Chapter 12 - My Wife’s Version
Natalie did not deny meeting Carl Renner.
She denied knowing what she had carried.
“My mother gave me an envelope,” she said. “She said it was for a title affidavit.”
“You took documents out of my safe, handed over my signature samples, accepted twenty-five thousand dollars, and delivered an envelope to a notary.”
“I know how it sounds.”
“It sounds like a crime.”
“I didn’t know the paper had your name on it.”
Priya asked, “Was the envelope sealed?”
Natalie hesitated.
“No.”
I laughed once.
She looked at me desperately.
“I didn’t read it.”
“Why not?”
“Because I was scared.”
“Of what?”
“Of finding out I had already gone too far.”
That was the first completely honest thing she had said.
Detective Harris asked Natalie to come to the station voluntarily.
She went.
I stayed with Dad.
By evening, his color was better. He even complained about the hospital soup, which felt like the first sign that the universe had not completely broken.
I finally showed him Claire’s letter.
“You kept this from me too,” I said.
He looked at the envelope.
“I wanted to give it to you when you turned eighteen.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“You were leaving for college. You were excited. I was afraid you’d feel like your whole childhood had been counterfeit.”
“And at twenty-five?”
“You were getting married.”
“At thirty?”
He looked ashamed.
“By then, every year I waited made it harder.”
I sat beside him.
“I’m angry.”
“You should be.”
“But you are still my dad.”
His face tightened.
For a man who had once reset his own dislocated finger on a job site, those six words nearly destroyed him.
He looked away.
“I didn’t earn that easy.”
“It isn’t easy.”
I took his hand.
“You earned it every day.”
Dad cried silently.
So did I.
Then Priya entered carrying a sealed evidence bag.
Inside was a flash drive.
“Police found this in Elaine Foster’s desk at Shaw, Keller and Price.”
“What’s on it?”
“Copies of the trust file, your adoption petition, scans from your home safe, and emails between Elaine and Leonard.”
I stood.
Priya’s jaw tightened.
“One email says: ‘Natalie can get him to sign if we make her believe the alternative is losing the house.’”
I looked toward the door.
Natalie was gone.
But one question remained.
“Did she know they planned to threaten our house?”
Priya handed me a printed email.
At the bottom was Natalie’s reply.
Three words.
May you like
I’ll handle Grant.
