Chapter 4 - Emily’s Secret
Emily explained everything in a whisper.
The trouble began two days after Rachel left.
Michael received several late-night visitors. They entered through the garage and carried empty boxes upstairs.
At first, Michael told Emily that he was reorganizing storage.
Then he removed everything from her bedroom.
“He said my room had the best space for sorting,” Emily said. “I asked why he couldn’t use his office.”
“What did he say?”
“He told me children shouldn’t question adults.”
Michael made her sleep in the guest room for one night. The next morning, that room was filled with boxes too.
After that, he moved her things into the kitchen.
He took her phone when she tried to call Rachel.
Emily had not known what the men were doing, but she heard words that frightened her.
Loan.
Transfer.
Signature.
Trust account.
Before Michael confiscated her phone, she photographed several documents on the folding table.
She sent the pictures to herself through her school email account.
Then she discovered the small brass key lying near Michael’s office door.
“I think he dropped it,” she said.
Rachel looked at the key.
“Did you go inside?”
Emily nodded.
“Only once.”
Inside Michael’s office, Emily found bank notices, overdue bills, and a letter stating that his business owed nearly four hundred thousand dollars.
She also found a copy of a document transferring ownership of the house from Rachel to a company called Bennett Residential Holdings.
Rachel had never heard of that company.
The signature at the bottom looked like hers.
It was not.
“There was another paper about my education money,” Emily said. “The account Grandma left me.”
Rachel closed her eyes.
Her mother had created the education trust shortly before her death. Michael had no authority to withdraw from it.
“He copied your signature,” Emily continued. “So I took the original papers from the desk.”
“Where are they?”
“I moved them somewhere he wouldn’t look.”
Rachel reached for her phone.
“We need to call the police.”
Emily caught her wrist.
“There’s more.”
May you like
She glanced toward the glowing line beneath her bedroom door.
“Dad said everything had to be gone before sunrise.”
