Chapter 7 - THE MARRIAGE WAS NEVER AN ACCIDENT
The next morning, I couldn't stop thinking about Leonard's words.
Michael hadn't found me by chance.
Someone had put me in his path.
Three years earlier, I had met Michael at a charity event.
At least, that's what I thought.
He had approached me.
He had known my name.
He had known where I worked.
He had even remembered details about my father's death that I had never told him.
At the time, I thought he was simply attentive.
Now I understood.
He had been researching me.
Rachel requested Michael's phone records.
The results arrived that afternoon.
The first contact between Michael and Hattie about me occurred eleven months before we met.
There were dozens of messages.
Most were coded.
Then we found one that wasn't.
She's the daughter.
Another:
Confirm the father.
And finally:
Get close to her.
I stared at the screen.
"That's when it started."
Rachel nodded.
"Yes."
I felt sick.
The three years of my marriage suddenly became evidence in a criminal investigation.
Every romantic dinner.
Every weekend trip.
Every time Michael said he loved me.
Had any of it been real?
Or had I simply been a target?
Michael requested a meeting from jail.
I almost refused.
Then Rachel said:
"Go."
"Why?"
"Because he may know something Leonard doesn't want him to tell us."
So I went.
Michael looked different behind the glass.
Smaller.
Older.
For the first time, he looked like an ordinary man.
Not my husband.
Not the man I had loved.
Just Michael.
He picked up the phone.
"You shouldn't have come."
"Why?"
"Because Leonard will kill you."
I stared at him.
"You're worried about me now?"
He looked down.
"I'm serious."
"You lied to me."
"I know."
"You hit me."
"I know."
"You helped your mother terrorize mine."
"I know."
"Then tell me why."
His eyes filled with tears.
"I thought I could control it."
"Control what?"
"The family."
I laughed bitterly.
"You were never in control."
He looked toward the guard.
Then lowered his voice.
"My grandfather owns everything."
"What?"
"Not legally."
He swallowed.
"Through trusts."
I leaned closer.
"Why was I targeted?"
Michael hesitated.
"Your father stole something from him."
"My father?"
"Not money."
"Then what?"
Michael looked terrified.
"A ledger."
I felt my pulse rise.
"What ledger?"
"The original ledger documenting every property Leonard stole."
"Where is it?"
"I don't know."
"You expect me to believe that?"
Michael shook his head.
"Your father hid it."
"Where?"
"I don't know."
He stared at me.
"But Leonard thinks you do."
My blood ran cold.
"I don't."
"He doesn't care."
Michael leaned toward the glass.
"He's already searching your childhood."
"What does that mean?"
"He thinks your father left the ledger for you."
I stared at him.
"My father died when I was nineteen."
Michael nodded.
"Exactly."
He lowered his voice.
"Leonard has been waiting seventeen years."
When I returned to Rachel's office, my mother was there.
She looked frightened.
"Penelope."
"What?"
"I remembered something."
She opened her purse.
Inside was a small brass key.
I stared at it.
"What's that?"
"Your father gave it to me."
"When?"
"Three days before he died."
My heart stopped.
"What did he say?"
"He told me never to use it unless Leonard came back."
I looked at Rachel.
"Where does it open?"
My mother shook her head.
"I don't know."
I turned the key over.
A tiny number had been engraved into the metal.
317.
Rachel's eyes widened.
"Storage unit."
We immediately searched storage facilities associated with my father.
There were nineteen.
Only one had unit 317.
It was in a facility outside Phoenix.
We drove there under police escort.
The manager unlocked the unit.
The door rolled upward.
Inside was almost nothing.
A wooden chair.
An old suitcase.
A box.
And a photograph of me as a child.
I walked toward it.
Behind the photograph was an envelope.
My father's handwriting.
For Penelope.
My hands shook as I opened it.
Inside was one sentence.
If you are reading this, Leonard has found you. Do not trust anyone carrying the Coleman name.
Rachel looked at me.
"Anyone?"
I nodded.
Then I noticed something underneath the letter.
A second photograph.
This one showed my father standing beside a young woman.
I recognized her immediately.
Vanessa.
But Vanessa was only thirty-two.
The photograph was seventeen years old.
Impossible.
I turned it over.
May you like
On the back were four words:
Ask her about Montana.
