Chapter 8 - The Night Ernest Died
I had spent the night Ernest died holding his hand.
That fact became my anchor when everything else began to move.
He died at 2:14 in the morning in our bedroom.
The hospice nurse was there.
Rachel was downstairs making coffee nobody drank.
Austin arrived at 2:47.
Chloe arrived twenty minutes after him.
Or so I had believed.
Denise Harper's statement changed that timeline.
Celia called me as soon as the detective finished the first interview.
"Denise says Chloe met her at one thirty in the morning."
I stared at the clock on my cabin wall.
"Ernest was still alive."
"Yes."
"Where?"
"A gas station six blocks from your house."
"Why?"
"To give her a file box."
"The missing emails?"
"According to Denise."
I stood slowly.
"How did Chloe get them?"
"Denise claims Chloe had been inside your house earlier that night."
My heart began to pound.
"No."
"Theresa—"
"I was there."
"I know."
"Rachel was there."
"Yes."
"The nurse was there."
"Yes."
"Chloe was not."
Celia was silent.
I walked toward the window.
"Unless she came in through the garage."
"Did she have a code?"
"Austin did."
"Would he have shared it?"
"Probably."
I thought back to that night.
Memory after death was a cruel editor.
It kept the emotional scenes in bright color and blurred the ordinary minutes between them.
I remembered Ernest breathing shallowly.
I remembered the nurse adjusting medication.
I remembered walking downstairs around midnight because Rachel insisted I eat toast.
I remembered hearing the garage door.
At the time, I assumed it was wind against the side gate.
"I heard something."
"What?"
"The garage."
"Are you sure?"
"No."
"Don't force the memory."
"I heard something."
My hands trembled.
"If she entered the house while he was dying—"
"We don't know that she did."
"Denise says she did."
"Denise is also a notary whose name appears on a suspicious power of attorney."
"So she may be lying."
"Yes."
"Or telling the truth because she is scared."
"Yes."
There was that word again.
Maybe.
Yes and no at the same time.
I wanted certainty so badly I could taste it.
"What exactly did Denise admit?"
Celia read from her notes.
Denise had known Chloe through Lorraine Mercer.
Lorraine had hired Denise years earlier for real-estate closings.
Chloe approached Denise about notarizing documents for an elderly relative who was "too sick to travel."
Denise claimed she refused to notarize anything without the signer present.
Then Chloe offered money.
Two thousand five hundred dollars the first time.
Four thousand the second.
Denise accepted.
My stomach turned.
"So she committed fraud for sixty-five hundred dollars."
"She appears to be admitting improper notarization, yes."
"What did she notarize?"
"The power of attorney and a lender affidavit."
"Did she ever see Ernest sign either one?"
"She says no."
"Then why did she stamp them?"
"Money."
Such a small word.
Such a large wreckage.
"Who signed Ernest's name?"
"She says the documents were already signed when Chloe brought them."
"Convenient."
"Very."
"And A. Bennett?"
"Denise says Chloe signed that in front of her."
I sat down.
"So Austin was telling the truth about one thing."
"It seems so."
"What about the file box?"
"Denise says Chloe called her shortly after midnight the night Ernest died."
"Why would Chloe call a notary then?"
"She said Austin had started panicking and wanted documents destroyed."
"Austin?"
"That is Denise's claim."
"Does Austin deny it?"
"Completely."
I could almost hear him.
Of course he did.
"Then Chloe arrived at the gas station around one thirty with a box."
"Yes."
"What did Denise do with it?"
"Put it in her garage."
"For eleven weeks?"
"Yes."
"Why keep it?"
"Insurance."
I laughed once, bitterly.
Everyone in this story kept evidence as insurance against everyone else.
"Does she still have it?"
"The detective recovered it this afternoon."
"What's inside?"
"Emails, printed text messages, copies of financial statements, and several pages from Ernest's ledger."
I frowned.
"Pages from the ledger?"
"Photocopies."
"Why would Chloe have copies?"
"We don't know."
"Does that mean she knew about his ledger?"
"Probably."
"Then she knew he was documenting them."
"At some point, yes."
A chill moved through me.
"Did she go into his study that night to find the original?"
"That is one possibility."
"Did she find it?"
"No."
"Because it was in the safe-deposit box."
"Exactly."
Ernest had moved faster than her.
Even dying, he had moved faster.
I hated that I felt proud.
"What do the emails say?"
Celia hesitated.
"One is the threat Austin told you about."
"Read it."
"Theresa—"
"Read it."
She did.
Austin had written to Ernest nine months earlier.
If you keep treating me like a stranger, don't expect access to Emma whenever you feel like playing grandfather.
I closed my eyes.
Ernest's reply was one sentence.
Do not use your daughter to punish me for saying no.
I pressed my hand to my mouth.
"What else?"
"An email from Chloe to Austin."
"Read it."
"It says, 'Stop begging him. We can do this without him if you give me the account access.'"
My eyes opened.
"What account?"
"The email doesn't specify."
"Next."
"Austin replied, 'If Dad finds out, he'll cut me out.'"
My skin prickled.
"And Chloe wrote, 'Only if he can prove you knew.'"
I stood.
The words were colder than shouting.
Only if he can prove you knew.
That was not panic.
That was planning.
"Any more?"
"Yes."
Celia's voice changed.
"There is an exchange from three months before Ernest died."
"Between them?"
"Yes."
"Read it."
"Austin writes, 'Mom cannot know.'"
I waited.
"Chloe responds, 'She won't understand the numbers, and after he's gone she'll sign whatever fixes it.'"
I stopped breathing.
A memory came back so sharply I had to sit down.
Chloe at my kitchen table last Christmas.
Chloe laughing while I struggled to log into a banking app.
Chloe saying, "Mrs. Theresa, you are adorable with technology."
I had laughed too.
She had not been teasing.
She had been measuring me.
"Keep reading."
"Austin responded, 'Don't talk about her like that.'"
I blinked.
"He defended me?"
"In that message, yes."
"What did Chloe say?"
"'Then stop acting like she is going to save us.'"
I stared at the wall.
The sentence hit harder than the insult.
Chloe had understood our family system perfectly.
Austin failed.
I rescued.
Austin promised.
I forgave.
Austin needed.
I gave.
He had built his adulthood around the certainty of my soft landing.
Chloe had simply learned how to monetize it.
"Anything from the night Ernest died?"
Celia went quiet.
"Yes."
I felt my pulse in my throat.
"Between Austin and Chloe?"
"Yes."
"What time?"
"12:48 a.m."
I looked at the clock even though the time now did not matter.
At 12:48 that night, I had been sitting beside Ernest.
He had opened his eyes once and asked for water.
I remembered wetting a sponge for his mouth.
I remembered telling him I loved him.
"Read it."
"Austin wrote, 'Don't go over there. Mom will see you.'"
I stood frozen.
"Chloe replied, 'I need the notebook before Celia gets it.'"
The room tilted.
"And Austin?"
"He wrote, 'Leave it alone.'"
"Then?"
"Chloe wrote, 'Easy for you to say when your name is all over this.'"
I could not move.
"Then Austin wrote, 'If you get caught, I know nothing.'"
I closed my eyes.
There it was.
Not a command to stop.
Not a warning that entering a dying man's house was wrong.
Just a plan for denial.
"Did she answer?"
"One word."
"What?"
"Coward."
I sank into the chair.
For several minutes, neither Celia nor I spoke.
Then I asked the question I did not want answered.
"Did Chloe enter my house that night?"
"The garage keypad log shows a successful entry at 1:06 a.m."
"Whose code?"
"Austin's."
My eyes filled with tears.
"And exit?"
"The side door opened at 1:24."
Eighteen minutes.
While my husband was dying upstairs, Chloe had spent eighteen minutes inside my house searching for evidence.
"Did she go near Ernest?"
"We don't know."
Fear moved through me so suddenly I felt sick.
"Celia."
"Theresa, listen to me."
"Did she go into the bedroom?"
"There is no evidence of that."
"Did she touch his medication?"
"There is no evidence of that."
"Did she—"
"Stop."
Celia's voice was firm.
"Do not invent a crime because the truth is already terrible."
I pressed my hand against my forehead.
She was right.
Ernest died from advanced pancreatic cancer under hospice supervision.
The nurse was in and out of the room.
His death was expected.
There was no reason to turn horror into something larger merely because my imagination could.
"You're right."
"I know this is awful."
"She was in my house."
"Yes."
"Looking for his evidence."
"That appears to be why."
I stared at the blue suitcase on the luggage rack.
"What happens now?"
"The detective is speaking with Chloe's lawyer."
"And Austin?"
"His lawyer has advised him to stop speaking to anyone except counsel."
"Good."
"There is something else."
I laughed without humor.
"There is always something else."
"The file box includes a printed email we have not seen digitally."
"From whom?"
"Ernest to Austin."
"When?"
"Two weeks before Ernest died."
"What does it say?"
Celia read it slowly.
"I know what you and Chloe did."
My throat tightened.
"I know about the loan, the guarantee, and the attempt to change my policy."
I closed my eyes.
"I have not told Theresa everything yet because I will not spend my last days watching her clean up a mess you made."
Tears slipped down my cheeks.
"You have until Friday to come to me alone and tell the truth."
I whispered, "Did he go?"
Celia did not answer.
"Did Austin go?"
"There is a reply printed beneath it."
"Read it."
"Austin wrote, 'I can't come Friday. We leave for Tampa in the morning. Can this wait until next week?'"
The room became very still.
Friday had been Ernest's last lucid day.
By Sunday, he was barely speaking.
He died early Tuesday morning.
Austin had chosen Tampa over his father's final invitation to tell the truth.
I wiped my face.
"What was in Tampa?"
Celia hesitated.
"According to the calendar attached to the email, a sales conference."
"For his business?"
"No."
"Then what?"
"Island Cove Travel Holdings."
My stomach tightened.
The company that received thirty-one thousand five hundred dollars from our loan.
"Why was Austin attending their conference?"
"I don't know."
"Find out."
"Already doing it."
Less than an hour later, Celia called back.
Her voice was different.
"Theresa, Island Cove isn't just a travel company."
"What is it?"
"It's a vacation-property investment club."
"Meaning?"
"Members buy fractional interests in resort properties."
I stood slowly.
"Did Austin buy one?"
"Not Austin."
My chest tightened.
"Who?"
"The membership is in your name."
I stopped breathing.
"I have never heard of Island Cove."
"I know."
"Then why is anything in my name?"
Celia's next words came very carefully.
"Because someone used a copy of your passport and an electronic signature to create the account."
I looked back toward the photograph from Unit 314.
My passport copy.
Capacity problem - prepare.
After death, contest trust.
I had thought they were stealing from Ernest.
May you like
Now I understood something worse.
They had been preparing to use me too.
