Chapter 10 - The Lie That Started Three Years Ago
Kyle came to Benjamin’s office through the parking garage.
He wore a baseball cap low over his face, like we were meeting a witness in a crime movie.
Maybe we were.
He sat across from me and would not look up.
“I’m sorry.”
I said nothing.
He rubbed his hands together.
“My mom told me it was just estate paperwork. She said your mom was trying to take the house.”
“My mom had her own house.”
“I know that now.”
“You were twenty-four.”
He flinched.
“I know.”
“You weren’t a kid.”
“I know.”
The anger in me wanted him to argue.
It would have been easier.
Instead, he looked miserable.
Benjamin placed a recorder on the table.
“Kyle, with your permission, we’d like to document what you remember.”
Kyle nodded.
He told us everything.
After Dad’s death, Vanessa had gathered mail, school records, and utility bills to create the appearance that I lived full-time with Mom.
She had convinced Kyle to sign an affidavit saying I had moved out months before Dad died.
She had submitted that affidavit during a trust administration proceeding I never knew existed.
“Did Grace sign anything?” Maya asked.
“No.”
“Did Rebecca?”
“No.”
“Did anyone tell Grace there was a hearing?”
“Not that I know.”
I leaned forward.
“Did my father know you were planning to lie?”
Kyle finally looked at me.
“No.”
That answer mattered more than I expected.
For years, some quiet part of me had wondered if Dad had really left me out.
If maybe I had mattered less after he married Vanessa.
Kyle continued.
“After the funeral, Mom went into Thomas’s office every night for like a week. She burned stuff in the fireplace. I asked what she was doing. She said cleaning out old junk.”
“The blue folder?” Benjamin asked.
“No. That one was hidden behind the cabinet. I found it yesterday.”
“So other documents may have been destroyed.”
“Yeah.”
Maya made notes.
I asked the question I was afraid to hear answered.
“Did she ever talk about me?”
Kyle hesitated.
“Say it.”
“She said once you turned twenty-five, there would be no reason to keep pretending you belonged there.”
I stared at him.
He looked ashamed.
“She said if you moved out voluntarily before then, it would be easier.”
Suddenly the last three years rearranged themselves in my head.
Vanessa raising the rent she charged me for “household expenses.”
Vanessa complaining whenever I used the kitchen.
Vanessa telling me I was too old to live at home.
Vanessa “accidentally” cancelling my garage code.
She had not been annoyed by me.
She had been trying to make me leave on my own.
My phone buzzed.
A court notification.
Benjamin checked his email.
“Vanessa filed an emergency petition.”
“For what?”
“To declare the trust amendment invalid and remove you from the property pending litigation.”
I laughed without humor.
“She throws me out and then asks a judge to keep me out?”
“That’s the strategy.”
“When’s the hearing?”
Benjamin looked at the screen.
“Tomorrow morning.”
Kyle leaned forward.
“There’s something else you need before then.”
He reached inside his jacket and pulled out a small memory card.
“My mom had a camera in Thomas’s office after he died.”
Benjamin stared at it.
“Why?”
“She said she wanted to know if Rebecca ever came looking for papers.”
May you like
Kyle set the card on the table.
“I copied the footage before she erased the system.”
