Chapter 5 - The Elephant
Lydia had carried that stuffed elephant everywhere for three years.
To school.
To the dentist.
To my house.
And while she slept.
Elaine gave it to her shortly before she died.
I had assumed it was just another grandmother gift.
Cassidy knew better.
Elaine had opened a seam in the elephant's back and placed a brass key inside.
She told Cassidy:
“If anyone ever asks about Rebecca, take Lydia and go to Dad.”
Dad.
Me.
Elaine trusted me with their safety.
But not with the truth.
That hurt in a way I couldn't explain.
Investigators retrieved the elephant with Cassidy's permission.
Inside was the key.
And a tiny folded strip of paper.
B-214.
Daniel recognized it.
Bank of the Rockies.
Safe-deposit box 214.
The box had been rented in 1993 by Rebecca Cross.
Still paid automatically from an account containing approximately $41,000.
Not millions.
The mystery wasn't a fortune sitting untouched.
With a court order and Cassidy's documentation as Elaine's heir, the box was opened.
Inside were microfilm reels, paper ledgers, photographs, cassette tapes and three letters.
One addressed to Daniel.
One to Cassidy.
One to me.
I opened mine last.
Frank,
If you're reading this, I failed to keep the past away from our girls.
I need you to understand one thing before everything else.
I loved you.
Elaine was not a disguise I wore around you.
Elaine became the life I chose.
Rebecca was the life I survived.
I stopped reading.
Thirty-four years of marriage compressed into those sentences.
Then I continued.
Rebecca had worked in accounting at North Range.
The company didn't merely hide mineral royalties.
It bought distressed ranches through intermediaries after deliberately understating mineral values.
Landowners sold cheaply.
North Range later profited enormously.
Illegal?
Potentially, depending on the transactions.
Immoral?
Elaine had no doubt.
She copied records after discovering one affected family.
The Mercers.
My family.
I stared at the letter.
My father had lost 600 acres in 1987 after financial trouble.
We always believed the land was worthless.
North Range acquired mineral rights through a shell company months later.
Elaine knew before she met me.
She recognized my surname.
At first she approached me because of it.
That revelation cut deeper than her changed name.
Our first meeting hadn't been accidental.
She wanted to learn what my father knew.
But she wrote:
Then I fell in love with the man I was supposed to question.
I never used you after that.
I buried Rebecca because I wanted Frank.
I closed my eyes.
Then the letter warned about three men.
Warren Timmons.
Caleb Timmons.
And Malcolm Huxley.
Trent's father.
I stared.
Trent's family was connected too.
Malcolm had been North Range's outside accountant.
He died seven years ago.
Or so we believed.
After Caleb's resurrection, death certificates had lost some authority in my mind.
Then Daniel opened his letter.
His expression changed.
“What?”
He handed it to me.
Rebecca wrote:
Daniel, if Malcolm ever contacts you, do not believe Caleb betrayed us.
Caleb helped me disappear.
Daniel whispered:
“I spent thirty years hating him.”
Caleb hadn't hunted Rebecca.
He saved her.
Then Cassidy's letter revealed something else.
Elaine had left her daughter not money—
but ownership of a dormant company.
Mercer Basin Holdings.
Cassidy frowned.
“What is that?”
Daniel searched the old records.
Then stared at me.
Mercer Basin Holdings owned mineral rights beneath 4,800 acres.
Current estimated value:
$17 million.
Cassidy wasn't hiding money from Trent.
May you like
She didn't even know she had it.
But Trent did.
