PART 3: THE SECRET IN WALTER’S BOX
“You opened Dad’s box?” Greg whispered.
Dana looked down at the brass key lying among the jewelry and cash.
“No,” she said quickly. “I don’t even know what that key opens.”
Greg bent to pick it up, but the detective stepped between them.
“Don’t touch anything.”
The detective pulled on a pair of gloves and knelt beside the spilled contents. He photographed my bankbook, the rolls of cash, and each piece of jewelry before placing them into separate evidence bags.
I recognized the pearl necklace Walter gave me on our thirtieth anniversary.
I recognized my mother’s gold bracelet.
And beneath Dana’s purse was the silver watch I had bought Walter the year Greg graduated from high school.
“I thought that watch was buried with him,” I said.
Greg looked at Dana.
She backed against the wall. “It was sitting in a drawer.”
“No,” I said. “I placed it on Walter’s wrist myself.”
The room became silent.
Even the deputy stopped writing.
“You took it from his body?” Emily asked.

“Of course not!” Dana shouted. “The funeral home must have removed it.”
“The funeral home returned Walter’s personal belongings to me in a sealed envelope,” I said. “The watch was not inside.”
Greg stared at his wife with disgust. “You told me Mom must have forgotten where she put it.”
“You believed that because she forgets everything!”
“I don’t forget thieves,” I said.
The detective held up the brass key. A small number had been engraved along its edge.
“Box 317,” Greg said.
The detective turned toward him. “So you know what it opens.”
Greg swallowed. “My father kept a safe-deposit box at First County Bank.”
Mr. Harlan nodded. “Walter and Evelyn were joint owners. After Walter died, Mrs. Mercer reported the key missing.”
“I searched for it for weeks,” I said. “Greg told me Walter must have lost it.”
“I thought he had.”
“But your wife had it.”
Dana pointed at Greg. “He gave it to me!”
Greg’s face tightened. “That is a lie.”
“You found it in Walter’s desk after the funeral.”
“I gave it to you to give to Mom.”
“No, you told me to keep it until we knew what was in the box.”
Emily stared at her father. “You knew she had Grandma’s key?”
“I didn’t know she still had it.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Greg looked away.
Lorraine from Adult Protective Services crouched beside me. “Mrs. Mercer, did you give either of them permission to enter the box?”
“No.”
“Did you authorize Dana to carry your jewelry or bankbook?”
“No.”
“Did you give her this money?”
“No.”
The detective counted the bills.
“Eight thousand four hundred dollars,” he said.
My knees weakened.
Mr. Harlan pulled out a chair for me.
“That is the amount I kept in the locked drawer of my bedroom,” I said.
Greg stared at me. “You had eight thousand dollars in the house?”
“It was emergency money.”
“You told me you could barely afford groceries.”
“I could barely afford groceries after you took three hundred dollars from my pension every month.”
Dana folded her arms. “You cannot prove that cash is yours.”
The detective lifted one of the paper bands around the bills. “Her name is written on it.”
Walter had wrapped the money himself. I could still see his blocky handwriting across the faded paper.
FOR EVELYN—EMERGENCY ONLY.
Dana’s eyes moved toward the front door.
The deputy moved in front of it.
“You are not leaving yet,” he said.
Greg pressed both hands against his temples. “Why would you keep Dad’s key?”
Dana laughed bitterly. “Because you wouldn’t stop talking about that box.”
“What are you talking about?”
“For two years, every time money got tight, you said Walter had hidden something in box 317.”
“I said there might be old bonds.”
“You said there was enough money to solve everything.”
“I never told you to forge Mom’s name.”
“You didn’t have to.”
Greg stared at her.
Dana stepped closer to him. “Who brought me the blank power-of-attorney form? Who gave Cynthia three hundred dollars to notarize it? Who found the nursing home? Who told Chuck the house would be empty by Friday?”
Greg’s face changed.
Chuck took another step backward.
The detective looked at Greg. “Did you pay Cynthia Vale to notarize a signature she did not witness?”
“No.”
Dana gave a sharp laugh. “Check the withdrawal from his account.”
Greg grabbed her arm. “Shut your mouth.”
The deputy immediately pulled them apart.
“Touch her again and you will be wearing handcuffs,” he warned.
Dana rubbed her arm. “He is the one you should arrest. This was his plan.”
“You forged my mother’s name!”
“Because you were too scared to do it yourself!”
Emily stood beside me, gripping my hand so tightly our fingers hurt.
I watched my son and his wife tear each other apart over a house neither of them owned.
All those years, I had blamed Dana for changing him.
The truth was harder.
Dana had not created Greg’s greed.
She had only given it permission to speak out loud.
The detective placed the safe-deposit key into an evidence envelope.
“Mrs. Mercer, the bank reported an attempted entry into box 317 four months ago,” he said.
I stared at him. “Attempted?”
“A woman claiming to represent you presented a power of attorney. The bank employee refused access because the signature on the document did not match the signature card on file.”
Everyone looked at Dana.
She shook her head. “It wasn’t me.”
“The bank has security cameras.”
“I have never been inside that bank.”
The detective removed his phone and opened a photograph.
It showed Dana standing at a bank counter wearing a yellow coat.
Beside her stood her cousin Cynthia, the notary whose seal appeared on the forged document.
Greg studied the photograph. “You told me the bank was closed.”

“It was complicated.”
“You said you never tried to open the box.”
“I was trying to find out what was in it for us!”
“There is no us,” Greg said.
Dana’s face hardened. “Don’t pretend you’re innocent. You wanted whatever Walter left behind more than I did.”
Emily stepped forward. “What did my grandfather leave?”
Nobody answered.
She turned to me. “Grandma?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Walter handled the box. He told me it contained important family documents and something for Emily.”
Greg closed his eyes.
I saw it.
Just a flicker of recognition.
“You know what is inside,” I said.
“No.”
“Look at me, Greg.”
He did not.
“Your father told you.”
“He never told me anything.”
Dana laughed again, but there was no humor in it. “He told you enough.”
Greg turned toward her. “Dana.”
“You said there was a letter.”
Emily’s grip loosened around my hand.
“What letter?” she asked.
Dana looked directly at her.
“The one Walter wrote after your father emptied your college account.”
Greg lunged toward Dana.
The deputy caught him and forced his arms behind his back.
“You lying—”
“Stop resisting!”
“I did not empty anything!”
The deputy pushed Greg against the wall and snapped handcuffs around his wrists.
Emily stood completely still.
“What college account?” she whispered.
I felt the room shift beneath me.
Walter and I had opened an education account for Emily when she was born. We deposited money every birthday and Christmas. By the time she was thirteen, there should have been nearly seventy thousand dollars.
When Emily graduated from high school, Greg told us her mother had taken the money during their divorce.
Walter never believed him.
Neither did I.
“Your grandfather and I saved for you,” I told her. “We thought the money would pay for college.”
Emily looked at Greg. “You told me Grandpa canceled the account because I stopped visiting.”
“That isn’t what happened,” Greg said.
“You told me he was ashamed of me.”
“I was trying to protect you.”
“From what?”
Greg’s eyes filled with tears. “Your mother and I were fighting. The business was failing. I borrowed some of the money.”
“How much?”
“It was temporary.”
“How much, Dad?”
“Emily, please.”
“How much?”
“All of it,” Dana said.
Emily stumbled backward.
I caught her arm.
She had worked two jobs after high school. She had attended community college at night. She once told me she survived for a month on crackers and soup because she could not afford both food and tuition.
All that time, seventy thousand dollars had been waiting for her.
Until her father took it.
“You let me believe Grandpa hated me,” she said.
Greg’s voice cracked. “I was going to replace it.”
“It has been seventeen years.”

“The business collapsed. I had debts.”
“You bought Dana a car that year.”
Dana rolled her eyes. “Do not bring me into this.”
“You knew?” Emily asked.
Dana hesitated.
That was answer enough.
Emily wiped her eyes. “Grandpa knew what you did?”
“He found out later,” Greg said. “He wanted to call the police.”
“What stopped him?”
“I promised to repay it.”
“And when you didn’t?”
Greg stared at the floor.
“You stopped bringing me here,” Emily said.
“I was ashamed.”
“No. You told everyone I had gone wild because it was easier than telling them you stole from your own daughter.”
Greg began to cry.
I had dreamed for years of seeing him apologize to Emily.
Now that the moment had come, his tears looked small compared with everything they had cost her.
Mr. Harlan opened Walter’s leather folder.
“I believe this explains why Walter changed his estate plan shortly before his death,” he said.
Greg raised his head.
“What estate plan?”
Mr. Harlan removed a copy of Walter’s will.
“Your father left written instructions concerning the missing college funds. He directed that the debt be deducted from anything you inherited.”
Greg stared at him. “Dad left me nothing.”
“Exactly.”
Dana turned toward Greg. “You told me your mother stole your inheritance.”
“My father was angry.”
“Because you stole seventy thousand dollars!”
“I used it to save our business!”
“What business?” Emily demanded.
Dana looked at Greg with sudden fury.
“Tell her,” she said.
Greg shook his head.
“Tell her where her college money went.”
“Dana, don’t.”
“You didn’t use that money for the business,” Dana said. “You used it to pay a woman named Rebecca Shaw.”
Greg’s face went white.
I knew that name.
Rebecca had worked as Walter’s bookkeeper for nearly ten years. One morning she stopped coming to work. Walter said she had moved away without saying goodbye.
Three months later, Greg left Emily’s mother.
“Who was Rebecca Shaw?” Emily asked.
No one answered.
Dana smiled coldly at Greg. “Tell your daughter why you paid Rebecca seventy thousand dollars and made her leave the state.”
Greg struggled against the handcuffs.
“She is lying!”
The detective studied him. “Was Rebecca Shaw blackmailing you?”
“No!”
“What did she know?”
“Nothing!”
Dana pointed toward Walter’s folder. “The proof is in the box. That is why Greg wanted it opened before Evelyn could find out.”
Mr. Harlan looked through the folder until he found a bank inventory sheet.
His eyes stopped on the final line.
“What is it?” I asked.
He handed the paper to me.
Walter had listed every item inside box 317.
Insurance policies.
Savings bonds.
Emily’s original education-account statements.
A letter addressed to Emily.

And one small cassette tape labeled GREG AND REBECCA—APRIL 14.
Greg stopped struggling.
The detective noticed.
“What is on that tape?” he asked.
Greg said nothing.
Dana’s voice dropped to a whisper.
“It is Walter’s recording of the night Rebecca disappeared.”
Emily stared at her father.
I thought of Walter sitting awake in the kitchen one April night, his face pale and his hands trembling. When I asked what was wrong, he said he had discovered something about our son that no mother should ever have to know.
Before I could ask another question, the detective’s phone rang.
He answered, listened, and slowly turned toward Greg.
“They found Rebecca Shaw,” he said.
Greg’s knees buckled.
“Alive?” I asked.
The detective ended the call.
“Yes,” he said. “And after seventeen years of silence, she is finally ready to tell us what Greg paid her to hide.”…

Click Here to continue read next: PART4: I sold my house six months ago. My son does not know. Yesterday he set my suitcase…