His expression went blank.

The Mansion Across the Street

The property was fully paid for.

More importantly, it had been purchased through a family trust established years before I ever met Preston.

Lenora stepped closer.

“If you’re married, then part of it belongs to Preston.”

“No. It doesn’t.”

The gates began closing.

Preston grabbed one of the bars.

“Blythe, open the gate.”

I looked at him through the narrowing space.

“When I know exactly what happened to my mother, we’ll talk.”

Once we were inside, however, Mom didn’t look relieved.

She looked terrified.

“Your father never told you why he wanted this property, did he?”

I turned toward her.

“What are you talking about?”

She looked at the house.

“There are things about Lenora you don’t know.”

My Mother Finally Told Me Everything

After putting the twins in the family room with a movie, I sat beside Mom.

“I need the truth.”

She was silent for almost a minute.

Then she finally admitted that four days earlier Lenora had grabbed her arm after Maisie spilled juice.

The mark on her face came later.

“Preston shoved me.”

I felt cold.

“Preston?”

Mom nodded.

“I told him I wasn’t his mother’s housekeeper. He said I was disrespecting her. We argued, and I lost my balance against the cabinet.”

My phone buzzed.

Preston.

OPEN THE GATE.

Another message followed.

YOU CAN’T KEEP MY CHILDREN FROM ME.

Then:

YOU’RE GOING TO REGRET THIS.

Before I could respond, the security system announced someone at the front gate.

It was Warren Hale, my father’s longtime attorney.

The moment Warren saw Mom’s face, his expression changed.

“Dorothy.”

Mom stared at him.

“You knew.”

Warren placed an old leather briefcase on the table.

“I knew this day might come.”

He removed an envelope.

I recognized my father’s handwriting.

My name was written across the front.

Underneath it were words that made my hands shake.

If Lenora ever goes after Dorothy again, give this to Blythe.

“Again?” I whispered.

A Secret Almost Thirty Years Old

Warren showed me an old photograph.

My parents stood beside a much younger Lenora and a man named Franklin Mercer.

Franklin had been Lenora’s first husband.

Nearly thirty years earlier, he had worked for one of my father’s companies.

Then a large amount of money disappeared.

Documents pointed toward Franklin.

He vanished shortly afterward, and everyone assumed he had taken it.

But my father never believed that story.

Years later, he uncovered suspicious transfers and altered authorization papers that appeared to lead back to Lenora.

There was only one problem.

The original documents were missing.

Then Warren said something that changed the way I saw my entire marriage.

“Your father believed your meeting with Preston wasn’t accidental.”

I remembered meeting Preston at a business conference eight years earlier.

Coffee became dinner.

Dinner became a relationship.

Within a year, we were engaged.

According to Warren, Lenora had helped Preston get a position with one of the companies involved in organizing that conference.

My father discovered the connection much later.

Suddenly someone started pounding on the gate.

Lenora.

Preston stood behind her.

Through the intercom, Lenora shouted:

“Ask Dorothy who Franklin Mercer really was!”

Mom closed her eyes.

Then she told me.

Lenora had raised Preston believing that my father was his biological father and that one day Preston would be entitled to part of the Caldwell fortune.

Warren opened another folder.

“Your father had a DNA test performed more than twenty years ago.”

He slid the paper toward me.

“Preston was not Everett Caldwell’s son.”

I looked toward the security monitor.

Preston was still outside.

For the first time, I wondered whether he had married me believing my inheritance was somehow already his.

The Room Behind the Basement Wall

That night, a motion alert appeared on my phone shortly after 2 a.m.

The sensor was in the basement.

Warren, two security guards and I went downstairs.

Behind an old shelving unit, we discovered a narrow metal door.

Mom knew exactly what it was.

“Your father built that room after he bought this place.”

Then came another revelation.

This mansion had once belonged to Franklin Mercer.

Inside my father’s envelope was a combination.

The metal door opened.

Behind it sat old boxes, photographs, financial records and a black steel case.

Mom stared at it.

“That’s what Lenora has been looking for.”

Before we could open it, we heard movement.

Someone had entered through an old garden service entrance.

Lenora appeared first.

Preston followed her.

“Don’t open that case!” Lenora shouted.

Security moved between us.

Preston raised his hands.

“I didn’t know she was coming inside.”

I stared at him.

“But you followed her.”

He said nothing.

Lenora lunged toward the case.

A guard stopped her.

“That belongs to Preston!”

Warren calmly placed the DNA report on the table.

“No, it doesn’t.”

Preston picked it up.