Chapter 2 - THE GRANDFATHER WHO WAS SUPPOSED TO BE DEAD
Sadie read the email twelve times.
Then she called Richard.
He did not answer.
She called Victoria.
Straight to voicemail.
She showed Wyatt.
He stared at the message for a long time.
"Your grandfather."
"Both my grandfathers are dead."
"Are you sure?"
Sadie gave him a look.
"That's usually a fairly permanent condition."
"Sadie."
She stopped.
Wyatt placed the phone on the table.
"Your dad tried to pay me five million dollars to leave you."
"I know."
"Your family panicked when you mentioned marriage."
"I know."
"Now somebody emails you about a will."
"I know."
He leaned forward.
"Then maybe we stop assuming anything."
Sadie's maternal grandfather, George Bellamy, had died when she was six.
She remembered the funeral vaguely.
Rain.
Black umbrellas.
Victoria crying dramatically into a handkerchief.
Her paternal grandfather, Charles Carter, had supposedly died when Sadie was thirteen.
That funeral she remembered better.
Because there had never been one.
Richard told the family that Charles had died while traveling in Switzerland and had requested a private cremation.
Sadie had asked why there was no memorial.
Richard told her Charles had been an unpleasant man who wanted no ceremony.
After that, his name disappeared from the house.
No photographs.
No stories.
No Christmas mentions.
Nothing.
Sadie opened her laptop.
She searched public death records.
Charles Edward Carter.
Born October 14, 1941.
No matching death certificate in South Carolina.
She widened the search.
Nothing.
Wyatt sat beside her.
"That doesn't prove he's alive."
"No."
"But it proves something's strange."
They searched until midnight.
Then Sadie found a corporate filing.
Carter Meridian Holdings.
Registered decades earlier by Charles E. Carter.
The company still existed.
Its registered agent had changed several times.
The latest name stopped her.
Harrison Cole.
The same attorney whose business card would later appear inside the ambulance envelope.
At that moment, however, Sadie had never heard the name.
She clicked the firm's website.
Harrison Cole, seventy-one.
Estate litigation.
Trust administration.
Private family offices.
Sadie called the number.
Voicemail.
She almost hung up.
Then a man's recorded voice instructed callers to leave urgent estate matters after the tone.
Sadie said, "My name is Sadie Carter. I'm trying to locate information about Charles Edward Carter."
Wyatt glanced at her.
She continued.
"I was told he may have left something to me."
She ended the call.
Harrison Cole returned it seven minutes later.
"Ms. Carter?"
"Yes."
"You shouldn't have called from your personal phone."
Sadie sat upright.
"What?"
"Are you alone?"
"No."
"Who's with you?"
"My fiancé."
Silence.
Then, "Wyatt Hayes?"
Sadie looked at Wyatt.
"How do you know that?"
"Because your engagement announcement changed the timetable."
"What timetable?"
"Ms. Carter, do not speak to your father about this."
"He already knows something."
"I'm sure he does."
"Is my grandfather alive?"
Harrison did not answer directly.
Instead he said, "Do you remember a man named Elias?"
Sadie's skin prickled.
A memory surfaced.
A tall gardener at the estate when she was small.
Gray beard.
Kind eyes.
He used to give her peppermint candy.
"Elias worked for my parents."
"No. Elias protected you."
"From what?"
Another silence.
"From becoming useful too early."
Sadie stood.
"What does that mean?"
A sound came from the other end of the call.
A door.
Then Harrison's voice changed.
"Someone's here."
The call disconnected.
Sadie immediately dialed back.
No answer.
Wyatt stood too.
"We're going to his office."
"It's almost one in the morning."
"Then we're going to his house."
They never made it.
At 1:17 a.m., someone threw a stone through Sadie's kitchen window.
Wyatt pulled her away from the glass.
Attached to the stone with black tape was a folded piece of paper.
Sadie opened it.
Three words.
LET HIM DIE.
Below them was an old photograph.
Sadie at age eight.
Standing beside the estate fountain.
Behind her stood Elias.
Except now, looking carefully, she noticed something she had never understood as a child.
Elias wore a gardener's jacket.
But the expensive watch on his wrist was unmistakable.
So was the signet ring on his finger.
The same ring Richard kept locked inside a display case in his study and claimed had belonged to Charles Carter.
Sadie whispered, "Oh my God."
May you like
Wyatt stared at the photograph.
"Elias was your grandfather."
