Eight years later, the memory had acquired a price tag.
Michael looked stunned.
Sabrina spoke rapidly.
“We went in early this morning. I only wanted to open the safe and photograph the account documents.”
“And my hair?”
Her face tightened.
For the first time, anger flashed through me again.
Not wild anger.
A quieter kind.
The kind that hurts because it has had hours to settle.
Sabrina looked at my scalp and immediately looked away.
“I am sorry.”
“That is not an explanation.”
“I know.”
She clasped her hands together.
“I came into your room earlier, before Daniel arrived. I was looking for the key. You woke up.”
I remembered the dim shape near my dressing table.
The strange smell.
The pressure of something at the edge of my wig.
I had been taking medication for a sinus infection, and it had left me groggy.
Sabrina continued.
“When you moved, I panicked. The wig caught on the jewelry stand. The clips tangled.”
My hand moved toward my head.
“You cut it.”
“I cut the wig loose.”
“And my hair.”
Her voice cracked.
“Some of it, yes.”
I remembered waking later to the terrible sight in the mirror.
Silver strands on the carpet.
The wig beside the sink.
The note on my pillow.
DON’T MAKE TODAY ABOUT YOU.
That line had hurt almost more than anything else.
“Why leave the note?” I asked.
Sabrina looked genuinely ashamed.
“Because I was angry.”
“With me?”
“With everything.”
She blinked rapidly.
“I thought you would come downstairs and accuse me. I thought you would stop the wedding. And I convinced myself that you wanted an excuse to do that anyway.”
“So you left me a warning.”
She nodded.
“I told myself it was a warning.”
I looked at her.
“What would you call it now?”
“A mistake.”
I waited.
Then she corrected herself.
“A cruel mistake.”
The room remained silent.
It was not enough to erase what had happened.
But it was, perhaps, the first time Sabrina had stopped defending herself.
Michael leaned back in his chair.
“And thirty minutes later Daniel came in?”
“Yes.”
Daniel stepped forward.
“I opened the safe.”
“With my mother’s key.”
“Yes.”
“What did you find?”
Daniel looked at me.
“Letters.”
My pulse quickened.
“What letters?”
“Envelopes with dates. One had Michael’s name.”
I stood.
“Where are they?”
Daniel reached inside his jacket.
Michael stiffened.
But Daniel only withdrew a large cream-colored envelope.
He placed it carefully on the table.
“I took one.”
Avery murmured, “That’s what we saw in his hand.”
Daniel nodded.
“I thought it might contain information about the trust.”
I recognized Thomas’s handwriting immediately.
For Michael.
My fingers trembled.
Thomas had written letters during the last months of his illness.
One for me.
One for Elaine.
One for several longtime employees.
I had believed Michael had received his.
“What does it say?” Michael asked.
“I don’t know,” Daniel said.
“You stole it and didn’t read it?”
“I started to.”
He looked directly at Michael.
“Then I saw the first sentence.”
Something about Daniel’s expression made me stop breathing.
Michael picked up the envelope.
It had been opened.
He pulled out three folded pages.
For a moment, he only stared at them.
Then he read aloud.
“My dear Michael, if your mother gives you this letter, it means she has finally decided you are ready to learn why the Mercer family trust was never meant to make you rich.”
Michael stopped.
Avery looked at me.
I shook my head.
“I’ve never seen that letter.”
“But Dad says you were supposed to give it to me.”
“I didn’t know it existed.”
Michael continued silently.
His eyes moved across the page.
Halfway down, he sat.
“What?” I asked.
He looked at me.
“Dad changed the trust.”
My mouth went dry.
“When?”
“Three weeks before he died.”
“That’s impossible. Franklin handled the estate. I would have known.”
Michael read further.
“He says the original trust was twenty-two million dollars.”
Sabrina covered her mouth.
