CHAPTER 4
I met Ava the next afternoon at a coffee shop near her school.
Rebecca insisted we choose a public place.
Emily insisted on driving me.
Ava arrived alone.
The confident sixteen-year-old I knew was gone.
She wore a gray sweatshirt despite the warm weather and kept looking over her shoulder.
When she sat across from me, she placed a folded photocopy on the table.
“I didn’t bring the original.”
“That was smart.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“I’m not stupid.”
“I didn’t say you were.”
For a moment, the old hostility flashed between us.
Then she looked down.
“I know.”
I unfolded the copy.
Laura’s handwriting covered two pages.
I had seen enough birthday cards preserved in Ava’s room to recognize it.
The letter was dated nearly seven years earlier.
Laura wrote that she and Daniel had been fighting about money.
She said Daniel pressured her to use funds her father had set aside for Ava.
She refused.
Then came a sentence that made my hands go cold.
Daniel believes anything belonging to Ava also belongs to him.
Laura wrote that she had contacted an attorney to make sure the trust could not be accessed freely.
She named a financial adviser.
She also wrote that if anything happened to her, she wanted Ava’s grandfather’s wishes protected.
I looked up.
“Where was this?”
“In Dad’s safe.”
“How did you open it?”
Ava looked embarrassed.
“I know his code.”
“Does he know you know?”
“Probably not.”
“What else was inside?”
“Documents. Cash. Mom’s old jewelry.”
She swallowed.
“And another phone.”
My stomach tightened.
“What phone?”
“I don’t know. It was dead.”
“Did you take it?”
“No.”
“Good.”
She seemed surprised.
“I thought you’d tell me to steal everything.”
“I’m not trying to turn you into an investigator.”
“But you are investigating him.”
“Adults with legal authority are.”
Ava’s eyes filled.
“So you really think he stole from me.”
“I think the records speak for themselves.”
“How much?”
I hesitated.
Then I told her.
“Before the account was restricted, the balance was under ninety thousand.”
Her face emptied.
“No.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No. Grandpa put almost four hundred thousand in there.”
“I know.”
Ava pushed back from the table.
“You’re lying.”
“I wish I were.”
“You hate Dad now.”
“I don’t hate him enough to invent bank records.”
She stood.
People nearby glanced toward us.
“I shouldn’t have come.”
“Ava.”
“You want me to choose you.”
“No.”
Her face twisted.
“That’s what Mom used to say.”
I froze.
“What?”
“Dad said Mom always tried to make me choose.”
My skin prickled.
“I never knew that.”
“He said she hated him. He said she tried to keep me away from him.”
I carefully folded Laura’s letter.
“What do you remember?”
Ava looked confused.
“About what?”
“Your mother. Not what Daniel told you. What do you remember yourself?”
That question seemed to unsettle her.
She sat again slowly.
“She was strict.”
“How?”
“She didn’t like Dad buying me expensive things.”
“Anything else?”
“She made me do homework before screen time.”
I waited.
“She took me skating.”
A tiny smile appeared.
“She made terrible pancakes.”
Then the smile disappeared.
“She used to cry in the laundry room.”
My heart hurt.
“Did you know why?”
“No.”
Ava stared at the letter.
“Dad told me she was unstable.”
There are moments when a marriage dies slowly.
And moments when one sentence kills whatever remains.
That sentence did it for me.
Daniel had spent years controlling the story of a dead woman who could no longer defend herself.
I wondered what story he would tell about me once I was gone.
Ava wiped her eyes angrily.
“Why did he keep her letter?”
“I don’t know.”
“I asked Grandma.”
My attention sharpened.
“What did she say?”
“She told me to stop digging into old things.”
Of course she did.
“Ava, you should not confront anyone alone.”
“I already confronted Dad about the trust.”
“I know.”
“He said he used some money because the company was going through a temporary problem.”
“Some?”
“He said forty thousand.”
I exhaled.
“He lied.”
“I know.”
The words were barely audible.
For the first time, Ava said them without defending him.
She looked at me.
“Was that why you were leaving?”
“Yes.”
“Before the barbecue?”
“I had already met with an attorney.”
Her face tightened.
“Then why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you were sixteen and I thought your father would fix it.”
“You thought he’d put it back?”
“I hoped.”
“So you were protecting him.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
I looked at her.
“Because I loved him.”
Ava looked away.
“That’s stupid.”
“Yes.”
She almost smiled.
Then her phone rang.
Daniel.
She silenced it.
He called again.
Then Margaret.
Then Uncle Matt.
Ava turned the phone facedown.
“I don’t want to go home.”
My heart stopped for half a second.
“Why?”
“I’m not scared he’ll hit me.”
She quickly added, “He never has.”
“Then what are you afraid of?”
She twisted her sleeve around her fingers.
“He keeps coming into my room. Asking what I told you. Asking whether I took anything.”
“Did you tell him about the letter?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“I told him I was at volleyball practice.”
I glanced toward Emily, who sat across the café pretending not to watch us.
“Ava, we need to contact someone who can help you safely.”
“Like child services?”
“Maybe your mother’s sister?”
Ava stiffened.
“Aunt Nicole?”
“You still talk to her?”
“Dad doesn’t like her.”
That answered enough.
“Do you trust her?”
Ava thought for several seconds.
“Yes.”
We called Nicole together.
When she heard my name, she sounded cautious.
When Ava began crying, everything changed.
Nicole drove two hours from Colorado Springs.
She arrived before sunset with an attorney’s phone number and years of anger toward Daniel.
As soon as she saw Ava, she wrapped both arms around her.
“My God, sweetheart.”
Ava broke.
“I think Dad lied to me about Mom.”
Nicole looked at me over Ava’s shoulder.
Her expression told me this story was far bigger than stolen money.
We sat together in Emily’s apartment later that evening.
Nicole opened a folder she had brought from home.
“I’ve kept these because Laura asked me to.”
She removed printed emails.
Court documents.
Copies of text messages.
Then she placed a photograph on the table.
It showed Daniel standing outside a courthouse beside another woman.
The date printed on the back was six months after Laura’s death.
I recognized the woman.
I had seen her before.
Four months earlier.
May you like
Leaving Daniel’s office.
The same week seventy-five thousand dollars disappeared.
