Chapter 6: The Sister He Never Mentioned
I showed the note to Mr.
Calloway.
He read it once, then looked up.
"I don't know who Diane is."
"Walter never mentioned a Diane to you?"
"No.
His file lists two children — Richard and a daughter named Susan.
No Diane."
I turned the slip of paper over.
Nothing on the back.
No number, no date.
"How did this get into the box?" I asked.
"The box was locked."
"I don't know," Mr.
Calloway said, and for the first time since we'd arrived, he looked genuinely uncertain.
"I sealed that box myself, three weeks before Walter passed.
I watched him put the contents inside.
There was no note from anyone named Diane."
We looked at each other.
"Someone opened it after Walter died," I said.
"That would require the combination."
"Or someone who knew it."
Mr.
Calloway was quiet for a moment.
Then: "I think we should leave now, Margaret.
And I think you should not be alone tonight."
I folded the note and put it in my coat pocket alongside Walter's letter.
My daughter Carol answered on the second ring.
"Mom?
How did it go?
What was in the garage?"
"I'll tell you everything when I get there," I said.
"But Carol — do you have room for me tonight?"
A pause.
"Of course.
Are you all right?"
"I'm not sure yet."
Carol lived forty minutes away, in the house she shared with her husband, Tom, and their youngest, who was finishing his last year of school.
When I arrived, she was waiting at the door.
She took one look at my face and pulled me inside without a word.
I sat at her kitchen table and told her everything.
The photographs.
The letter.
The passbook.
The land.
The note from Diane.
Carol listened without interrupting, which was not her natural habit.
When I finished, she was quiet for a long moment.
"Dad knew," she said finally.
"Grandad made a deal with Walter's mother and Dad never told you."
"Walter forgave him."
"Walter was a more generous person than I would have been." She refilled my tea without asking.
"Who is Diane?"
"I don't know."
"And she got into a locked box that only you and the attorney knew the combination to."
"Yes."
"Mom." Carol set the kettle down.
"Someone else knew about that garage.
Someone who didn't want Richard to get there first — but also didn't want you to find that note through normal channels.
They put it where only you would find it."
"That's what I keep thinking."
"Which means Diane is either trying to help you or trying to warn you."
"Or both."
Carol's phone was on the table between us.
She looked at it, then at me.
"Do you want me to try to find her?"
Before I could answer, my own phone rang.
Unknown number.
Local area code — the same town where Walter and I had grown up.
I answered.
"Margaret?" The voice was a woman's.
Older, but not old.
Careful.
"My name is Diane Marsh.
I was Walter's youngest.
He had me with a woman he was with before he came back to this town.
Richard and Susan don't know I exist." A breath.
"But I know everything about you.
May you like
Walter made sure of that.
And I need to tell you what Richard is planning to do tomorrow morning."
