Chapter 7: Six Words
Thomas was out of his chair before I had finished reading the message.
"Lock the front door," he said.
He was already moving toward the hallway.
"Thomas—"
"Lock it.
And stay here."
He checked the front door, then the back.
I heard him move through the sitting room, checking the windows.
Leo started to fuss against my shoulder.
I pressed him closer and tried to keep my breathing even.
Thomas came back into the kitchen.
"The girls," I said.
"Emma and Zoe are at school."
He already had his phone to his ear.
I heard it ring once before the school's front office picked up.
"This is Thomas Heller.
My daughters Emma and Zoe are in Year Five and Year Three.
I need you to make sure they do not leave the building with anyone other than myself or my wife." A pause.
"No, nothing's happened.
I just need you to have them stay inside until I get there." Another pause.
"Yes.
Thank you."
He ended the call and immediately made a second one.
"Julian.
Are you still in the area?" He listened.
"I need you at the school in twenty minutes.
Emma and Zoe.
I need a second set of eyes." A pause.
"Yes.
I'll explain when I get there."
He put the phone in his pocket.
"I'll go," I said.
"You stay with Clara, Mila, and Leo."
"No," he said.
"Thomas.
Someone has to stay with the younger ones.
Clara and Mila are upstairs.
If you leave them here alone—"
He stopped.
Looked toward the ceiling.
Looked back at me.
"You're right," he said.
It cost him something, staying.
I could see it in the way he stood at the front window and watched my car pull out of the drive.
The school was twelve minutes away.
I drove all twelve of them with my hands tight on the wheel and Gerald Marsh's name turning over and over in my head.
Gerald Marsh.
A man who had frightened a nineteen-year-old girl into giving up her son.
A man who had hired investigators and drafted legal documents to protect an estate built partly on a secret he had spent decades concealing.
A man who had d*ed and left behind people who were willing, clearly, to send threatening messages to protect what he had left them.
The school secretary met me at the door.
Emma came down the hallway first.
She was carrying her backpack and looking confused.
"Mum?
What happened?
Why is Dad calling the school?"
"Everything's fine," I said.
"I just wanted to come and get you today."
"You never come in the middle of the day."
"Today's different," I said.
"Where's your sister?"
Zoe appeared from a classroom doorway, her teacher behind her with one hand resting on Zoe's shoulder.
"She's all good," the teacher said carefully, looking at me the way adults look at each other over children's heads when they sense something is wrong.
"Thank you," I said.
"We'll be in touch."
Julian was in the car park when we came out.
He fell into step beside me.
"Thomas told me about the message," he said, quiet enough that the girls couldn't hear.
"Six words," I said.
"Do you have any idea who sent it?"
"Gerald Marsh had two children from his marriage.
A daughter named Renata and a son named Clifford.
The estate is being contested.
If they found out about Daniel — about me — one of them may have decided that intimidation was easier than a court case."
Julian helped buckle Zoe into the back seat.
"You need to report the message," he said.
"To the police."
"I know."
"Tonight, not tomorrow."
"I know, Julian."
He held the car door for me.
"I'll follow you back," he said.
"Until Thomas and I figure out the next step."
We drove home in a small convoy.
Emma asked questions the whole way.
I answered the ones I could and deflected the rest.
By the time we pulled into the drive, she had decided something important was being hidden from her and was wearing the particular expression that told me she intended to find out what it was.
Thomas met us at the door.
He pulled Emma and Zoe into a hug that lasted slightly longer than the kind he gave on ordinary days.
Emma noticed.
She looked at me over his shoulder.
After dinner, after the four girls were in their rooms, Thomas and Julian and I sat at the kitchen table with the message on the screen between us.
"Renata Marsh," Thomas said.
"She's been fighting the will for eight months.
If she found out there was a potential additional heir — even an indirect one — she might have panicked."
"Or Clifford," Julian said.
"He's the one who inherited the bulk of the estate.
He has more to lose."
"We report it tonight," I said.
"Yes," Thomas said.
"And we call the solicitor first thing tomorrow."
"Already messaged him," Thomas said.
"He'll see us at ten."
Julian leaned forward.
"There's one more thing." He looked at me carefully.
"Before you go to the solicitor — you should speak to your mother.
Not about the past.
About now.
If this goes legal, she'll be contacted.
She needs to know what's coming and she needs to be prepared."
He was right.
I picked up my phone.
My mother answered before the second ring.
"I know," she said, before I could speak.
"Patricia called me.
She told me what she brought you." A pause.
"And she told me about the message."
"Mom—"
"I'm coming," she said.
"First thing tomorrow.
We're going to handle this together." Her voice was steadier than I had expected.
"I should have done this forty years ago.
I'm sorry I made you carry any part of my silence."
After I ended the call, I looked at Thomas.
He was watching me with an expression I had not seen in two days.
Something quieter than the anger.
Something that belonged to us and not to any of this.
"We'll get through it," he said.
"You keep saying that."
"I'll keep saying it until it's done," he said.
"And then I'll say something else."
Julian stood and gathered his jacket.
"I'll be back at nine," he said.
"I'll drive you to the solicitor."
He let himself out the front door.
Thomas and I stayed at the table for a while longer in the quiet of the house, with five children asleep above us, and forty-three years of someone else's choices spread across four pages between us, and six words on a phone screen that told us someone out there was not ready for the truth to surface.
May you like
But the truth had already begun to move.
And the following morning, when my mother arrived with her own envelope — one she had kept hidden for forty years, that neither I nor Patricia nor anyone else had known about — everything accelerated.
