Chapter 8 - Wren's Awakening
I didn't run for the back door; Stacey would see the lawn from the kitchen windows.
Instead, I slid the documents into the inside lining of my oversized wool coat, snapped the hidden desk panel shut, and stepped into the small utility closet behind the study door just as the front deadbolt clicked.
Stacey’s footsteps were rapid, agitated. She came into the study, muttering beneath her breath.
"Stupid, useless coward," she hissed.
She walked straight to the desk. I watched through the narrow louvered slats of the closet door. She yanked open the center drawer, rifling through checkbooks and envelopes, completely unaware of the false compartment below. She grabbed a small black USB drive, shoved it into her designer handbag, and pulled her cell phone from her pocket.
She dialed, holding the phone to her ear.
"It’s me," Stacey said, her tone smooth, coated in honeyed malice. "He’s at the bank right now signing the authorization forms. No, the sheriff hasn't dragged the cove yet. They think she drifted out toward the spillway. We have at least forty-eight hours before anyone starts asking real questions. Have the transfer deed registered by noon."
A pause on the line.
"Wren?" Stacey laughed, a sharp, metallic sound. "Don't worry about the girl. Julian gave her a sob story about an emergency room visit. She’s driving down from campus right now. When she gets here, she’ll be so hysterical she’ll sign whatever we put in front of her just to make the pain stop. She thinks I’m her surrogate mother. The trust will be ours by tonight."
Stacey hung up, turned on her heel, and walked out of the study.
A moment later, the front door slammed, and her car engine roared to life, tires spitting gravel as she sped away toward the county seat.
I stepped out of the closet, my limbs burning with adrenaline. *Wren was on her way.*
My granddaughter was walking into an abattoir. Wren was twenty-one, Robert’s favorite person on earth, and the true named beneficiary of Robert’s personal estate—a clause Julian and Stacey had evidently tried to bypass through forged conservatorship papers.
I left the house by the kitchen door, slipping back through the woods toward the old greenhouse at the northern boundary of the property. The glass panels were covered in moss and overgrown wild ivy, abandoned since Robert passed. It was dry, hidden, and had a clear line of sight to the driveway.
Twenty minutes later, a battered blue Honda Civic pulled up to the front porch.
Wren stepped out. Even from fifty yards away, I could see the devastation in the way she carried herself. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a messy knot; her face was pale, streaked with red from crying. She stood on the gravel, staring at the empty lakehouse with her hands over her mouth.
Julian wasn't back yet. Stacey wasn't back.
I waited until Wren stepped down the porch steps, wandering aimlessly toward the water—toward the dock where they told her I had vanished.
"Wren," I whispered from the shadow of the greenhouse hedge.
She stopped, looking around in bewilderment.
"Wren. Don't scream. Look at the greenhouse."
She turned slowly. When her eyes found me standing among the broken glass and creeping ivy, she didn't scream. The color drained completely from her face. She swayed on her feet, grabbing the trunk of a birch tree to keep from collapsing.
"Granny...?" she choked out, her voice barely a thread. "Granny, you're... you're dead. Dad said you fell..."
"I didn't fall, darling," I said, stepping into the sunlight just enough for her to see the dirt on my knees, the scratches on my arms, and the fire in my eyes. "And I don't need the chair anymore. Come inside. Quickly."
Wren broke into a run, diving through the shattered greenhouse entrance and throwing her arms around my neck. She was shaking so violently her teeth clicked.
"They said you went over the dock," she sobbed into my shoulder. "They said you had another episode... that your mind was gone..."
"My mind has never been clearer," I said, holding her tightly, feeling the warmth of her life against mine. "Look at me, Wren. Look at your grandmother."
She pulled back, tears streaming down her cheeks, staring at my upright stance. "How... how are you standing?"
"Because I stopped taking their tea three weeks ago," I said plainly. "And because I swam forty yards underwater in the dark while your father and his wife celebrated my death."
I pulled the manila envelope from my coat and placed it in her hands.
May you like
"Read it, Wren. Read what your father did to Robert. And read what they were going to do to you."
***
