Chapter 4 - The Missing BibleThe police officer who took Sylvia’s initial report did not react dramatically.

Sylvia appreciated that.

He wrote.

Asked questions.

Requested copies.

The calmness made everything feel more serious.

Unauthorized credit-card use.

Possible identity theft.

Possible forgery.

Fraudulent real-estate conveyance.

Potential lending fraud.

Afterward, Evelyn advised Sylvia not to return immediately to confrontation.

“Preserve evidence first,” she said. “Emotion later.”

Sylvia almost smiled.

“Finally, a plan I understand.”

Dean did not smile.

He had been sitting at his desk for nearly an hour, combing through May emails.

On May 14, he had indeed been in Chicago.

His employer’s calendar confirmed it.

Priscilla had texted him that evening:

Spent all day helping your mom with old storage boxes. I deserve wine.

Sylvia remembered making dinner for them.

Priscilla had seemed unusually interested in Leonard’s old documents.

At the time Sylvia had been grateful.

After Leonard died, she had stored several boxes of his business records in the basement. She kept meaning to sort them.

Priscilla had volunteered.

Now Sylvia pictured her blonde head bent over those papers.

Opening folders.

Photographing pages.

Learning things Sylvia had forgotten were there.

“I need to go home,” Sylvia said.

Dean looked up.

“I’m coming.”

They drove back to Columbus in silence.

Priscilla was not there.

Her car was gone.

The house looked untouched.

Christmas music still played softly.

Twenty-three place settings remained stacked in boxes beside the dining room.

Sylvia stood in the entrance hall and suddenly felt violated in a way money could not explain.

Her home had always been the place people arrived when something had gone wrong.

Dean after college heartbreak.

Cousins between apartments.

A grieving church friend who could not sleep alone.

Priscilla during her mother’s surgery.

Sylvia had given keys because she wanted people to feel safe.

She had never imagined someone would use access as a weapon against her.

Dean touched her shoulder.

“Mom?”

“I want to check my bedroom.”

Nothing looked disturbed.

Jewelry remained locked away.

Cash was untouched.

Passports were in the safe.

Then Sylvia stopped beside her bookshelf.

A space sat between two volumes.

Dean noticed.

“What’s missing?”

“My family Bible.”

“Maybe you moved it.”

“No.”

It was not primarily religious value that bothered her.

The Bible had belonged to Sylvia’s mother, Lorraine. The back pages held handwritten family births, marriages, death dates, maiden names and addresses going back generations.

Priscilla had once teased her for keeping “an analog ancestry database.”

Sylvia walked faster.

She searched drawers.

Closet shelves.

The sitting room.

Nothing.

Dean looked pale.

“What security question did the Visa account use?”

Sylvia stared at him.

“Your grandmother’s maiden name.”

Lorraine had been born Lorraine Whitfield.

Dean knew that.

Priscilla probably knew it too.

But the bank had also requested another verification question when the online profile was changed.

Sylvia called.

After proving her identity again, she learned the second answer.

Street where your parents met.

Sylvia sat down.

Dean frowned.

“Do I know that?”

“No.”

“Priscilla?”

“No.”

Sylvia looked toward the empty space on her shelf.

“But Mama wrote it in the Bible.”

Her parents had met outside a grocery store on Gilbert Street.

Almost no one knew.

Now the account intrusion made sense.

Not guessed answers.

Harvested answers.

Dean started toward the basement.

They found old storage boxes open.

Not obviously disturbed.

But Sylvia recognized the difference between her chaos and someone else’s.

One folder of Leonard’s records had been returned backward.

Another had its elastic band missing.

They searched for an hour.

Then Dean noticed a Christmas wrapping bin.

Inside were unused ribbons, gift bags, tape and a stack of tissue paper.

Beneath the tissue sat three photocopied pages.

The first was from Sylvia’s trust certification.

The second showed the legal description of the house.

The third was an old estate-planning draft from seventeen years earlier.

Dean read it.

Then read it again.

“What is this?”

Sylvia saw Leonard’s attorney’s old letterhead.

DRAFT — NOT FOR EXECUTION.

The document proposed leaving the Columbus house to Dean upon Leonard’s death.

Priscilla had highlighted that paragraph.

In yellow.

Dean looked up.

“You never told me Dad planned this.”

“Because he didn’t.”

“But it says—”

“Draft.”

Sylvia tapped the page.

“Your father changed his mind before it was ever signed.”

“Why?”

She did not answer.

Dean studied her.

“Mom.”

“It’s old.”

“That hasn’t stopped it from becoming part of this.”

Sylvia looked toward the basement window.

Snow pressed white against the glass.

She had spent years protecting Dean’s memory of his father from the ugliest period of their marriage.

Leonard had died loved.

Imperfect but loved.

She had believed some secrets belonged to the dead.

Now one of those secrets had been dragged back into the living world.

Before she could speak, Dean found something beneath the copied pages.

A sticky note.

Owen—

This proves the house was always intended for Dean.

Use whatever part helps.

P.

Dean held it up.

The handwriting was Priscilla’s.

Sylvia felt no satisfaction.

Only grief.

Dean sank onto a storage box.

“She knew it was a draft.”

“Yes.”

“She knew.”

Sylvia nodded.

His phone rang.

Evelyn.

The lender had agreed to suspend the application after being notified of suspected fraud.

The $75,000 would not fund that day.

But Evelyn had another concern.

“ClearPath sent me the loan file,” she said. “There’s more than a deed and family agreement.”

Sylvia shut her eyes.

“What now?”

“A power of attorney.”

Dean looked at his mother.

Evelyn continued.

“It supposedly makes Dean your financial agent.”

“I never signed one.”

“There’s an alternate agent named if Dean is unavailable.”

Sylvia already knew.

Still, she asked.

“Who?”

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Evelyn answered.

“Priscilla Grant.”