blood in my veins turned to ice.
“Dad kept an emergency ledger,” Mom choked out, clutching the lapels of my military jacket. “A leather journal hidden behind the loose brick on the left side of the study hearth. In his final minutes, while Richard went upstairs to concoct an alibi, Dad dragged himself to the desk, wrote down what Richard did, hid the key to his private safe, and placed the book behind the brick. Two weeks ago, I finally found it. When I confronted Richard and told him I was turning it over to the state police and the Army CID the day you came home… that’s when they dragged me out here. They were waiting for the winter freeze to take care of me so they could claim the final payout on a fraudulent life insurance policy they forged in your father’s name.”
A sharp gasp came from
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