PART 4 – They Banned Me From My Sister’s Wedding—Then the Groom Disappeared With the Money

PART 4

I dropped the phone.

For several seconds, I couldn’t move.

The photograph remained on the screen.

My parents.

The house.

Peggy as a little girl.

And the boy standing beside them.

Thomas Hale.

Or whoever he had been then.

The message beneath it kept replaying in my head.

Ask your father who he buried fifteen years ago.

I picked up the phone again.

My hands were steady now.

Strangely steady.

Fear had burned through itself.

What remained was something else.

Determination.

I called Uncle Robert.

He answered immediately.

“Did you receive the photograph?”

“Yes.”

“Then you know.”

“No,” I said. “I don’t know anything.”

There was silence.

“I need the truth.”

Robert sighed.

“I think you deserve it.”

“Then tell me.”

“Not over the phone.”

“Why?”

“Because your father is involved in this, Kate. And if what I found is correct, this goes far beyond Tom.”

I looked at the clock.

“Where are you?”

He gave me an address.

It was a small office downtown.

“I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

“Come alone.”

“I will.”

“And Kate?”

“Yes?”

“Bring the photograph.”

I drove through the city with my mind racing.

Fifteen years.

A family trust.

A forged signature.

A mysterious boy.

A dissolved company.

An $80,000 loan.

A missing groom.

And my parents somehow sitting in the middle of all of it.

When I arrived at Robert’s office, he was waiting with several folders spread across his desk.

He looked exhausted.

“Sit down.”

I did.

He pushed the photograph toward me.

“This was taken fifteen years ago.”

“I know.”

“Do you remember a man named Daniel Hale?”

I searched my memory.

The name meant nothing.

Robert watched my face.

“He was Tom’s father.”

I frowned.

“Tom told Peggy his parents were dead.”

“They aren’t.”

“Where are they?”

“His father is dead. His mother is alive.”

“Where?”

“Arizona.”

THE END.