Chapter 4 – The Judas Kiss

The drive to Susan’s house took twelve minutes. It felt like twelve hours.

I didn’t knock. I used the spare key hidden inside the ceramic frog on her porch—the key I had used a hundred times to feed her cats when she and her husband, Paul, went on vacation.

Susan was in her kitchen, wearing a fluffy pink bathrobe, pouring coffee.

She turned around, startled. “Margaret! My god, you scared me. I was just about to call you. How are you holding up after Friday night? I am still so furious at Robert—”

I threw the copy of the authorization form onto her kitchen island.

It slid across the granite and stopped right next to her coffee mug.

Susan looked down. The blood drained from her face so fast I thought she might faint.

“Margaret, I…” She backed up against the stove.

“You notarized a forged document,” I said. My voice was dangerously calm. “You legally swore that you watched me sign away my father’s money. My grandchildren’s money.”

Susan covered her mouth, her eyes filling with tears. “I’m so sorry. Oh god, Margaret, I am so sorry.”

“Why?” I asked.

“He made me,” she sobbed, burying her face in her hands. “Robert made me do it.”

“How exactly did he make you commit a felony, Susan?”

She looked up, her mascara running. “It’s Paul. You know Paul’s contracting business has been struggling for years. We were completely underwater. Eighteen months ago, Robert offered Paul a bridge loan. Fifty thousand dollars, straight out of Robert’s personal account.”

I frowned. Robert had never mentioned a loan to Paul. He hated lending money.

“But it wasn’t a normal loan,” Susan cried. “Robert made Paul sign over the deed to our house as collateral. The paperwork was ironclad. When Paul missed two payments this summer, Robert came to me. He said he would foreclose on us immediately unless I did him one small favor.”

“Stamping this document.”

“Yes! He told me it was just a technicality. He said you already knew about moving the money for tax purposes, but you were out of town visiting Emily and he needed it processed before the quarter ended. I swear, Margaret, I thought you knew!”

“You knew I wasn’t out of town, Susan. We had lunch that week.”

She squeezed her eyes shut. “I was desperate. We were going to lose our home.”

I looked at the woman I had shared secrets with, the woman who had helped me pick out my mother’s funeral dress.

“Where did the money go, Susan?” I asked. “I know Dennis processed it, but Robert had you stamp something else. What else did you notarize?”

Susan hesitated, wiping her face with the sleeve of her robe. “There was a second document. A transfer of title.”

“For what?”

“A property. A commercial property in downtown Centerville.”

I stared at her. “Robert doesn’t own commercial property.”

“He does,” Susan whispered. “He bought an old warehouse building three years ago under an LLC. He transferred the ownership entirely to someone else last week.”

“Vanessa,” I said.

Susan shook her head slowly.

“No, Margaret. Not Vanessa. He transferred it to a woman named Helen.”

The room spun.

Helen.

My sister, Helen. Who had died in a car accident ten years ago.

“That’s impossible,” I said, gripping the edge of the kitchen island. “Helen is dead.”

Susan walked over to a small locked drawer in her pantry. She pulled out a small key from her pocket, unlocked it, and handed me a black USB flash drive.

“Robert didn’t trust Dennis with this,” Susan whispered. “He forced me to hold onto it in case his study was ever searched. He said if I ever opened it, he’d take my house the next day.”

I took the small piece of plastic. It felt heavy.

“What is it?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Susan said. “But he told me to guard it with my life.”

I didn’t say another word to her. I walked out of her house, got into my car, and locked the doors.

I pulled out my laptop from my tote bag, balanced it on the steering wheel, and plugged in the flash drive.

A password prompt appeared on the screen.

I thought about Robert. I thought about the photograph of him as a child. I thought about the date written in my dead sister’s handwriting.

I typed in: June122022

Incorrect.

I tried my birthday. Our anniversary. The kids’ birthdays.

Incorrect. Incorrect. Incorrect.

I stared at the screen. What was the one thing Robert valued above everything else?

I remembered his retirement speech. The one he had given right before he dumped me.

“The person who finally taught me what happiness feels like.”

I typed: Vanessa

Incorrect.

Then I remembered the vintage pocket watch. My grandfather’s watch.

I typed: Helen

The progress bar spun, turned green, and the drive opened.

There were dozens of folders. Bank statements from offshore accounts. Corporate emails from his engineering firm.

But one folder was simply titled: The Accident.

I clicked it.

Inside was a scanned copy of the police report from Helen’s fatal car crash ten years ago.

I knew that report by heart. Helen had been driving on the highway at night, lost control in the rain, and struck a concrete barrier.

But this file had additional pages.

Pages I had never seen.

It was a private investigator’s report, commissioned by Robert two weeks after her death.

I read the summary on the first page, and the breath left my lungs.

Helen hadn’t been alone in the car.

There was a passenger. A man. He had pulled himself from the wreckage before the police arrived and fled the scene.

And attached to the report was a grainy ATM security photo taken half a mile from the crash site, twenty minutes after the accident.

It was Robert.

Walking in the rain. Wearing a camel-colored cashmere trench coat.