PART 3 — WHAT DIANE DID TO ME
Aaron Bell’s hand was still on the doorknob when I said, “Wait.”
He stopped.
The second knock came from outside.
Firm.
Official.
But I was looking only at Ross.
“What did Diane do to me?”
Diane’s face had gone the color of wet cement.
“Ross is lying.”
Ross laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
“That’s rich coming from you.”
“Shut up.”
“No.”
She crossed the room so quickly that Pastor Dave stepped between them.
“Enough,” he said.
Diane pointed around him.
“You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Ross’s jaw tightened.
“I know exactly what I’m talking about because you made me help clean it up.”
My stomach dropped.
“Clean what up?”
Diane turned to me.
“Eileen, please don’t listen to him.”
For nineteen years, she had never once cared whether I listened to her.
Now she was begging.
That frightened me more than Ross did.
Aaron glanced toward the door.
“The investigators can wait thirty seconds.”
Then he looked at Ross.
“But if you intend to make an accusation, Mr. Mercer, understand that you are making it in front of witnesses.”
Ross stared at him.
“Good.”
Diane whispered, “You idiot.”
Ross ignored her.
He looked at me.
“Three years ago, you remember when you fell down the basement stairs?”
Of course I remembered.
I had broken two ribs.
Sprained my wrist.
Hit my head hard enough that I spent the night in the hospital.
Frank had found me unconscious at the bottom landing.
For months afterward he blamed himself because he had been outside trimming the hedge when it happened.
“Yes,” I said slowly.
Ross swallowed.
“You didn’t fall.”
The room disappeared.
Not literally.
But suddenly I could no longer hear the murmurs around me.
Couldn’t feel the carpet under my shoes.
Couldn’t smell the ham cooling on the dining room table.
There was only Ross.
And four words.
You didn’t fall.
I gripped the back of Frank’s recliner.
“What are you saying?”
Diane rushed forward.
“He’s trying to save himself.”
Ross snapped, “By confessing?”
“Confessing to what?”
“To helping you cover it up!”
Mrs. Hendricks gasped.
My sister whispered my name.
I looked at Diane.
She was shaking her head.
“No.”
I remembered that afternoon.
It had been raining.
Frank was outside.
I had gone downstairs because the dryer made a scraping noise.
I remembered reaching the fourth step.
Then…
Nothing.
I woke beneath fluorescent hospital lights with Frank sitting beside me, holding my hand so tightly his knuckles were white.
He kept asking the same question.
“Are you sure you slipped?”
I had thought grief and fear were making him irrational.
I told him yes.
What else could have happened?
Now Ross said quietly, “Diane was in the house.”
My skin prickled.
“No, she wasn’t.”
“She was.”
Diane screamed, “ROSS!”
Aaron opened the door.
The woman with the leather portfolio and the investigator entered.
The investigator was in his late fifties, broad-shouldered, with tired eyes.
The woman beside him looked younger, maybe forty, with dark hair tied tightly at the back of her head.
Aaron introduced them.
“Mrs. Mercer, this is Investigator Malcolm Reed and forensic accountant Joanna Pierce.”
The accountant.
The one Frank hired.
Joanna looked at me with an expression that told me she already knew things about my life that I did not.
Investigator Reed showed his identification.
“Mrs. Mercer, I’m sorry to intrude today.”
Diane moved toward the hallway.
Reed said, “Ms. Larkin, please remain here.”
She froze.
“You can’t order me around.”
“No,” he said. “Not yet.”
Not yet.
Two words.
That was all.
Diane sat down.
Ross did not.
He looked like a man who believed sitting would somehow trap him.
I turned back to him.
“Tell me what happened.”
He rubbed both palms over his face.
“Diane went to see you that afternoon.”
“For what?”
His eyes flicked toward his sister.
“Money.”
I almost laughed.
Not because anything was funny.
Because of course it was money.
Every road with those two ended at money.
“What money?”
“The house.”
Diane stared at the floor.
Ross continued.
“She wanted you to sign something.”
I remembered.
A flash.
Not a memory exactly.
More like a photograph surfacing underwater.
Diane standing in my kitchen.
A folder on the counter.
I pressed my hand to my temple.
“She brought papers.”
Ross nodded.
“You remember?”
“Pieces.”
Diane finally spoke.
“It was just estate planning.”
Joanna Pierce opened her portfolio.
“No, it wasn’t.”
Diane’s mouth closed.
Joanna removed a document sealed in a clear plastic sleeve.
“I examined the paperwork recovered from your father’s office, as well as documents obtained from the attempted holding-company registration.”
She turned the page so I could see it.
There was my name.
And underneath it…
My signature.
My stomach lurched.
“I never signed that.”
“I know,” Joanna said.
Diane jumped up.
“You don’t know anything.”
Joanna did not even look at her.
“The signature was digitally reproduced from a refinancing document Mrs. Mercer legitimately signed eighteen months earlier.”
I stared at Diane.
“You forged my signature?”
“It wasn’t me.”
Ross laughed bitterly.
“Oh, come on.”
Diane rounded on him.
“You handled the computer!”
“Because you told me Eileen already agreed!”
“She had!”
“I did not!”
My voice startled even me.
The whole room went quiet.
I turned toward Diane.
“You came into my house.”
“You invited me.”
“I gave you coffee.”
Her lips parted.
I remembered more now.
Rain tapping against the kitchen window.
Diane telling me Frank was worried about taxes.
Saying there was paperwork that could protect the house if his health got worse.
I had told her I would not sign anything without Frank.
She got angry.
Then she smiled.
Too quickly.
And…
Something else.
I closed my eyes.
Tea.
No.
Coffee.
She had poured me another cup.
I opened my eyes.
“What did you put in my coffee?”
Diane’s face betrayed her.
Just for a second.
But it was enough.
My sister stood.
“Oh my God.”
Ross said, “That’s what Dad found out.”
My knees weakened.
Aaron pulled a chair behind me.
I sat.
I could barely feel it.
Investigator Reed stepped closer to Diane.
“Ms. Larkin, you are not required to answer questions.”
She backed away.
“I didn’t put anything in her drink.”
Ross said, “You told me you gave her one of Dad’s sleeping pills.”
The silence after that was so complete I heard the refrigerator motor humming in the kitchen.
Diane looked at him as if she wanted him dead.
“You promised.”
Ross laughed.
“Yeah? Well, Dad promised us millions and look how that turned out.”
I stared at my husband’s children.
For years, I had thought Ross was selfish.
Diane was cruel.
But this…
This was something darker.
“Why?” I whispered.
Ross looked at me.
“Because if you signed the transfer, Dad’s share of the house would move into the company.”
“And?”
“And when he died…”
He stopped.
Joanna finished.
“The company structure gave Diane and Ross controlling interest.”
I understood.
Slowly.
Horribly.
“You could force me out.”
Neither answered.
Aaron did.
“Yes.”
My sister cursed under her breath.
Pastor Dave sat down as though his legs had stopped working.
I looked at Diane.
“You drugged me so you could steal my home?”
“No.”
Her eyes filled.
“You don’t understand.”
“Then explain it.”
“Dad was sick.”
“That isn’t an explanation.”
“He wasn’t thinking clearly.”
“He was thinking clearly enough to catch you.”
Her mouth tightened.
“You changed him.”
There it was.
Nineteen years distilled into three words.
You changed him.
I almost smiled.
“I loved him.”
“You took him away from us!”
“No.”
I stood.
“You left.”
Her eyes widened.
I had never raised my voice at her before.
Not once.
For nineteen years, I had swallowed every insult because Frank loved his children.
Every holiday.
Every sneer.
Every time they entered our house without knocking.
Every time they referred to Frank’s money as though he were already dead.
I stepped closer.
“When your father had his first surgery, I called you six times.”
Diane looked away.
“You said you were busy.”
I turned to Ross.
“He begged you to visit after the second chemo cycle.”
Ross stared at the floor.
“You said gas was expensive.”
I looked back at Diane.
“When Frank could no longer get upstairs by himself, I bathed him.”
My voice cracked.
“I changed his dressings.”
Another crack.
“I held the bowl while he vomited.”
My throat burned now.
“I shaved his face because he was too weak to hold the razor.”
Diane’s eyes filled with tears.
“You don’t get to stand in my living room one hour after I buried him and tell me I took him away from you.”
Nobody moved.
Then Investigator Reed cleared his throat.
“There is more.”
I laughed softly.
A terrible sound.
“Of course there is.”
Joanna opened another folder.
“Frank began investigating the attempted asset transfer after he discovered the forged document.”
“How did he find it?”
“Property tax correspondence.”
That sounded like Frank.
He saved everything.
Receipts from twenty years earlier.
Instructions for appliances we no longer owned.
He probably still had the receipt for our first toaster.
Joanna continued.
“When he realized Mrs. Mercer’s signature had been forged, he asked me to review other transactions involving his children.”
Ross said, “That was none of his business.”
Joanna looked at him.
“It involved his accounts.”
Ross shut up.
She placed three bank statements on the table.
The numbers meant nothing to me at first.
Then I saw withdrawals.
Nine thousand dollars.
Twelve thousand.
Seven thousand five hundred.
Again.
Again.
Again.
“What are those?”
Joanna answered.
“Transfers from an investment account held solely in Frank Mercer’s name.”
I stared.
“To where?”
“A consulting company.”
“Whose company?”
She looked at Ross.
His face told me before she spoke.
“Ross Mercer.”
My stomach sank.
“How much?”
Joanna hesitated.
I knew then it was worse than I expected.
“How much?”
“Over approximately five years, four hundred and eighty-six thousand dollars.”
Someone behind me whispered, “Jesus.”
Ross exploded.
“He gave me that money!”
Joanna remained calm.
“Then you should have records showing authorization.”
“I worked for him.”
“Your company was dissolved eleven months before the first payment.”
Ross’s face turned red.
“That doesn’t mean anything.”
“There were also checks.”
Joanna slid copies forward.
My husband’s signature appeared at the bottom.
Except I knew Frank’s handwriting.
And something was wrong.
The F was too round.
“He didn’t sign these.”
“No.”
Ross pointed toward Diane.
“She did those.”
Diane stood so quickly the chair fell backward.
“You lying piece of—”
Investigator Reed stepped between them.
“Sit down.”
This time she did.
Joanna looked toward me.
“Frank suspected the money had been taken from him over several years.”
“How could he not notice half a million dollars missing?”
“He did notice irregularities. But because both children occasionally helped with business and personal paperwork, each offered explanations he initially accepted.”
That hurt.
Because it sounded exactly like Frank.
He wanted to trust them.
Parents can see the evidence and still spend years searching for an innocent explanation.
“Then why hire you?”
Joanna paused.
“Because of your accident.”
My heart stopped.
“What?”
“Frank did not believe you slipped.”
I sat again.
Aaron handed me Frank’s letter.
I had forgotten I was still holding it.
The next paragraph began:
Red, the worst night of my life was not the night the doctor told me I had cancer.
My eyes blurred.
It was the night you fell.
I covered my mouth.
You were asleep in that hospital bed, and I sat beside you thinking I might lose you before you lost me.
A tear hit the paper.
Something bothered me. You told me you had been alone. Diane told me she had not visited. But the next morning I found her scarf behind the kitchen bench.
I looked at Diane.
She began crying.
Real tears now.
Not funeral tears.
I asked her why she had been there.
She lied.
That was when I started looking.
I could barely see.
I found the forged papers.
Then I found the missing money.
Then Joanna found something I never expected.
I stopped.
My heartbeat became slow and heavy.
Joanna reached into her folder.
Ross whispered, “Don’t.”
She looked at him.
“You already know?”
He said nothing.
Diane shook her head.
“He doesn’t know everything.”
Ross stared at her.
“What does that mean?”
For the first time that afternoon, brother and sister looked equally frightened.
Joanna placed a photograph on the table.
It showed a storage unit.
Blue metal door.
Number 214.
I looked at her.
“What is that?”
“Your husband rented it six months ago under the trust.”
“Why?”
“To secure evidence.”
“Evidence of what?”
Joanna looked toward Investigator Reed.
He nodded.
She opened another envelope.
Inside were photographs.
Bank statements.
Copies of identification.
A stack of letters.
And one photograph that made my entire body turn cold.
It was me.
Walking out of a grocery store.
Taken from across the parking lot.
Another photograph.
Me watering flowers in my yard.
Another.
Me sitting alone inside a café.
“What is this?”
Nobody answered.
I picked up another.
This one was older.
Maybe four years.
Frank and I were leaving a restaurant.
“What are these?”
Joanna spoke softly.
“Surveillance photographs.”
“Who was watching me?”
“We believe they were taken by a private investigator.”
“Why?”
“That is one of the questions Frank wanted answered.”
I looked at Diane.
Her tears had stopped.
Ross stared at the photographs like he had never seen them.
“You hired someone to follow Eileen?” he asked.
Diane shook her head.
“No.”
“Then who did?”
“I don’t know.”
He laughed.
“You expect anyone to believe that?”
“I didn’t!”
Investigator Reed said, “The payments to the investigator came through a company called Hawthorne Residential Holdings.”
Joanna slid a corporate registration across the table.
“Hawthorne was also connected to the attempted transfer of this house.”
I stared at the document.
“Who owns it?”
“Ownership is obscured through several entities.”
“So you don’t know?”
“We know who originally created it.”
Joanna turned the page toward me.
There was a name.
My breath stopped.
Because it wasn’t Diane.
It wasn’t Ross.
And it wasn’t Frank.
I knew the name.
I had heard it dozens of times during the first years of our marriage.
Frank had mentioned it whenever we drove past the old neighborhood.
At birthdays.
At Christmas.
Usually in sentences that ended with silence.
My finger touched the paper.
“No.”
Diane whispered, “Eileen…”
I looked at her.
“You knew?”
She closed her eyes.
Ross leaned over the table.
When he saw the name, all the anger drained from him.
“What the hell?”
He looked at his sister.
“You told me she was dead.”
Diane said nothing.
My skin crawled.
The name printed on the registration form was:
MARGARET MERCER.
Frank’s first wife.
Diane and Ross’s mother.
The woman Frank told me had died eight years before I met him.
The woman whose funeral photographs were still in an album upstairs.
The woman whose grave I had personally helped Frank put flowers on every Memorial Day for nineteen years.
I laughed.
I could not help it.
It came out as a broken little sound.
“That’s impossible.”
Joanna said nothing.
I looked at Aaron.
He looked away.
Investigator Reed’s face remained unreadable.
Finally I turned to Diane.
“Your mother is dead.”
She whispered, “The woman buried in that grave is dead.”
Nobody breathed.
I felt as if the floor shifted beneath me.
“What does that mean?”
Diane covered her face.
Ross shouted, “What does that mean, Diane?”
She lowered her hands.
Her eyes found mine.
And for the first time since I had known her, there was no arrogance in them.
Only terror.
“Our mother didn’t die.”
Ross staggered backward.
“You’re lying.”
“She disappeared.”
“You were at her funeral!”
“We all were.”
“Dad identified the body!”
“No,” Diane whispered.
“He identified her jewelry.”
Ross stared at her.
I couldn’t move.
Diane continued.
“The woman in the car was burned beyond recognition.”
My sister sat beside me and took my hand.
I barely felt it.
“How do you know this?” I asked.
Diane looked toward the front window.
“Because seven years ago… Mom called me.”
Ross’s face collapsed.
“What?”
“She said she needed money.”
“You gave it to her?”
“At first.”
“How much?”
Diane shook her head.
“How much, Diane?”
“Enough.”
Joanna interrupted.
“Approximately three hundred and twelve thousand dollars.”
Ross’s mouth dropped open.
“You stole money from Dad to give to Mom?”
Diane shouted, “She was blackmailing me!”
“About what?”
Diane went silent.
Ross moved closer.
“About what?”
She looked at me.
And suddenly I knew.
Whatever came next involved me.
“It wasn’t only about Dad’s money,” Diane said.
“What was it about?”
“She knew who Eileen was before Dad ever met her.”
I stopped breathing.
I had met Frank at a church fundraiser.
I was forty-two.
He had been widowed for years.
At least that was what he told me.
Our first date was coffee.
Our second was dinner.
Nothing mysterious.
Nothing dramatic.
“What are you talking about?”
Diane’s voice dropped to a whisper.
“My mother knew your mother.”
I stared at her.
“My mother?”
The clock Diane had tried to label sat on the mantel.
My mother’s clock.
The one she had left me when she died.
For the first time, I looked at it differently.
Diane followed my eyes.
Then she said something that turned my grief into fear.
“That clock is why I reached for it.”
Every hair on my arms rose.
I stood.
“You said you wanted it because it was valuable.”
“I lied.”
I looked at the little walnut clock.
It had sat in my mother’s bedroom when I was a child.
Then her living room.
Then mine after she passed.
“What does my mother’s clock have to do with Frank’s first wife?”
Diane’s lips trembled.
“I don’t know everything.”
“Then tell me what you know.”
“Mom called me six months ago. She said Dad had discovered something he wasn’t supposed to discover.”
“What?”
“She wouldn’t tell me.”
“Diane.”
“She just said there was something hidden inside that clock.”
Every face turned toward the mantel.
My mother’s clock suddenly seemed enormous.
I walked toward it.
Aaron said, “Mrs. Mercer, perhaps we should—”
“No.”
I picked it up.
Heavy walnut.
Brass face.
I had dusted it every week for decades.
My mother had wound it every Sunday morning.
There was nothing unusual about it.
Or so I had always believed.
Diane whispered, “Turn it over.”
I did.
Four screws held the back panel.
Ross grabbed a screwdriver from the junk drawer before anyone could stop him.
He handed it to me.
His hand was shaking.
I removed the first screw.
Then the second.
Third.
Fourth.
The back panel came loose.
At first I saw only gears.
Then my fingers brushed something that did not belong.
A small envelope.
Yellowed with age.
Folded behind the mechanism.
My name was written on it.
Not Eileen Mercer.
My maiden name.
Eileen Harper.
I knew the handwriting immediately.
My mother’s.
My sister covered her mouth.
“She never told us.”
I pulled the envelope free.
Inside was a photograph.
Two young women stood beside a lake.
One was my mother.
The other…
I had seen her before.
In Frank’s old albums.
Margaret Mercer.
On the back, my mother had written a date.
1978.
And beneath it:
Margaret — I pray Frank never discovers what we did. Eileen must never know.
My hands began shaking so violently the photograph rattled.
I turned toward Diane.
“What did they do?”
She whispered, “I don’t know.”
The house phone rang.
Every person jumped.
One ring.
Two.
Three.
Nobody moved.
Then Investigator Reed said, “Mrs. Mercer, don’t answer it.”
The phone rang again.
I looked at him.
“Why?”
His eyes went toward Joanna.
She was staring at her own phone.
“What?” Aaron asked.
Joanna’s face had changed.
“Frank had the house number monitored for incoming calls connected to the investigation.”
The phone rang a fifth time.
She turned her screen toward Reed.
A number appeared.
He looked at Diane.
“Do you recognize it?”
Diane stepped backward.
“No.”
But her face said yes.
Reed looked at me.
“The number is associated with the same prepaid account used to contact Diane several times during the past year.”
My heart hammered.
“You mean…”
Diane whispered, “Don’t answer.”
I stared at her.
“Why?”
“Eileen, please.”
The phone rang again.
I walked into the kitchen.
Everyone followed.
I picked up the receiver.
“Hello?”
Nothing.
Then breathing.
Slow.
Faint.
I almost hung up.
Then a woman spoke.
Old.
Calm.
“You finally opened the clock.”
My knees nearly collapsed.
“Who is this?”
Diane began crying behind me.
The woman ignored the question.
“Frank should have left the past buried.”
My grip tightened around the receiver.
“Are you Margaret?”
Silence.
Then:
“Ask Diane what happened at Lake Crescent in 1978.”
I looked at Diane.
Her face was blank.
“She wasn’t even born.”
The woman laughed softly.
“No.”
A pause.
“But you were.”
My mouth went dry.
“I was six.”
“I know.”
The woman’s next words came slowly.
“You were there, Eileen.”
I could hear my own pulse.
“I don’t remember.”
“You weren’t supposed to.”
Then the line went dead.
I stood frozen with the receiver pressed to my ear.
Behind me, nobody moved.
Finally Ross whispered,
“What did she say?”
I put the phone down.
I turned toward the photograph of my mother and Margaret Mercer.
Then toward the envelope hidden inside the clock for nearly fifty years.
And for the first time since Frank died, I understood something terrifying.
His children were not the mystery he had been trying to solve.
They were only the first layer.
I looked at Investigator Reed.
“What happened at Lake Crescent?”
He did not answer immediately.
That was when I knew he already had some idea.
“Tell me.”
Reed opened his portfolio.
He removed an old newspaper clipping sealed in plastic.
The headline was faded.
But readable.
LOCAL COUPLE AND SIX-YEAR-OLD GIRL SURVIVE LAKE CABIN FIRE — SECOND CHILD REPORTED MISSING.
My eyes found the photograph beneath the headline.
My mother.
My father.
And me.
Six years old.
Wrapped in a blanket.
I stared at the final sentence of the article.
Then read it again.
Because the missing child had a name.
A little girl, age four.
My parents had told police she was the daughter of family friends.
She was never found.
Her name was…
Diane.
I looked across the room at Frank’s daughter.
She looked back at me.
And neither of us breathed.
Because Diane Mercer was forty-nine years old.
But according to the newspaper clipping in my hands…
A four-year-old girl named Diane had disappeared from my childhood forty-eight years ago.
And suddenly I no longer knew who the woman standing in my living room really was……………..
TO BE CONTINUED IN PART 4…
