Mark frowned.
“Carol is the only beneficiary.”
The man shook his head.
“No.”
There was a terrible silence.
Jenna leaned forward.
“What do you mean, no?”
The stranger turned the document around.
“
There are two.”
Mark stared at it.
“That’s impossible.”
“Apparently not.”
I couldn’t move.
My father had named another beneficiary.
Someone I had never known about.
Mark’s voice became sharp.
“Who?”
The stranger looked down at the document.
Then said a name.
And beside me, Daniel made a sound so small I almost didn’t hear it.
Because we both knew the name.
But the person had been dead for twenty-seven years.
Or at least…
That’s what my father had always told us.
And at that exact moment, somewhere behind Daniel and me, a branch snapped.
A woman’s voice whispered from the trees.
“Carol?”
I turned.
And my entire childhood came back in one horrifying second.
