang.
He answered quietly.
His expression hardened.
“Your father is at the front desk,” he told me.
“He’s demanding that we release the transfer.”
Detective Pike stood immediately.
“Stay in this office.”
Before she left, Daniel opened a cabinet and removed a sealed envelope.
“Your grandmother gave this to our fraud department earlier this year.
She instructed us to keep it with the account’s investigation file.”
The handwriting across the front was unmistakable.
FOR NORA, IF HE TRIES.
My throat tightened.
Grandma had known.
Not just suspected.
She had known my father might attempt to steal from her after her death.
Inside the envelope was a copy of the revocation of Richard’s financial authority, a handwritten letter, and a small photograph of Grandma and me standing beneath the apple trees when I was eleven.
The letter began with an apology.
My darling Nora,
I am sorry I could not tell you everything while I was alive.
There were days when I wanted to tell you, but I needed to make sure the people responsible could not frighten you into surrendering what was yours.
You have spent so many years believing you were unwanted because your father could not love you properly.
I want you to understand that his failure was never a measure of your worth.
The orchard belonged to my sister before it came to me.
She loved your mother dearly.
When I sold it, I decided the proceeds should help you build the life your mother always wanted for you.
I have made the arrangements legally.
Andrea knows where the documents are.
The bank knows my wishes.
Do not let Richard tell you that you owe him this money.
You do not.
You have already given me more love than any fortune could purchase.
All my love, Grandma.
I read the letter twice before I could speak.
For years I had worried that Grandma struggled financially because she had spent her retirement raising me.
I bought groceries whenever I could.
I repaired her roof using money from a second job.
I had even delayed finishing my graduate degree because I wanted to help her with expenses.
Now I understood that she had accepted those gestures not because she needed the money, but because she knew they came from love.
She had never treated kindness as a transaction.
My father had never understood kindness at all.
When Detective Pike returned, she
