PART 23 — REBECCA’S SECRET
I stared at Rebecca.
“You knew?”
She nodded.
“How long?”
“Eleven years.”
Scott swore under his breath.
Laura looked at her sister as if she no longer knew where to stand.
I asked the only question that mattered.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Rebecca’s eyes filled.
“Because I didn’t know you.”
“You came to the credit union knowing there might be children buried under my land.”
“Yes.”
“And you said nothing.”
“Yes.”
I almost laughed.
Apparently secrecy was hereditary even when blood wasn’t.
“What exactly did you know?”
Rebecca sat down.
“Thomas found the first map eleven years ago.”
“The burial map?”
“Part of one.”
“Where?”
“In Daniel’s old company archive.”
Scott frowned.
“How did he access that?”
“Someone sent it anonymously.”
“Who?”
“We never found out.”
I thought of Caroline.
Dottie.
Richard.
My grandmother.
Too many people had been passing secrets around like recipes.
Rebecca continued.
“The map showed a section of Fairview marked with numbers.”
“Graves?”
“We suspected.”
“Why didn’t Thomas report it?”
“He tried.”
“To police?”
“To the county first.”
“And?”
“They searched the property records and found no cemetery registration.”
“That doesn’t mean there weren’t graves.”
“I know.”
“So why stop?”
“Because three days later Thomas’s garage burned.”
Silence.
“Accident?”
“Officially.”
“And unofficially?”
“He believed it was a warning.”
Detective Marquez raised a hand.
“Believed. We need to keep that distinction.”
Rebecca nodded.
“After that, Thomas became careful.”
“So he spent eleven years gathering proof.”
“Yes.”
“Why come to me now?”
“Because he was dying.”
That hurt more than I expected.
Not because it was cruel.
Because it made sense.
Thomas had run out of time.
“And the bank statements?”
“Thomas knew Scott was taking money.”
Scott looked away.
“How?”
Rebecca hesitated.
“Caroline.”
Of course.
“She told him?”
“Yes.”
“Then why didn’t Caroline tell me?”
“She was afraid you’d tell Scott.”
I stared at my son.
He didn’t defend himself.
Rebecca continued.
“Thomas wanted you to discover the financial abuse yourself.”
“So the quilt raffle?”
“Was luck.”
“The teller?”
“Luck.”
“The mailed statements?”
“That was you.”
At least one thing in my life had happened without someone secretly arranging it.
I almost found that comforting.
Then I remembered Raymond’s message.
“Why would Raymond say to ask you?”
Rebecca swallowed.
“Because I met him before the credit union.”
My heart sank.
“When?”
“Six weeks ago.”
“Your biological father?”
“Yes.”
“Thomas knew?”
“No.”
That surprised me.
“Why meet Raymond secretly?”
“Because Raymond contacted me.”
“What did he want?”
“The ledger.”
Scott looked up.
“Why?”
“He said Thomas had misunderstood what happened at St. Agnes.”
“Did you believe him?”
“No.”
“Then why meet him?”
“Because I wanted information.”
“What information?”
Rebecca looked at me.
“About you.”
My anger paused.
“What about me?”
“I wanted to know whether you really believed I died.”
I understood.
She had spent forty-two years believing I might have abandoned her.
Raymond offered answers.
“What did he say?”
“That you knew.”
My stomach twisted.
“He lied.”
“I know that now.”
“But six weeks ago?”
“I wasn’t sure.”
“What did he ask you to do?”
“Stay away from you.”
Scott stared at her.
“And you didn’t?”
“No.”
“Why?”
Rebecca looked at me.
“Because Thomas gave me the hospital record.”
Alive.
Female.
Four pounds, eleven ounces.
The proof that I had been lied to too.
“So Raymond tried to stop you coming.”
“Yes.”
“What did he offer?”
“Money.”
Of course.
“How much?”
“Five hundred thousand dollars.”
Laura gasped.
“To stay away from Mom?”
“To give him the ledger and sign away any claim to Fairview.”
My skin went cold.
“You knew you might own part of the land?”
“No. Not then.”
“What did you think the claim meant?”
“I thought Thomas had owned part of it.”
“And you refused?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Her eyes met mine.
“Because I wanted a mother more than I wanted half a million dollars.”
I couldn’t speak.
Rebecca looked away immediately, almost embarrassed by the admission.
I crossed the room.
I didn’t ask permission.
I hugged her.
This time she hugged me back without hesitation.
Then Scott’s voice broke the moment.
“Raymond still has the burial register.”
He was right.
I stepped away from Rebecca.
Detective Marquez was already speaking into his phone.
“No one is going alone.”
I nodded.
“I wasn’t planning to.”
Good.
I had finally learned that bravery and stupidity were not the same thing.
Within forty minutes, police were at Raymond’s house.
We waited at Rebecca’s.
Longest forty minutes of my life.
Then Detective Marquez received a call.
His expression changed.
“What happened?”
“Raymond isn’t there.”
My stomach tightened.
“The register?”
“Gone.”
“Did he leave anything?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“A letter addressed to Rebecca.”
Rebecca went pale.
Police photographed it before allowing the detective to read it to us.
Raymond’s letter began:
Rebecca, I have spent most of my life trying to keep one terrible act from becoming twenty.
Rebecca closed her eyes.
The letter said Raymond had known about St. Agnes.
Not everything.
Enough.
As a young man, he had gotten Anne Keller pregnant.
Twins.
He had been married.
Afraid.
His family paid St. Agnes to arrange a private placement.
One twin died shortly after birth.
The other was placed.
Raymond did nothing.
Years later, when he learned about Rebecca’s birth, he panicked again.
Again he let other people decide.
Again he stayed silent.
“He’s admitting it,” Rebecca whispered.
Detective Marquez continued.
Raymond wrote that he spent decades trying to locate the surviving Keller twin.
Eventually he found him.
Michael Keller.
The man police had just found inside St. Agnes.
Raymond had secretly supported Michael financially for years.
But Michael wanted something Raymond couldn’t give him.
Proof of his twin brother’s death.
“That’s why Raymond wanted the register,” I said.
Rebecca nodded.
But the letter wasn’t finished.
Raymond admitted arranging Scott’s loan.
Not to steal the land.
To prevent Scott from selling it to an outside developer who might excavate the burial area without proper oversight—or destroy evidence.
Scott stood.
“He could have told me.”
Rebecca gave him a look.
“So could everyone else.”
Fair.
Then came the sentence that changed the room.
I did not send Margaret the message asking her to come alone.
I stared at Detective Marquez.
“What?”
He read again.
If she received a message from my phone, someone else has it.
My skin went cold.
“Where is Raymond?”
Nobody knew.
The letter continued.
The burial register is not with me. I gave it to the person I believed would finally turn it over.
“Who?” I whispered.
Detective Marquez read the final line.
Melissa.
Every head turned toward Scott.
“No.”
He called his wife.
Straight to voicemail.
Again.
Voicemail.
Laura whispered, “Where is she?”
Scott checked location sharing on his phone.
His face drained.
“What?”
“She turned it off.”
Rebecca stood.
“When?”
“Forty minutes ago.”
Detective Marquez immediately contacted officers.
Then my phone buzzed.
Another photograph.
The burial register.
This time it was open.
A page of names.
At the bottom was a fresh handwritten note.
Your family has lied long enough. Tonight everyone learns the truth.
Scott whispered, “Melissa.”
I looked at him.
“Are you sure?”
“No.”
That was the first sensible answer anyone had given all day.
Then another image arrived.
A photograph of an old brick building.
St. Agnes.
The timestamp was current.
Detective Marquez was already moving.
“We’re going back.”
“I’m coming.”
“No.”
I looked at him.
“Detective—”
“No. If someone is attempting to lure you there, you stay here.”
He was right.
I hated it.
But he was right.
Scott insisted on going with police because Melissa might be there.
The detective refused that too.
So we waited.
Me.
Rebecca.
Laura.
Scott.
Dottie.
Five people connected by blood, lies, marriage and theft.
At 2:06 a.m., Detective Marquez called.
“We found Melissa.”
Scott jumped up.
“Is she okay?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“St. Agnes.”
“Did she send the messages?”
“No.”
My heart sank.
“Then who did?”
“We’re still determining that.”
“Does she have the burial register?”
“No.”
Scott closed his eyes.
“Did she ever have it?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“She says Raymond gave it to her this afternoon.”
“And?”
“She brought it to St. Agnes because someone contacted her claiming they could identify her biological mother.”
Catherine.
My stomach tightened.
“Who contacted her?”
“A woman.”
“Name?”
“She used the name Catherine Harper.”
Melissa’s biological mother.
Scott whispered, “Was it really her?”
“No.”
“How do you know?”
“Because Caroline Mercer is with the real Catherine right now.”
Silence.
So someone had used Catherine’s name to lure Melissa.
“Did Melissa see the woman?”
“Yes.”
“Who was she?”
Detective Marquez paused.
“She recognized her.”
Scott gripped the table.
“Who?”
“Judith Harper.”
Nobody spoke.
Melissa’s adoptive mother.
The woman whose notebooks we’d just found.
The woman we had been told was dead.
Scott whispered:
“Judith died three years ago.”
Detective Marquez answered carefully.
“Then either Melissa is mistaken…”
A pause.
“…or Judith Harper is very much alive.”
I thought of my grandmother.
A funeral.
A death that wasn’t a death.
A woman who lived decades under another name.
And suddenly I knew better than to trust a gravestone.
“Where is Judith now?”
“We don’t know.”
“Did she take the register?”
“Melissa says yes.”
My stomach tightened.
“Why?”
“According to Melissa, Judith said there was one page that could never become public.”
Rebecca whispered, “Which page?”
Detective Marquez answered:
“The final page.”
“What is on it?”
“We don’t know.”
Then Dottie stood so quickly her chair fell backward.
“I do.”
We turned toward her.
Her face had gone gray.
“What?”
“The burial register wasn’t only for infants.”
Nobody spoke.
Dottie continued.
“There was one adult burial.”
My skin went cold.
“Who?”
She stared at me.
“The woman everyone was told died when you were ten.”
I could barely breathe.
“My grandmother?”
Dottie nodded.
“Eleanor Porter.”
I shook my head.
“No. We know Eleanor lived until eighty-one.”
“Yes.”
“Then she can’t be buried at St. Agnes.”
Dottie whispered:
“Exactly.”
The room went silent.
And then I understood.
If a body had been buried under Eleanor Porter’s name while the real Eleanor was alive, the grave belonged to someone else.
Someone whose disappearance had been hidden beneath my grandmother’s fake death.
I looked at Dottie.
“Who is actually in that grave?”
Tears filled her eyes.
“I think that’s what Judith has spent fifty years trying to hide.”
“Who?”
Dottie swallowed.
Then answered:
“Your mother’s first husband.”
I stared at her.
“My mother was married before my father?”
“Yes.”
“What was his name?”
Dottie looked at the floor.
“Samuel Harper.”
Melissa’s family name.
My heart began hammering.
“And what happened to him?”
Dottie lifted her eyes to mine.
“Nobody knows.”
A pause.
“But three days after Samuel Harper disappeared, your grandmother supposedly died.”
And now the only record that might explain both events was in the hands of a woman who had already faked her own death once.
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