Chapter 14 - WHAT LILY REMEMBERED
Two years passed.
Lily was nine when she finally asked the question everyone had avoided.
“Why did Sabrina hate me?”
They were eating dinner.
Ethan stopped cutting his steak.
Claire put down her fork.
“She didn’t hate you.”
Lily frowned.
“She tried to hurt me.”
“Yes.”
“Then why?”
Claire considered lying.
Ethan could see it.
Then she chose the truth.
“Because you knew something she wanted hidden.”
“What?”
“That I was alive.”
Lily looked at Ethan.
“And Uncle Ethan thought you were dead.”
“Yes.”
“Because Sabrina lied?”
“Yes.”
Lily became quiet.
Then she asked something unexpected.
“Was she always bad?”
Ethan looked at Claire.
Claire answered.
“I don’t know.”
Lily frowned.
“You don’t?”
“People aren’t cartoons, sweetheart.”
Claire reached across the table.
“Sabrina made choices.”
“Bad choices?”
“Very bad ones.”
“Why?”
“Money.”
Ethan added quietly.
“And control.”
Lily considered this.
“That’s stupid.”
Ethan almost laughed.
“Yes.”
“It’s just money.”
Claire smiled.
“Exactly.”
Lily returned to her dinner.
Then she suddenly froze.
“I remember something.”
Claire’s smile vanished.
“What?”
“The motel.”
Ethan leaned forward.
“What do you remember?”
“The man.”
“What man?”
“The man Sabrina was talking to.”
Claire and Ethan exchanged a look.
“Victor?”
“No.”
Lily shook her head.
“He was older.”
Ethan felt a chill.
“What did he say?”
Lily concentrated.
“He told Sabrina she had one more chance.”
“To do what?”
“I don’t know.”
Lily closed her eyes.
“He said something about Grandpa.”
Claire went still.
“Our father?”
Lily nodded.
“He said, ‘Jonathan should have signed when we gave him the chance.’”
Ethan stared at Claire.
Victor had claimed Sabrina acted with him.
Two people.
But Lily remembered a third.
Hale reopened the old files.
Three weeks later, investigators identified him.
Richard Cole.
Jonathan Vale’s former attorney.
The man who had witnessed the final codicil.
The same man who had disappeared from the company shortly after Jonathan’s death.
Cole had been living overseas.
Financial records showed payments from Sabrina.
Investigators uncovered another layer of the conspiracy.
Cole had helped create the false death documentation.
He had also helped hide the trust transfers.
And for eight years, he had remained untouched.
Until Lily remembered one sentence.
Cole was arrested when he returned to the United States.
This time, Lily wasn’t frightened.
She didn’t hide behind Ethan.
She stood beside her mother and watched the news report.
“That’s him.”
Claire turned off the television.
“You did good.”
Lily shook her head.
“I just remembered.”
Ethan smiled.
“Sometimes remembering is enough.”
Later that night, Claire stood outside Lily’s bedroom.
“She remembers more than I thought.”
“So do we.”
Claire looked at Ethan.
“I spent years trying to forget.”
“And?”
“It doesn’t work.”
“No.”
Ethan looked through the doorway at Lily sleeping peacefully.
“But remembering doesn’t have to mean living there forever.”
Claire smiled.
“You’re getting philosophical.”
“I’m getting old.”
“You were always old.”
“I’m three years older than you.”
“Ancient.”
May you like
For once, they could joke about the missing years.
Because the years ahead finally felt larger than the years behind them.
