Chapter 8: What Michael Knew
I told Thomas Reade to give us ten minutes.
Jennifer and her husband left the room without being asked.
Margaret's footsteps could be heard upstairs — drawers opening, a suitcase being dragged across the floor.
Michael sat at the table.
He was thirty-one years old and he looked, in that moment, like someone much younger who had made a very long series of choices he couldn't undo.
Emma poured him a glass of water and set it in front of him without a word.
He looked at it.
Then at her.
"I'm sorry," he said again.
"Emma, I'm genuinely sorry.
What they did to you — what we let happen — it wasn't right."
"No," she said simply.
"It wasn't."
"When did it start?" I asked.
Michael wrapped both hands around the glass.
"About six months after you left.
Mom said Emma wasn't managing the house properly.
Said you'd asked her to step in and help oversee things.
I believed her." He paused.
"Or I wanted to believe her.
It was easier."
"And the money?"
He exhaled.
"She said it was a management fee.
That you'd agreed to it.
She showed me a text message — I don't know if it was real.
I took a smaller amount than Jennifer.
I want you to know that.
Not that it matters."
"It doesn't change what it was," I said.
"I know." He looked at the table.
"The petition — I didn't know about that until it was already filed.
When Mom told me, I told her she'd gone too far.
She said it had already been rejected and it didn't matter." He finally looked up at me.
"I should have called you then.
I know that."
"Why didn't you?"
He was quiet for a long moment.
"Because she told me if I did, she'd tell you the transfers were my idea.
That I had pressured her into it." He set the glass down.
"I was scared.
So I stayed quiet and told myself it would sort itself out when you came home."
Emma looked at him.
"She threatened you too."
He nodded.
Just once.
Small.
Something in the room shifted.
Not forgiveness — it was too early for that, and Michael hadn't asked for it.
But something more complicated.
The recognition that Margaret had not simply exploited Emma.
She had kept all of them in line, each one isolated, each one believing they were the only one who knew too much to speak.
"I'll give a full statement to Thomas Reade," Michael said.
"Everything I know.
The transfers, the petition, the text message she showed me.
All of it."
"That would help," I said.
"It won't fix it."
"No," I said.
"But it's a start."
He stood up slowly.
He looked at Emma one more time.
"She used to say you weren't good enough for this family," he said.
"She said it so many times I think she actually believed it." He picked up his jacket from the back of the chair.
"For what it's worth — she had it exactly backwards."
He walked out.
Emma was quiet for a moment.
Then she said, "Do you believe him?"
"I believe he's telling the truth about what he knew," I said.
"Whether that earns him anything — that's a different question."
"One thing at a time," she said.
Thomas Reade appeared in the doorway.
"Ready?" he asked.
May you like
Emma straightened in her chair and folded her hands on the table.
"Ready," she said.
