Chapter 10 - What Happened to Grandma
Dad agreed to testify by encrypted video.
I did not want to watch.
Then I remembered Grandma teaching me to bake peach pie when I was twelve.
I remembered her telling me that courage did not mean being unafraid.
It meant deciding fear would not make your choices.
So I sat beside Maya.
Dad appeared on the screen from an undisclosed location.
He looked exhausted.
“Grace.”
“Don’t.”
His face tightened.
“You don’t get to talk to me like my father.”
Federal prosecutors questioned him.
Four years earlier, Grandma had discovered Caleb and Dad siphoning money from the children’s foundation.
She threatened to go to the authorities.
Caleb panicked.
Dad claimed Caleb paid a private nurse to alter Grandma’s medication.
Dad had learned about it afterward.
I wanted to believe that.
Then the prosecutor asked one question.
“Did you destroy Mrs. Evelyn Hart’s original medication log?”
Dad went silent.
My heart dropped.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Caleb said if I didn’t, we were both finished.”
“You knew the altered dosage might have contributed to her death?”
“Yes.”
I closed my eyes.
Dad had not killed Grandma with his own hands.
But he had helped erase the truth.
Then the prosecutor asked about Dennis Cole.
Dad insisted he knew nothing about the boating accident.
The interview continued for two hours.
Finally, I asked the question nobody else had.
“Why did you use me?”
Dad stared at the camera.
“Because your credit history was clean.”
That was all.
No apology.
No excuse about protecting the family.
My identity had simply been convenient.
I stood.
“I hope the five million was worth it.”
“Grace.”
I walked out.
Daniel followed me into the hallway.
I finally cried.
Not because Dad had betrayed me.
I think some part of me had already accepted that.
I cried because I realized there had never been a version of my father hidden beneath the cruelty who secretly loved me enough to choose differently.
Daniel held me until I could breathe again.
Then Maya emerged from the room.
“There’s a problem.”
“What?”
“Robert gave prosecutors Caleb’s location.”
Daniel straightened.
“Where?”
“A private compound outside Singapore.”
“That’s good.”
“No.”
Maya handed him her phone.
“Authorities raided it twenty minutes ago.”
“Caleb wasn’t there.”
“Someone warned him.”
I stared at her.
“Who knew about the raid?”
Maya’s face hardened.
May you like
“Only seven people.”
“One of them is inside Whitmore Development.”
