Page 97 of Holden’s Resurrection

Pride. I let my damn pride stand in the way. At the time, I thought Holden was rejecting me and the possibility the baby was his. His refusal to acknowledge the baby hurt so bad, I slithered away to lick my wounds and let my parents force me to marry Paul and stay quiet about Holden.

Even after Paul died, my parents pushed me to play the part of the grieving widow. A thought nagged the back of my mind, a hunch that wasn’t fully formed, but pieces started to click into place. The Towlers. My parents. Court appearances.

“What else is in the box?” I demanded to know.

“Charleigh—”

Determination infused my spine and I stood. “No more hiding. I have a right to know and frankly, so does Holden.”

By the time I’d walked across the room, Jameson had placed the box on the table. But he hadn’t taken his hand off of it.

“You sure?”

“Positive.”

With a stern jerk of his chin, he reached into the box, pulled out a stack of papers, and handed them to me.

These didn’t belong to Paul. They were bank statements dated after he’d died. I shifted through the papers noting there were highlighted lines—deposits—but they were meaningless to me.

“I don’t understand.”

“Neither did Rhode. So he dug deeper. For eight years, there’s been a reoccurring two-thousand dollar deposit.” Jameson reached back into the box and handed me another stack of papers.

More statements. I scanned the first page and froze.

First National Bank.

Edward Axelson.

I didn’t need to look through the bank records to know what my parents had done. I didn’t give the first fuck if the Towlers were blackmailing my parents or if it was my parents’ idea to give Beatrice hush money.

I didn’t give the first two shits my parents had wasted a crapton of money.

They knew.

My own fucking parents had known all along.

Fuck them. Fuck everyone.

I bolted from the room. Kennedy shouted my name, Jameson said something, but I didn’t stop until I was in the room I was sharing with Faith. I locked the door, found my phone on the nightstand, and called my parents.

Luckily, my father answered.

“Charlotte,” he clipped.

Asshole.

“This will be the last time I ever call you.”

“What on earth—”

“I know, Father.”

“I don’t like your attitude.”

The nerve.

The gall.