PART7
“That they might offer you money.”
I looked at her.
“How much?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then why did you mention it?”
She crossed her arms.
“Because if they offer you a lot, Dad would’ve wanted his children to benefit.”
There it was.
I almost laughed.
“You’ve already inherited the house.”
“And the boat.”
“And the brokerage account.”
She said nothing.
“Why would you be entitled to something I own?”
“Because we’re family.”
I looked at her for a long moment.
“Fourteen years.”
“What?”
“Fourteen years you never called me by my name.”
Her expression hardened.
“That’s not relevant.”
“It is to me.”
She looked away.
Then she said, “Dad would’ve wanted us to be treated fairly.”
I nodded.
“Then we’ll all be treated fairly.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“What does that mean?”
“It means you keep what Harold left you.”
“And you keep the land.”
“Yes.”
“And if that company pays you?”
I smiled.
“Then I’ll keep that too.”
Todd appeared behind her.
“Dad didn’t mean for you to get rich off that property.”
I turned toward him.
“Your father didn’t leave me the property so I could get rich.”
“Then why?”
“Because he knew what it was worth.”
Neither of them spoke.
I walked to the door and opened it.
“Your father’s things are in the boxes. Take what belongs to you.”
Melissa stared at me.
Then she said something that stayed with me long after they left.
“You think you’re smarter than us now.”
I shook my head.
“No.”
I looked at the road.
“I just think your father was.”
They left.
At 4:17 that afternoon, another vehicle pulled into my driveway.
Not Cardinal Midstream.
Not the county.
Not Bernard.
A dark blue sedan.
A man stepped out.
He was maybe sixty.
Gray hair.
Navy jacket.
He stood at the gate and looked toward the house.
Then he raised his hand.
“Mrs. Vance?”
“Yes?”
“My name is Walter Hale.”
I didn’t recognize him.
“Can I help you?”
He looked past me toward the creek.
“I’m afraid you already have.”
“What does that mean?”
He took a breath.
“I was Harold’s business partner.”
My heart stopped.
“Harold didn’t have a business partner.”
Walter gave me a sad smile.
“That’s what he wanted his children to think.”
I stood frozen.
He reached into his jacket and pulled out a photograph.
He held it toward me.
I looked.
There was Harold.
Twenty years younger.
Standing beside Walter.
And behind them was the same piece of land I had always thought was nothing but weeds.
Except the photograph had something else in it.
A wooden sign.
VANCE-HART DEVELOPMENT COMPANY
I looked up.
“What is this?”
Walter’s face became serious.
“Something Harold never told you.”
“What?”
He looked toward the road.
Then back at me.
“That land wasn’t worthless when he bought it.”
“Then what was it?”
Walter lowered his voice.
“It was the first piece of a much larger deal.”
I felt the blood drain from my face.
“What larger deal?”
He looked at the house.
Then at me.
“One that Harold never completed.”
“Why?”
Walter hesitated.
“Because someone stopped him.”
“Who?”
He looked directly into my eyes.
“His son.”
My husband’s son.
Todd.
I couldn’t speak.
Walter took another photograph from his pocket.
This one showed Harold standing beside a much younger Todd.
There was a stack of papers on the hood of a truck between them.
And written across the back in Harold’s handwriting were six words:
He doesn’t know I kept copies.
I looked at Walter.
“What happened?”
Walter’s expression changed.
“That’s the question Harold wanted you to answer.”
I felt my hands begin to shake.
“Why me?”
“Because you’re the only person he trusted.”
Then Walter said the words that made me realize the land was only the beginning.
“Mrs. Vance, the pipeline isn’t the biggest thing buried in that property.”
He paused.
“There is something else under that land.”
My mouth went dry.
“What?”
Walter looked toward the northeast corner.
“The reason Harold bought it in the first place.”
For several seconds, I couldn’t move.
The evening air had turned cold, but I barely felt it.
Walter Hale stood on the other side of the gate, holding a photograph that had suddenly made the last fourteen years of my marriage feel like a story with missing pages.
I looked toward the northeast corner of the property.
The creek bent there exactly as it always had.
Trees crowded the bank.
Weeds covered the old field.
Nothing about it looked valuable.
Nothing about it looked dangerous.
Nothing about it looked like the place where my husband had hidden a secret for twenty years.
“What is under my land?” I asked again.
