Chapter 69 - The Matriarch’s Ledger
"Then let it burn," I whispered.
Before Julian could move, I kicked the galvanized box over. The black binder tumbled out onto the pine floor, its ribbon snapping, sheets of yellowed legal parchment spilling across the dust.
Julian lunged forward, abandoning his composed posture, his cane clattering against the back of a pew. "Stop! You don't know what you're destroying!"
I swept the papers up with my free hand, backing rapidly toward the side door. Among the pages, a thick, handwritten journal bound in faded green buckram dropped open. On the first page, written in my mother’s unmistakable, spidery hand, was an entry dated June 12, 1982:
*Arthur believes the fire at the lumber yard was an accident. He took the insurance payout and gave half to the monsignor. If Nora ever learns what was locked in the kiln that night, she will understand why Melissa had to be favored. Melissa knows how to keep blood off the carpet.*
A chill deeper than the church's damp cellar flooded through me. The fire at the Oak Ridge lumber yard had killed three migrant workers when I was five years old. It had been the tragedy that ruined our father's reputation, the catastrophe that turned him into an alcoholic who hid behind land deeds and unpaid taxes.
May you like
It wasn't an accident. It was arson. And Melissa had been in on it since she was sixteen years old.
"Give me the book, Nora," Julian hissed, now only ten feet away, reaching inside his wool overcoat. His hand reemerged not with legal papers, but with a short, blued-steel revolver. "Your father was a coward, but he had the sense to die before the state police caught on. You won't be so fortunate."
