Chapter 9 - Madeline wanted something other than money
I expected Madeline to be the thief.
That would have been easy.
She wasn't.
She contacted me before we found her.
“I know you're looking for me.”
“What did you do with the Bellevue account?”
“Nothing.”
“Your face is on the mailbox application.”
“I was there.”
“Why?”
“Your father asked me to be.”
My stomach tightened.
Dad knew Matthew's daughter.
For how long?
“Eleven years.”
Since Grandma's death.
Madeline explained Matthew was alive.
Fifty-six.
Living quietly in Oregon.
He wanted nothing from the Carters.
“Then why are you involved?”
“Because Grandma Ruth left evidence.”
Not money.
Evidence.
She believed Robert had committed financial misconduct long before the trust existed.
Madeline wanted records that might explain why Matthew was removed from the family.
Dad offered access if she helped with administrative paperwork.
She agreed.
“Did you know he was using my identity?”
“No.”
“Did you use Lily's?”
“I verified the mailbox because he said Lily was traveling.”
Terrible judgment.
Not necessarily fraud conspiracy.
Then Madeline told me why she stayed near the family.
“My father doesn't believe Robert is his biological father.”
I closed my eyes.
Another door.
“Who does he think is?”
“Your grandfather's business partner.”
Grandma Ruth's late husband—our supposed grandfather—had co-owned a shipping company with a man named Samuel Pierce.
Pierce.
The adoptive family surname.
Not coincidence.
Matthew may have been Samuel Pierce's son.
If true, my parents hadn't placed him with random relatives.
They placed him with his biological father's family.
Why hide that?
Then Madeline said:
“Because Matthew wasn't the scandal.”
“What was?”
“Your mother was.”
Diane had been seventeen when Matthew was born.
Impossible.
She was supposedly his mother.
Unless—
Madeline corrected me.
“Diane isn't Matthew's mother.”
I stopped breathing.
“Who is?”
“Ruth.”
My grandmother.
Matthew wasn't my brother.
He was my father's younger half-brother.
My uncle.
My parents had raised him briefly as their child to conceal Grandma's late pregnancy and affair.
Then quietly sent him away.
The family tree I trusted had been invented before I was born.
May you like
And Madeline's twenty-percent share didn't belong to some secret sibling line.
It belonged to a branch my father had spent his entire life pretending wasn't legitimate.
