The highway was almost empty when I left the city.
I drove faster than I should have, both hands fixed on the steering wheel, Vanessa's words replaying in fragments. Dad died. Grant found him. Don't come. The house belongs to us. Dad left you out. Each sentence sounded plausible by itself. Together, they felt constructed.
I called Dad's phone from the road.
Straight to voicemail.
His recorded greeting nearly forced me onto the shoulder.
“This is Ed. If you're selling something, don't bother. Everybody else, leave a message.”
I heard his familiar dry impatience and suddenly could not breathe properly.
“Dad,” I said after the beep. “It's Natalie.”
I stopped.
What message did you leave for a dead man?
I swallowed.
“I'm coming home.”
Then I disconnected.
Vanessa called twice during the first hour.
I ignored her.
Grant called once.
I ignored him too.
A few minutes later, Vanessa sent another message.
We are asking you to respect Dad's wishes.
That sentence did something unexpected.
It made me angry enough to think clearly.
My father had never been shy about his wishes.
When Mom died, he had handed Vanessa and me copies of his emergency contacts, insurance information, and attorney's number because he did not want us “running around like headless chickens” if something happened to him.
If he had dramatically rewritten his estate and disinherited one daughter, why had nobody contacted his attorney?
Why had Grant supposedly discovered him?
Why was Vanessa talking about property before telling me where our father's body had been taken?
I called the county hospital.
No Edward Cole.
I called the other hospital.
Nothing.
My pulse quickened.
I considered calling the police, but I still lacked enough information to explain why. My sister had reported a death. Perhaps an ambulance had taken Dad somewhere else. Perhaps the coroner was involved. Perhaps shock was making every unanswered question look sinister.
Then my phone rang again.
This time the screen displayed a name I had not expected.
HAROLD PIKE.
Dad's oldest friend.
I answered immediately.
“Harold?”
“Natalie.”
His voice was steady.
“Where are you?”
“About an hour from Dad's.”
He paused.
“Good.”
That one word changed everything.
“Harold, Vanessa told me Dad died.”
“I know.”
“Is it true?”
Another pause.
My fingers tightened around the steering wheel.
“Harold?”
“Get to your father's house.”
“Is he dead?”
“Drive safely.”
“Harold!”
But he had disconnected.
I nearly screamed.
Instead, I drove.
The countryside became familiar as the miles disappeared. The water tower appeared beyond the trees. Then the feed store. The church where Mom's funeral had been held. The old gas station where Dad still complained that coffee had become too expensive even though he bought it every Sunday.
By the time I reached his road, my stomach hurt.
Dad's house stood at the end of a gravel drive beneath two enormous maples.
It was the house where Vanessa and I had grown up.
The white siding had yellowed slightly. Dad's fishing boat sat beneath a blue tarp beside the garage. His truck was gone.
That frightened me.
Then I noticed something else.
Vanessa's car was gone too.
So was Grant's.
I parked.
For several seconds, I remained behind the wheel.
No ambulance.
No police.
No funeral director.
No neighbors gathered outside.
Nothing.
The house looked completely ordinary.
I stepped onto the gravel.
The October air smelled of leaves and woodsmoke. Somewhere behind the garage, a crow made an ugly rattling call.
I walked to the front door.
Unlocked.
That was unusual. Dad locked everything, including the shed containing approximately twelve dollars' worth of rusty gardening tools.
I pushed the door open.
“Dad?”
Silence.
I hated myself for calling.
Of course there would be silence.
Vanessa had told me he was dead.
I stepped inside.
The living room looked untouched. Dad's recliner faced the television. Yesterday's newspaper lay folded on the side table. His reading glasses rested on top.
No sign of an emergency.
No overturned furniture.
No medical equipment.
I moved toward the hallway.
Then I smelled bacon.
I stopped.
Not old bacon.
Cooking bacon.
A pan hissed somewhere beyond the doorway.
I stared toward the kitchen.
Someone opened a cabinet.
Ceramic knocked lightly against ceramic.
My heartbeat became so violent I could hear it.
“Hello?”
A man's voice answered.
“Morning.”
My knees nearly gave way.
I knew that voice.
I walked into the kitchen.
My father was standing at the stove.
Alive.
He wore plaid pajama pants, a gray T-shirt, and the old slippers Vanessa had given him three Christmases earlier. His white hair stuck up at the back. A spatula was in his right hand.
He looked at me as if I had arrived for breakfast exactly as planned.
“You're early.”
I grabbed the doorframe.
Dad frowned.
“Natalie?”
I could not speak.
He switched off the burner.
“What happened?”
I crossed the kitchen in three steps and threw my arms around him.
The spatula clattered onto the counter.
Dad stumbled backward.
“Whoa.”
I held him tighter.
He smelled like coffee, bacon grease, and the same cedar soap he had used for twenty years.
Alive.
Warm.
Solid.
“Natalie, you're crushing my ribs.”
I stepped back.
Then I slapped his shoulder.
“Ow.”
“You're alive.”
He stared at me.
“I had noticed.”
“You're alive.”
“Unless this is a remarkably disappointing afterlife.”
I started crying.
Dad's humor disappeared immediately.
He took my shoulders.
“What happened?”
“Vanessa called me.”
His face changed.
Not much.
But enough.
“When?”
“Six-thirty.”
“What did she say?”
I wiped my face.
“She said you died last night.”
Dad became completely still.
The kitchen seemed to shrink around us.
“She said what?”
I told him.
Not everything at first. Just the death. Grant supposedly finding him. The paperwork. Her insistence that I stay away.
Dad listened without interrupting.
Then I told him about the house.
His jaw tightened.
“The house belongs to them?”
“According to Vanessa.”
“And my truck?”
“Theirs.”
“My accounts?”
“Mostly theirs.”
His expression grew harder with every answer.
Finally he asked, “And you?”
I hesitated.
“She said you cut me out.”
Dad looked toward the window.
For perhaps ten seconds, neither of us spoke.
Then he turned off the coffee maker.
That tiny action frightened me more than shouting would have.
Dad never abandoned fresh coffee.
“Sit down,” he said.
“Dad—”
“Sit.”
I obeyed.
He lowered himself into the chair opposite me.
“Your sister believes I'm dead.”
“Apparently.”
“And Grant does too.”
“Yes.”
Dad rubbed one hand across his mouth.
I expected confusion.
Instead, I saw recognition.
“You know something.”
He looked at me.
“What makes you say that?”
“You don't look surprised enough.”
Dad leaned back.
His eyes moved toward the hallway leading to his office.
Then he said, “I changed my will yesterday.”
My stomach tightened.
“So Vanessa was telling the truth?”
“No.”
He looked directly at me.
“She doesn't know what I changed.”
I stared at him.
“Then why does she think you're dead?”
“That,” Dad said, “is what we're going to find out.”
His phone sat on the counter.
He reached for it.
Before he could unlock the screen, it rang.
Vanessa.
Dad and I looked at each other.
He answered without speaking and put the call on speaker.
My sister's voice filled the kitchen.
“Natalie?”
Dad raised one eyebrow.
I understood.
“Yes.”
“Where are you?”
I looked at him.
“At Dad's.”
Silence.
Then Vanessa whispered, “What?”
“I'm at the house.”
“You need to leave.”
Dad's expression hardened.
“Why?”
“Because I told you. It isn't yours anymore.”
I watched my supposedly dead father pick up his coffee mug.
Vanessa continued.
“Grant and I are handling everything. You coming there doesn't change Dad's wishes.”
Dad took one slow sip.
Then he leaned toward the phone.
“That's interesting.”
Vanessa stopped breathing.
Dad set down his mug.
“Because I don't remember telling you any of that.”
Click here to continue reading: PART 3: Dad Let Vanessa Hear His Voice, and Her First Terrified Question Revealed This Was Never Just About an Inheritance
My Sister Called Before Sunrise to Say Dad Was Gone, but Someone Was Already Moving Around His Kitchen
Part 2 of 46
