Chapter 8 - BOB HAD LIED TO ME
I drove to Bob’s house with the photograph on the passenger seat.
Caleb followed in his truck.
Joyce sat beside me, unusually quiet.
Bob opened the door.
I held up the picture.
His face changed.
Not confusion.
Recognition.
“You lied.”
“Roberta—”
“You said you never met Lindsay.”
“I can explain.”
“Then start.”
He let us in.
Nobody sat.
Bob looked twenty years older than he had that morning.
“That picture was taken at a charity golf event in Chattanooga.”
“You remember it?”
“Yes.”
“So you met them.”
“I met Donna. Lindsay was introduced to me for maybe two minutes.”
“Why lie?”
He took off his glasses.
“Because I didn’t want you connecting Donna to Harold.”
My heart stopped.
“What does my husband have to do with this?”
Caleb stepped forward.
“Bob.”
Bob went to his desk.
Unlocked the bottom drawer.
Pulled out a file.
“Harold invested money with Donna’s former husband twenty years ago.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
“It was a small property group.”
“Harold never told me.”
“He lost money.”
“How much?”
“About thirty thousand.”
Thirty thousand dollars twenty years earlier had been enormous for us.
“Why didn’t I know?”
“He replaced it before you noticed.”
“With what?”
Bob looked at me.
“His retirement account.”
I had to sit.
My husband had kept secrets from me.
Even eleven years after his death, they could still find me.
Bob continued.
“Harold was ashamed. He asked me never to tell you.”
“You agreed?”
“Yes.”
Anger rose hot in my chest.
“So when Donna appeared here today—”
“I recognized the name before she arrived. I wasn’t certain it was the same woman until I saw her.”
“You should have told me.”
“I know.”
“No. Don’t say that like it fixes anything.”
He nodded.
“You’re right.”
Caleb picked up the file.
Inside were old agreements, property records, letters.
Then he stopped.
“Mom.”
“What?”
He turned a page toward me.
At the bottom was Harold’s signature.
Beneath it was another name.
Donna Mercer.
“She knew Dad.”
Bob nodded.
“She knew him well enough to know the family’s finances.”
My stomach twisted.
“How?”
“Harold became suspicious after the investment collapsed. He believed the Mercers were moving money between companies.”
“Did he report them?”
“He threatened to.”
“What happened?”
“They refunded part of his investment. Harold walked away.”
I felt sick.
Donna hadn’t stumbled into my family because her daughter happened to marry Caleb.
She already knew exactly who we were.
“How long has Lindsay known?”
Nobody answered.
Caleb looked down at the photograph.
Then at the notebook.
Then at me.
“Mom… what if Lindsay didn’t meet me by accident?”
The room went completely silent.
May you like
Because Caleb and Lindsay had met nine years earlier at a fundraising dinner organized by one of Harold’s former business contacts.
And suddenly the coincidence didn’t feel like a coincidence at all.
