Detective Harris straightened.
He recognized the name.
I saw it immediately.
“What?” I asked.
He didn't answer at first.
Instead, he took out his phone and stepped into the hallway.
My mother stared at the photographs.
Then she whispered:
“I thought this was finally over.”
I looked at her.
“What was over?”
Her eyes met mine.
“The reason your father died.”
***
My father had died when I was twenty-three.
A sudden heart attack.
That was what I'd always been told.
He had been fifty-eight.
Healthy.
Active.
The kind of man who worked in his garden every Saturday and never missed a morning walk.
His death had shattered our family.
For years, my mother refused to discuss his final weeks.
Now I understood why.
“He found something,” she said.
I sat beside her.
“What?”
“Documents proving that the Willow Creek land had been transferred using forged signatures.”
My heart began racing.
