Chapter 1 - THE WORDS SPOKEN BESIDE ROSE’S GRAVE
“If no one takes responsibility for those girls, I will turn them over to Child Protective Services on Monday. I am not throwing away my life raising children whose mother is dead.”
Those were the words my son in law chose to speak beside my daughter’s grave.
The soil covering Rose was still dark and wet.
White lilies rested against the polished headstone. Gray clouds hung beneath the oak branches, and Spanish moss moved gently above more than two hundred mourners dressed in black.
I stood with my three granddaughters pressed against me.
Twelve year old Lucy held Rose’s framed portrait so tightly that her knuckles had turned white.
Nine year old Rachel stared at the grave without blinking.
Six year old April gripped my coat sleeve with both hands and shook from head to toe.
Arthur Reed stood several yards away in a flawless charcoal suit. There were no tears on his face. His phone had vibrated throughout the service, and each time he looked down, the corner of his mouth lifted.
A blonde woman wearing oversized black sunglasses waited near his black SUV.
Vanessa Cole.
Arthur’s fiancée, though my daughter had been buried less than an hour earlier.
I looked at him.
“What did you just say?”
Arthur sighed as if my grief were an inconvenience.
“Charles, Rose is gone. My responsibility ended with her.”
Several mourners gasped.
Lucy’s shoulders stopped moving.
Arthur pointed toward the girls.
“Vanessa does not want children. I deserve a new beginning. You are their grandfather. If they matter so much to you, take them.”
April began crying harder.
I tightened my arm around her.
“You said that beside their mother’s grave.”
Arthur laughed.
“It is better to be honest now than pretend for years.”
Detective Michael Grant stood near the funeral vehicles. Rose had contacted him two weeks before her death regarding financial irregularities and threats inside her home. He had come to speak with me privately after the burial.
Now he watched Arthur with growing concern.
I wanted to cross the grass and strike the man who had humiliated my grandchildren before their mother’s flowers had begun to wilt.
Then Lucy looked at Rachel.
Rachel looked at April.
The three sisters shared one silent glance.
It was too calm.
Too deliberate.
They knew something.
I lowered myself beside them.
“You are coming home with me.”
Arthur gave a relieved smile.
“Perfect. That takes care of my problem.”
Lucy lifted her face from Rose’s portrait.
“Mom knew you would say that.”
Arthur’s smile vanished.
“What did she tell you?”
Lucy’s voice trembled, but every word remained clear.
“Everything you thought she took to the grave.”
Arthur moved toward her.
Detective Grant stepped between them.
“Stay where you are.”
Arthur pointed furiously.
“She is a grieving child. She does not know what she is saying.”
April reached inside her small black coat.
She removed a sealed white envelope and placed it into my hand.
“Mom said Grandpa should open it if Daddy tried to leave us.”
Rachel pulled a tiny black recorder from beneath her sleeve.
Arthur’s face drained of color.
He lunged.
Detective Grant caught him by the arm while another officer moved from the cemetery gate.
“Give me that envelope,” Arthur shouted. “It belongs to me.”
I pressed it against Rose’s portrait.
“Then why are you afraid of what is inside?”
Vanessa stepped away from the SUV.
Her hand disappeared into her purse as though she were hiding her phone.
Rachel pressed the recorder’s play button.
Rose’s weak voice entered the cemetery.
“Arthur is planning to replace me before I am dead.”
Arthur stopped struggling.
Every mourner turned toward him.
Rose continued.
“If he abandons the girls after my funeral, everything in my notebook is true.”
I pulled my granddaughters closer.
May you like
“You abandoned your daughters before their mother finished testifying.”
Continue to the next part: Charles opens Rose’s envelope and discovers that her death did not end the investigation she began inside her own home.
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