Chapter 8 - Evelyn Carter
Nobody in the room knew the name.
Not Daniel.
Not Denise.
Not Lily.
Rebecca did.
The instant Aaron said it, she went pale.
Daniel noticed.
“You know her.”
Rebecca sat very slowly.
“Yes.”
Margaret laughed without humor.
“Of course she does.”
Daniel released his mother’s arm.
“Who is Evelyn?”
Rebecca looked at Margaret.
“This should come from you.”
Margaret walked toward the window.
“No.”
Daniel’s voice hardened.
“You’re not leaving this room.”
Margaret turned.
“Do you think you can order me around?”
“Today?”
Daniel nodded.
“Yes.”
Margaret stared at him for several seconds.
Then she sat.
“Evelyn Carter was your father’s sister.”
Daniel blinked.
“My father didn’t have a sister.”
“That is what you were told.”
Denise whispered, “Why?”
Margaret looked toward Rebecca.
Rebecca answered.
“Evelyn was three years younger than Thomas.”
“What happened to her?”
Rebecca hesitated.
“She disappeared from the family.”
Daniel almost laughed.
“That’s not an answer.”
Margaret spoke.
“She was unstable.”
Rebecca’s eyes sharpened.
“She was inconvenient.”
Margaret snapped, “You knew her for five minutes.”
“I knew the legal record.”
Daniel looked between them.
“What legal record?”
Rebecca opened another section of the file.
“When Thomas was twenty-six and Evelyn was twenty-three, their parents owned a manufacturing company.”
Carter Industrial.
Daniel knew the name.
His grandfather had sold it decades ago.
Rebecca continued.
“Both children inherited shares.”
“How many?”
“Equal ownership.”
Margaret looked away.
“When Evelyn disappeared,” Rebecca said, “her shares were transferred.”
“To Dad?”
“Yes.”
Daniel frowned.
“Why?”
Margaret answered.
“Because she abandoned the family.”
Rebecca shook her head.
“There was a document.”
“What document?”
“A waiver.”
Daniel’s expression changed.
“Signed by Evelyn?”
Rebecca nodded.
Margaret suddenly smiled.
“Everything was legal.”
Rebecca looked at her.
“No.”
The smile disappeared.
“Thomas discovered years later that the signature was forged.”
Silence.
Daniel felt cold.
“By who?”
Rebecca looked toward Margaret.
Margaret stood.
“No.”
Daniel’s voice sharpened.
“By who?”
Rebecca answered.
“Your grandfather.”
Daniel stared.
The revelation seemed almost small after everything else.
Then Rebecca added, “But Margaret knew.”
Denise covered her face.
“Mom…”
Margaret snapped, “That happened before I married Thomas.”
“Then how did you know?”
Margaret did not answer.
Rebecca continued.
“Because your father told her.”
Daniel turned.
“My grandfather?”
“Before he died.”
“What does this have to do with Lily?”
Rebecca removed Thomas’s letter again.
“He believed Evelyn or her descendants might eventually challenge the Carter estate.”
Lily frowned.
“Descendants?”
Rebecca nodded.
“Evelyn had a child.”
Margaret whispered, “Maybe.”
Rebecca looked directly at her.
“You paid twenty-one thousand dollars to find them.”
Margaret’s breathing changed.
Daniel understood.
“You weren’t searching because you cared.”
Margaret said nothing.
“You were searching because you were afraid.”
Still nothing.
“Afraid of what?”
Rebecca opened the final page of Thomas’s letter.
May you like
There was one line.
If Evelyn’s heir ever appears, half of everything belongs to them.
