He said nothing.
Then I understood.
“You’ve been searching.”
His jaw tightened.
“You’ve been inside Valerie’s house.”
“I still have a key.”
“And you’ve been tearing through it looking for something.”
“I have every right.”
“No, Zion. You don’t.”
“I’ve spent months contesting the will.”
There it was.
Months.
While he was telling relatives I had manipulated his mother, he had been fighting her final wishes in court.
“And?”
He stared at me.
“You lost.”
His face hardened.
“There. That attitude.”
“What attitude? I didn’t even know there was a case.”
“That’s exactly what someone who planned this would say.”
I pointed at the door.
“Get out.”
“This isn’t finished.”
“For me, it is.”
He glared at me.
Then he left.
I stood there afterward with two facts I had not known an hour earlier.
Valerie had left me her home.
And somewhere inside it, she had hidden something her son desperately wanted to find first.
A week later, Valerie’s attorney called.
Harrison Doyle had handled her estate planning for years.
He invited me to his office.
There, he showed me the will.
The house was indeed mine.
I stared at the page.
“Why?”
Harrison gave me a small smile.
“I suspect Valerie intended to answer that herself.”
He turned another page toward me.
Below the section concerning the house was a handwritten instruction.
“I have left something in my home for Marla as well. I hope I am wrong, but after recent conversations, I believe she may need it one day.”
I read the sentence twice.
“Recent conversations?”
Harrison nodded.
“Those were Valerie’s words.”
I thought about Zion.
His panic.
His searching.
His accusations.
Whatever Valerie had hidden was not jewelry.
It was not money.
She thought I might need it.
I drove to the house that afternoon.
The moment I opened the door, my chest tightened.
Zion had searched everywhere.
Drawers were open.
Closet boxes had been emptied.
Cabinets stood ajar.
Photographs were stacked carelessly on tables.
His mother’s belongings looked as if someone had treated them like obstacles.
I spent almost an hour putting things back.
Then I entered the sunroom.
Strangely, Zion had barely touched it.
That room had never mattered much to him.
To Valerie and me, it had meant everything.
That was where we drank tea after treatments.
Where she complained about my cooking.
Where she told me stories about Zion as a child.
Where she once told me kindness did not make me stupid.
I sat in my usual chair.
The faint scent of her lavender hand cream still seemed to cling to the room.
Without thinking, I ran my fingers beneath the edge of the little table.
Something touched my hand.
Tape.
I bent down.
An envelope had been secured underneath.
My name was written across it.
Marla.
