Chapter 6 - Jennifer Learns Her Mother’s Secret
Jennifer’s mother, Diane Walsh, had served as payroll director at Carter
& Sons.
She died six years earlier.
Jennifer refused to believe Margaret.
So Robert did what the family should have done decades ago.
He called an independent attorney.
No secret confrontation.
No destroyed papers.
No family agreement to keep quiet.
The records would be examined.
Jennifer handed over her father’s folder voluntarily.
Among Samuel’s papers was a ledger showing Edward Pierce and Diane Walsh
approving transfers together.
But the evidence did not prove theft by itself.
Then Emily noticed a handwritten notation repeated beside several
transactions.
M-17.
Jennifer remembered a storage unit her father had maintained under the
name “Matter 17.”
The unit still existed.
The next morning—Christmas Day—the family did not gather around presents
as planned.
Robert, Jennifer, and attorneys went to the storage facility.
Emily stayed with Lily.
Michael stayed too.
For the first time since the slap, husband and wife were alone.
Michael tried to apologize.
Emily stopped him.
“Not yet.”
He nodded.
She asked why he wanted a separation.
Michael finally said what he should have said months earlier.
“I felt like we were becoming strangers.”
“So you planned a public announcement?”
“I was angry.”
“At me?”
“At everything.”
He admitted Margaret had spent months telling him Emily embarrassed him,
ignored family traditions, controlled Lily, and isolated him.
Instead of confronting those claims, he let them accumulate.
Then Jennifer returned to town.
Margaret began comparing them.
Michael allowed it.
“Did you cheat?”
“No.”
Emily studied him.
“Did you want to?”
Michael hesitated.
That hesitation was an answer of its own.
“I wondered what my life would’ve been if I married her.”
Emily looked away.
Michael continued.
“I didn’t act on it.”
“But you let your mother build tomorrow night around that fantasy.”
“Yes.”
Emily’s eyes filled.
“The marriage may still end.”
“I know.”
That was the first honest conversation they had had in months.
Then Robert called.
Matter 17 contained bank records.
And one cassette tape.
Samuel Walsh had recorded Diane confessing.
But Diane did not say she stole the money.
She said Edward Pierce forced her to move it because he was blackmailing
May you like
her.
And the secret he held over Diane involved Michael.
