“You benefited from it.”
“I didn’t know!”
“Well, now you do.”
Ava looked physically sick.
For the first time, we weren’t rivals.
We were two daughters uncovering the same betrayal.
But Grandpa wasn’t finished.
“The stolen items from the farmhouse,” he said. “Why?”
Mom wiped her face.
“We needed money.”
“For what?”
She said nothing.
Grandpa tapped the hotel location on the tracking map.
“Who is Daniel Mercer?”
Mom froze.
I recognized the name vaguely.
A real-estate developer.
Ava looked confused.
Grandpa continued.
“The SUV stopped at a hotel where Mercer was attending a development conference. Two days later, you went to the county records office. Yesterday, you went to the farmhouse.”
Mom abruptly stood.
“We should leave.”
“No,” Grandpa said.
“Now.”
He opened another folder.
Inside were document copies.
Property surveys.
A proposed purchase agreement.
And a signature.
Grandpa’s signature.
Except I knew immediately it wasn’t his.
