“Wake up. Everything is money,” she shot back. “And tomorrow you’ll learn that the hard way. Oh, and you should probably start packing. Simon and I are going to remodel. We’ll start by ripping out these outdated rose bushes.”

She turned on her heel and walked down the gravel path, her red bag swinging against her hip.

I stood there for a long time. My chest felt tight, like I could not draw a full breath. I looked down at the rose bush. I had squeezed a branch so hard that my fingers were bleeding, the red bl00d mixing with the dirt on my palm.

But then I saw it.

A small white envelope, caught in the thorns near the root of the bush. It was damp from the morning dew.

I pulled it out. The paper was rough. On the front, in my father’s steady, blocky handwriting, was my name.

I tore it open. Inside was a brass key and a letter.

“Cassandra,” the letter began. “If you are reading this, it means Simon and Misty have made their move. They think they can challenge my will by claiming I was senile. They have been trying to get Jesse to sign an affidavit about my mental decline. They do not know that I had my personal physician, Dr. Charles, record a full psychiatric evaluation of me on the day I signed my will. But there is more. Simon has been using Jesse’s administrative login to transfer funds from my construction accounts. 242,500 dollars is missing. I have the bank traces. Use the brass key. The blue folder is in the floor safe under the desk in my study. Let them lie tomorrow. Let them commit their fraud. Then, hand the folder to Brenda.”

I stared at the paper. My hands stopped shaking. A strange, cold calm washed over me.

The next morning at 10 AM, we gathered in Brenda’s office. The room smelled of old leather and furniture polish.

Simon sat at the end of the table, wearing a dark suit that looked too expensive for a man who had just lost his job. Misty sat next to him, her fingers twitching over her designer handbag. Jesse sat on their side, staring at the polished wood table, refusing to look at me.

Brenda sat behind her desk, her reading glasses perched on her nose. She opened the estate file.

Before she could speak, Simon’s lawyer stood up. He laid a document on the table.

“We are filing a formal challenge to the validity of the will,” the lawyer said. “We have a signed affidavit from Jesse Harrison stating that his father was suffering from severe cognitive impairment due to can/cer treatments during his final months. We believe the will leaving the house solely to Cassandra was signed under undue influence.”