My parents stood on the porch dressed in linen clothes, sunburned and irritated. Mason leaned against their rental SUV, scrolling through his phone.
Mother brushed past me without permission. “Finally. You look terrible.”
Dad glanced around the house. “Where’s the insurance paperwork?”
I blinked once. Slowly.
“Excuse me?”
Mother dropped her purse onto my table. “Don’t act fragile with us, Clara. Daniel had life insurance. The payout from the accident must be substantial.”
Mason walked in after them. “Forty thousand. That’s all we need.”
“All you need,” I repeated.
Mother snapped, “After everything we’ve done for you, you owe us.”
I looked at their sunburned faces, then at the black folder in my hands.
For the first time since the funeral, I smiled….
Part 2
Mother noticed the folder and mistook my silence for weakness.
“There,” she said, pointing toward it. “See? You were already dealing with the money.”
Dad sat at my kitchen table as though he owned the house. “Mason has an investment opportunity. Short-term. Big return. Family helps family.”
“Family attends funerals,” I said.
Mason scoffed. “Don’t make this dramatic. People die every day.”
The room turned cold.
My mother shot him a warning look, not because he had been cruel, but because he had been careless.
I placed the folder onto the table.
They leaned forward.
I still didn’t open it.
“Daniel and Lily died because a delivery truck ran a red light,” I said. “That’s what the police report claims.”
Dad sighed impatiently. “We know. Tragic. Now about the money—”
“But the trucking company’s internal records tell a different story.”
Mother’s painted smile twitched slightly. “What records?”
I watched Mason’s thumb stop moving over his phone.
There it was.
The first crack.
Before I married Daniel, before I became a wife, before I became Lily’s mother, I worked as a forensic accountant for the state attorney’s office. My family never respected it. To them, numbers were boring unless they could steal them.
After the crash, I couldn’t sleep. So I investigated.
The trucking company had been funneling money through shell vendors. Fake repair work. Inflated fuel invoices. Phantom consulting fees. And one of those consulting companies belonged to Mason.
My brother. The golden child. The son my parents adored while calling me “too sensitive,” “too quiet,” “too ordinary.”
