Chapter 2 - The Envelope Was From His Father
Ethan did not open the envelope immediately.
Margaret reached for it.
He moved it behind his back.
“Sit down.”
“I am your mother.”
“And Emily is my wife.”
Emily was still shaking beside him.
Ethan took off his jacket and placed it around her shoulders.
Then he looked at Margaret.
“You don’t touch her again.”
Margaret’s jaw tightened.
“She went through things that weren’t hers.”
Emily finally spoke.
“I found the envelope inside the old piano bench.”
Ethan frowned.
The mansion’s grand piano had belonged to his father, Richard Hale, who
died five years earlier.
Emily had opened the bench that afternoon while looking for extra
candles for Ethan’s birthday cake.
Inside was a sealed envelope.
ETHAN — ON YOUR THIRTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY.
Today was Ethan’s thirty-fifth birthday.
The handwriting was Richard’s.
Ethan felt the room change.
His father had been dead for five years.
Margaret whispered:
“Your father was sick when he wrote that.”
Ethan looked at her.
“You knew it existed.”
She said nothing.
That was answer enough.
Emily explained that Margaret arrived forty minutes earlier.
When she saw the envelope, she demanded it.
Emily refused.
Margaret accused her of turning Ethan against his family.
The argument escalated.
Margaret grabbed the envelope.
Emily grabbed it back.
The birthday cake fell during the struggle.
Then Margaret shoved Emily down into it.
“She told me to give her the envelope or stay on the floor until you
came home.”
Ethan’s face hardened.
Margaret protested.
“She’s exaggerating.”
Emily looked at Ethan.
“Check the cameras.”
Margaret went pale.
The mansion had interior security cameras.
Ethan opened the home system.
The living room camera was offline.
It had been disabled twenty-seven minutes before Margaret arrived.
Under Margaret’s guest access code.
Ethan stared at his mother.
“You turned off the camera before you came inside.”
Margaret whispered:
“I can explain.”
Ethan opened the envelope.
Inside was a single page.
The first sentence read:
May you like
Son, if Margaret has kept this letter from you until today, then the
thing I feared most has already happened.
