Chapter 3 - The Daughter Who Came Back from the DeadThe penthouse overlooked Central Park.
I had never seen anything like it.
The windows were taller than our shelter room.
The furniture looked too expensive to touch.
A doctor stitched Mom's arm while Evelyn paced beside the fireplace.
When he left, Evelyn brought us warm milk.
Three glasses.
One for me.
One for Sarah.
One for herself.
"Start at the beginning," she said.
Sarah stared into her glass.
"I was nineteen."
Evelyn closed her eyes.
"David?"
Sarah nodded.
"My father."
The name changed something in Evelyn's face.
"I loved him," Sarah continued.
"You hated him."
"I was wrong."
"You were cruel."
Silence.
Sarah continued.
"I was pregnant with Lila."
My mother squeezed my hand.
"I was terrified. I knew you would make me give her away."
Evelyn's eyes filled with tears.
"I wouldn't have."
"You don't know what you would have done."
Sarah told her about the night Henry Whitmore died.
About the forged letter.
About David supposedly abandoning her.
About the money Evelyn supposedly offered him.
About being thrown out.
But Evelyn kept shaking her head.
"I never wrote that letter."
Sarah looked at her.
"I believed you did."
"And I believed you were dead."
They stared at each other.
Then Sarah reached beneath her shirt.
She pulled out a small metal pick.
She placed the blue ruby necklace on the table.
She inserted the pick into a nearly invisible seam.
Click.
A hidden compartment opened.
Inside lay an ancient key.
And a folded document.
Evelyn unfolded it.
Her hands began to shake.
"Henry's will."
Arthur, Evelyn's attorney, read it twice.
Then a third time.
His face went pale.
"Ninety percent of the Whitmore estate goes to Sarah."
Evelyn sat down.
"That's impossible."
"Marcus forged the will that was read at the funeral," Sarah said.
Evelyn stared at her.
"You've been searching for this?"
"For twenty years."
Sarah's voice hardened.
"And now Marcus knows we have it."
The woman who had once thrown water in my face suddenly looked afraid.
Not for herself.
For us.
She stood.
"Then we move first."
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But neither of us saw the shadow standing outside the penthouse elevator.
And Marcus Voss was already coming.
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