Chapter 5 - The photograph in the vault
The answer was not in the letter.
Grandpa instructed the bank to release a safe-deposit box after verifying my identity.
Box 417.
Michael escorted me downstairs.
Inside were surprisingly few things.
Grandpa’s watch.
I stopped.
For five years, I thought Richard had kept it.
I lifted it with shaking fingers.
The leather strap was cracked.
The face scratched.
Worth maybe two hundred dollars.
Priceless to me.
Underneath lay three envelopes.
A flash drive.
And a photograph.
I picked up the photograph first.
I was about six years old.
Too young to remember the day clearly.
Standing beside a woman with long brown hair.
She had my eyes.
Not similar.
Mine.
On the back, Grandpa had written:
Emily and Laura, October 2004.
Laura.
My biological mother.
I knew almost nothing about her.
Richard and Susan told me she had abandoned me.
Grandpa never contradicted them directly.
Now another envelope contained documents showing otherwise.
Laura Bennett had died when I was seven.
Car accident.
I stared at the page.
“She didn’t abandon me.”
Nobody answered.
Then another document.
Life insurance.
Beneficiary:
Emily Bennett.
My original name.
Trustee until adulthood:
Robert Donovan.
Why would my adoptive grandfather be trustee of my biological mother’s insurance?
Then I opened Grandpa’s letter.
Laura worked for Donovan Industrial Supply.
She discovered accounting irregularities involving Richard.
She had approached Grandpa.
Shortly afterward, she died.
Grandpa never accused Richard of causing the accident.
There was no evidence.
But he had become suspicious enough to investigate.
Then came the line that changed my understanding of the adoption.
Richard and Susan had not randomly chosen me.
They knew exactly who I was.
They petitioned for adoption after Laura’s death.
Grandpa opposed it initially.
Then changed his mind because he believed keeping me inside the Donovan family allowed him to protect me.
I felt sick.
Richard had spent years telling me I was fortunate he took me in.
But my biological mother had worked for his family.
And apparently possessed something he wanted.
The flash drive might explain what.
Michael arranged a secure computer.
I inserted it.
Password protected.
One hint appeared.
Who kept time for you?
I looked at Grandpa’s watch.
The back contained a date.
My eighteenth birthday.
I entered it.
The drive opened.
Folders appeared.
Company records.
Emails.
Audio.
Then one folder bearing my biological mother’s name.
Laura Bennett.
Inside was a video.
Grandpa appeared on screen.
Older.
Tired.
“Emily,” he began, “if you are watching this, Richard failed to keep you away.”
May you like
Then he leaned toward the camera.
“And that means you need to know why your mother died.”
