Chapter 2 - The Intrusive Will
I didn't call the police.
I grabbed my car keys, my coat still damp from the rain, and walked out the door before Daniel could stop me. He didn't try to argue; he just grabbed his own jacket and followed me into the cold night.
My father’s old study wasn't at my mother’s house. It was at a small cabin he had owned on the shores of Lake Sammamish—a place he called his "work retreat," but which had really been his sanctuary from my mother’s constant social climbing. When he died, he had left the cabin to me in a separate deed, a detail that had infuriated my mother to the point that she had refused to attend his memorial service there.
The drive to the lake took twenty minutes. The rain had turned into a thick, swirling fog that hung over the water, swallowing the headlights of the car.
When we pulled down the gravel driveway, I saw a silver Mercedes parked near the dark tree line.
It was my sister’s car.
"Stay here," I told Daniel, my voice steady, cold, and final.
"Emily, she might not be alone," he warned.
"I don't care," I said.
I got out of the car, my boots crunching on the wet gravel. The cabin door was slightly ajar, the lock scratched as if someone had used a crowbar to force the latch. I stepped inside the dark living room. The air was cold, smelling of cedar and old paper.
A light was shining from the hallway leading to the study.
I walked down the corridor, my footsteps silent on the wool rug my father had bought in Turkey. When I reached the doorway of the study, I stopped.
Vanessa was on her knees in front of the wall safe, the topographical map hanging crookedly from one nail. She had a heavy crowbar in her hand, her face flushed with sweat and frustration as she beat the iron rim of the lock. Mason was sitting on my father’s old leather sofa, holding an iPad with the volume turned off, his small face illuminated by the blue screen. He didn't look up when I entered. He looked like he had seen his mother do this sort of thing a hundred times before.
"Looking for something, Vanessa?" I asked.
My sister screamed, dropping the crowbar onto the hardwood floor with a deafening clatter. She spun around, her eyes wide, her expensive designer coat covered in white plaster dust from where she had chipped the drywall.
"Emily!" she gasped, her hand flying to her chest. "You... you frightened me! What are you doing here?"
"I own this house," I said, stepping into the room. "The question is what are you doing here with a crowbar and my son's nephew at one in the morning?"
Vanessa’s panic quickly hardened into her familiar, defensive sneer. She stood up, brushing the dust from her knees. "Mom told me there were some family documents in here. Personal things. Dad's old journals. She wanted them before the end of the year. She didn't want you 'hiding' them."
"You mean she wanted the trust documents," I said.
Vanessa froze. Her eyes darted to the crowbar on the floor, then back to me. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"The Cascade trust, Vanessa. The one Dad set up for Lily. The one that reverts to Mom next month if there’s no living grandchild."
"It’s Mason’s money!" Vanessa suddenly shrieked, her voice rising to a pitch that finally made her son look up from his screen. "Dad promised me! He said Mason would be taken care of! You were always his favorite, Emily. He gave you this cabin, he gave you his land, and what did I get? A house with a thirty-year mortgage and a husband who leaves me every weekend to go 'fishing' in Canada!"
"Dad didn't give me this cabin because I was his favorite," I said, my voice dropping so low it felt like it was coming from the floorboards. "He gave it to me because he knew Mom would sell it the second his heart stopped beating. And he set up that trust for any grandchild. If my baby had lived, it would have been hers. But you couldn't even let me grieve her without calculating how much her death was worth to your bank account."
"She wasn't going to live anyway, Emily!" Vanessa spat out.
The room went completely silent.
Even Mason stopped moving, his small fingers freezing on the glass of the iPad.
"What did you say?" I asked.
Vanessa’s face went white. She realized, a second too late, that she had crossed a line she couldn't climb back over. She stepped back, her heels clicking against the crowbar.
"Nothing," she muttered, reaching out to grab Mason’s arm. "Come on, Mason. We’re leaving. Your aunt is having one of her episodes."
"No," I said, blocking the doorway. "You're going to tell me what you meant by that."
"Get out of my way, Emily!" Vanessa yelled, trying to push past me.
But Daniel was standing behind me now. He didn't touch her, but his physical presence—six feet of quiet, solid anger—was enough to make her stop.
"Your mother changed the doctor," Daniel said from the hallway.
I turned my head to look at him. "What?"
"Two weeks before the miscarriage," Daniel said, his eyes fixed on Vanessa’s pale face. "Your mother insisted on taking you to her personal OB-GYN in Bellevue. She said she wanted to make sure you were getting the 'best care.' She paid for the appointment herself."
I remembered. I had been hesitant, but my mother had been so unusually sweet, so persistent. She had said she wanted to be involved. She had brought me a thermos of herbal tea before the appointment—a blend she said she had imported from Switzerland to help with the morning sickness.
"She put something in the tea," I whispered, the realization hitting me with the force of a physical blow. My legs felt like they were turning to sand. "My mother... she..."
"No!" Vanessa screamed, her voice cracking. "It wasn't Mom! It was... it was just a supplement! A natural one! To make the uterine lining 'hospitable'! The doctor said it was safe!"
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"What doctor, Vanessa?" Daniel asked, his voice low and terrifyingly calm. "The one who lost his license in California five years ago for running a black-market fertility clinic? The one your mother hired to manage her private wellness spa?"
Vanessa didn't answer. She grabbed Mason’s hand and pushed past me, her heavy purse swinging against my shoulder as she fled into the dark hallway, her boots pounding on the wooden floor as she ran out into the freezing rain.
