Chapter 6 - MY FATHER’S THREE DAUGHTERS
“No.”
The word came out before I could think.
Paige looked at me.
I didn’t care.
“For six years, they treated me like garbage.”
Brooke’s face hardened.
“Don’t act like we tortured you.”
“You rang a bell when you wanted me to bring drinks upstairs.”
Her cheeks turned red.
“That was a joke.”
“You called me Cinderella in front of your friends.”
“I was sixteen.”
“You were cruel.”
Brooke opened her mouth.
Then closed it.
Paige looked at the floor.
I turned toward Colonel Reed.
“My father knew them for what? A few years? And he put them in the trust?”
Reed picked up the sealed letter from Box Seventeen.
“There’s more.”
I laughed bitterly.
“Of course there is.”
The letter had been folded around a second page.
Reed handed it to me.
At the top, my father had written:
For my girls.
Not for Nora.
My girls.
I nearly refused to read it.
Then I saw the first sentence.
If you three are reading this together, then life did not go according to my plan.
I sat down.
My father’s voice seemed to rise from the page.
He wrote that Brooke and Paige had already lost one father.
He wrote that marrying Camilla meant accepting them as family, not baggage.
He wrote that I should never be asked to surrender what my mother and grandparents had built.
But he also wrote something that made my anger crack.
No child living under my roof should ever be made to feel like a guest.
I stopped reading.
Because that was exactly what I had become.
Not a guest.
Less than one.
Paige began crying.
Quietly.
Camilla looked away.
I forced myself to continue.
The company voting shares would belong to me.
The house would remain in trust for the three of us until the youngest turned twenty-five.
None of us could sell it alone.
None of us could force another out while she was in school.
My father had built protection around all three of us.
Camilla had spent years convincing me there was nothing to protect.
Brooke sat on the edge of the desk.
“I didn’t know.”
I looked at her.
“You didn’t ask.”
That landed.
She nodded once.
“You’re right.”
It was the first apology she had ever given me without adding an excuse.
Paige suddenly walked out of the study.
Camilla called after her.
“Where are you going?”
Paige did not answer.
She returned several minutes later carrying a white hatbox.
I recognized it.
It had sat on the top shelf of Camilla’s dressing room for years.
Paige placed it in front of me.
“I found these last Christmas.”
Inside were letters.
Dozens.
Some had military postmarks.
Some were addressed to me.
Some to Camilla.
My chest tightened.
“What are these?”
Paige wiped her face.
“Your dad’s.”
I looked at Camilla.
“You told me there were no letters.”
She closed her eyes.
“I know.”
“You told me he stopped writing before he died.”
“I know.”
My hands trembled as I picked up the first envelope.
It had my name on it.
Nora-Bug.
Nobody had called me that since I was twelve.
I could barely breathe.
“Why?”
Camilla stared at the floor.
“Because I was angry.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“I hated him.”
“You hated him, so you took his letters from me?”
“I thought he had destroyed my first family.”
“So you destroyed mine.”
Camilla flinched.
Good.
I wanted her to.
I opened one letter.
My father wrote about terrible coffee.
A broken air conditioner.
A sergeant who snored like a chainsaw.
At the bottom:
Tell Camilla I want to talk about how frightened you sounded on Sunday. You said you fell, but I know your voice. If something is wrong, you tell Colonel Reed. Promise me.
My vision blurred.
He had known.
Not everything.
But enough.
I found another letter addressed to Camilla.
The envelope had never been opened.
My father had mailed it shortly before he died.
Camilla stared at it.
“I couldn’t.”
“You could lock me in a bedroom, but you couldn’t open a letter?”
Her face crumpled.
“No.”
I opened it.
His words were sharper this time.
Camilla, whatever anger you carry toward me has nothing to do with Nora. If I come home and learn she has been frightened, humiliated, or harmed while I am gone, our marriage ends.
Camilla turned away.
Brooke covered her mouth.
Paige whispered, “He knew.”
“He suspected,” Reed said.
I looked at Camilla.
“He was coming home for me.”
She nodded.
Tears slipped down her face.
“Yes.”
That should have healed something.
Instead, it broke me all over again.
Because he never made it home.
Paige dug through the letters.
“There’s one with Colonel Reed’s name.”
Reed took it.
The envelope was smaller.
He opened it carefully.
Inside was not a personal letter.
It contained a case number.
Several dates.
Three red-circled transaction codes.
The same ones from the blue ledger.
Colonel Reed went completely still.
Gavin was no longer in the room.
I realized it at the same time he did.
“Where’s Gavin?”
One of the military police officers spoke into his radio.
Reed read the page again.
“What is it?” I asked.
He looked at me.
“Your father wasn’t simply tracking missing trust money.”
He showed me the heading.
Department of Defense Inspector General — Protected Source Reference.
My heart pounded.
Reed turned toward the hallway.
“Andrew was working with investigators.”
“On what?”
May you like
His answer made every person in the room go silent.
“Your uncle Gavin’s company.”
