Chapter 3: What Was on the Tablet
Lucy took the tablet from Ethan's hands slowly, the way you move when you are afraid that any sudden motion will make something real that you are still hoping is a mistake.
It was not a mistake.
The invitation filled the screen.
Ivory card stock, gold lettering, a small embossed crest in the upper corner.
She had seen that crest before.
It was the Vance family seal — Edward's seal — the one Julian had always said meant nothing to him.
*Julian Reeves Vance and Diane Colette Marsh request the honor of your presence at their wedding celebration.*
The address listed was the Pinecrest estate.
Her address.
"Go back to bed, sweetheart," Lucy said.
Her voice came out steady.
She did not know how.
Ethan looked at her face, then at Edward, then shuffled back down the hallway without another word.
He was five years old and already knew when adults needed the room.
Edward held out his hand.
Lucy gave him the tablet.
He scrolled slowly.
His jaw tightened.
"There are photographs here," he said.
"I know."
"Lucy.
These were taken inside the house.
The dining room.
The garden terrace." He stopped.
"The master bedroom."
"I know, Grandpa."
"He has been living there for over a year." Edward set the tablet face-down on the table.
"While you were drinking black coffee for dinner."
The words landed like something physical.
Lucy stood up and walked to the window.
The parking lot below was empty.
A single streetlight buzzed against the dark.
"He told me you hated him," she said.
"He told me you thought he wasn't good enough.
That you'd cut me off if I stayed with him.
That the mansion was never real."
"I sent him a handwritten letter," Edward said.
"When Ethan was born.
I told him I was proud to have him in the family." A pause.
"He never showed you."
She turned around.
"He told me you never reached out.
Not once."
Edward opened his jacket pocket and removed a folded envelope.
He had been carrying it.
He placed it on the table between them.
The return address was his home in Vermont.
The date on the postmark was five years ago, three weeks after Ethan was born.
It had been opened.
The letter inside had been refolded by someone else's hands — she could see where the creases didn't match.
"He read it," Edward said.
"And then he hid it from you."
Lucy picked up the envelope.
The paper inside was thin, the ink slightly faded.
She read the first line.
*My dear Lucy, I want you to know how much joy it gives me to know Ethan is here.*
She set it back down before she finished.
She could not finish it yet.
"The wedding is Saturday," she said.
"Yes."
"That's four days from now."
"Yes."
She looked at her grandfather.
He was eighty-one years old.
He had driven six hours to find her.
He was sitting in a hotel room at one in the morning with his jacket still on.
"What do we do?" she asked.
Edward picked up his phone again.
"First," he said, "we find out exactly what he signed and when.
My attorney is already pulling the property records." He looked at her steadily.
"And then we find out who Diane Marsh is.
Because I have a feeling she is not simply a woman Julian met after your marriage fell apart."
Lucy frowned.
"What do you mean?"
"The transfer happened fourteen months ago," Edward said.
"You told me Julian started reducing the money he sent home eighteen months ago.
That means he was already planning this two months before he moved against the deed."
The room felt smaller suddenly.
"He planned all of it," Lucy said.
"From the beginning, I think.
Yes."
She sat back down.
Her hands were flat on the table.
She looked at them as if they belonged to someone else.
"I pawned my mother's necklace," she said quietly.
"I needed the money for Ethan's medication.
Julian told me to.
He said we had no other option." She looked up.
"And the whole time, that necklace was sitting in a velvet box in my own house."
Edward said nothing.
There was nothing to say.
Lucy's phone lit up on the table between them.
A text message from Julian's number.
*You hung up on me.
Everything okay?*
She stared at it for a long moment.
Then she typed back: *Fine.
Just tired.
Goodnight.*
She set the phone face-down.
"He can't know we've spoken," she said.
"Not yet."
Edward nodded.
May you like
"Not yet," he agreed.
Outside, the streetlight buzzed and went dark.
