“Of?”
“Marlene.”
“With Greg?”
“No.”
Sarah looked at me.
“With Dad.”
My blood seemed to stop moving.
“What?”
“A photograph of Dad entering her apartment.”
I stared at her.
“I don’t understand.”
“Neither did I.”
“When?”
“Six weeks before he died.”
I felt nauseated.
Had Robert known Marlene?
Had he been meeting her?
Why?
Sarah wiped her cheeks.
“Greg said Dad was trying to destroy our marriage.”
“And you believed Greg?”
“I didn’t know what to believe.”
“What else was in the envelope?”
“Bank records.”
“Whose?”
“I don’t know. Greg took them.”
I stood.
I needed air.
Robert meeting Greg’s other wife.
Secret accounts.
Investigators.
Hidden evidence.
The family I thought I understood had become a maze.
And my husband was no longer alive to explain any of it.
Then Denise asked something none of us had considered.
“Where is Marlene now?”
Sarah looked up.
“I don’t know.”
Denise turned to me.
“Find her.”
It took less than two days.
Marlene Hale lived forty minutes away.
She was sixty-three.
That alone confused me.
If she had married Greg, who was forty-two, there was more than twenty years between them.
We met at a coffee shop.
When she saw me, she knew immediately who I was.
“Oh,” she said.
“You’re Carolyn.”
I stopped.
“You know me?”
She looked at David.
Then back at me.
“Robert showed me pictures.”
My knees nearly failed.
“Robert knew you?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
Her expression softened.
“We were married.”
I heard David whisper, “What?”
I sat down because I could no longer stand.
Marlene quickly shook her head.
“No. Not like that. Robert wasn’t my husband.”
She looked embarrassed.
“I meant Greg and I were married. Robert knew because he found me.”
“How?”
“He hired someone.”
I nodded.
“The investigator.”
“Yes.”
“Why was Robert meeting you?”
“Because he was trying to help me.”
“Help you with what?”
Marlene stared at her coffee.
“I met Greg when he was twenty-three. I was forty-four.”
That aligned with 2007.
Just after Robert forced Sarah and Greg apart.
“I owned two rental properties and a small catering business,” Marlene continued. “Greg was charming. Very charming.”
I understood.
“He said I made him feel understood. Within a year, we married.”
“What happened?”
“He started managing things.”
Her voice changed.
“The books. Repairs. Banking. He said I worked too hard.”
David and I exchanged a look.
“Money disappeared,” I said.
She nodded.
“Nearly seventy thousand dollars.”
My stomach turned.
“When I confronted him, he left. I started divorce proceedings but became ill. I assumed my attorney finished everything.”
“He didn’t?”
“She died unexpectedly. Her office closed. Years later, I discovered the filing had never been completed.”
“Why didn’t you find Greg?”
“I didn’t want him back.”
“But he paid for your apartment.”
Marlene looked surprised.
“What?”
“Sarah said Greg rented your apartment.”
She stared at me.
Then began laughing.
Not happily.
“He told her that?”
“Yes.”
“This apartment is mine.”
My skin went cold.
“Then what was he paying?”
“He wasn’t paying me.”
“Robert’s investigator found recurring payments connected to your address.”
Marlene became very still.
“What bank?”
I told her.
She closed her eyes.
“That wasn’t my account.”
“Whose was it?”
She reached into her purse.
Pulled out her phone.
Scrolled.
Then placed it on the table.
A photograph showed Marlene beside a young man.
Maybe twenty.
Dark hair.
Greg’s eyes.
“My son,” she said.
David frowned.
“Greg’s?”
Marlene nodded.
“Evan.”
Sarah had been married to Greg for eleven years.
She had no idea he had a son.
But the final shock had not come yet.
Marlene looked at me.
“Robert knew about Evan.”
I swallowed.
“Why?”
“Because Evan contacted him.”
“When?”
“About six months before Robert died.”
“What did he want?”
“To warn him.”
“About Greg?”
“Yes.”
Marlene’s eyes filled.
“Greg had told Evan that Sarah’s family owned a valuable house free and clear. He said once the old man was gone, everything would become easier.”
I stopped breathing.
David’s hand closed around mine.
Marlene continued carefully.
“Evan thought Greg was talking about inheritance. Robert thought it was more.”
“What more?”
“Robert believed Greg was preparing to put debt against the property.”
The home-equity application.
I felt sick.
“But Robert was still alive then,” David said.
Marlene nodded.
“That’s why he changed the trust.”
I leaned forward.
“Where are Robert’s final investigator records?”
“I gave my copies to him.”
“The blue envelope?”
She stared at me.
“I used a blue document envelope.”
There it was.
“Do you have copies?”
Marlene hesitated.
Then nodded.
“Most of them.”
The folder she gave us answered nearly everything.
And created one final mystery.
Greg had not merely hidden money from Sarah.
For years, he had maintained accounts she did not know existed.
He had paid expenses for Evan.
