Dad defending land he never knew he owned.
None of that happened.
Dad’s first reaction was far more characteristic.
“Probably a mistake.”
He closed Rebecca’s notebook.
Claire looked at him.
“Mom didn’t think so.”
“Records get copied wrong.”
“Then why did she mark it?”
Dad frowned.
I took the notebook.
“Because she was searching family records.”
Claire nodded.
“After Grandma died, Mom started researching everything. Birth certificates. Adoption records. Property records. She said she wanted to understand what happened instead of just knowing the pieces people remembered.”
Dad glanced toward Brent’s house.
“I’ve paid taxes on the same parcel for fifty-two years.”
“Maybe Ruth kept the strip,” I said.
“Why?”
No one knew.
So we began looking.
Not dramatically.
There were no secret tunnels or hidden wills.
Just records.
Which, I discovered, can hold mysteries every bit as effectively as locked rooms.
The county archive occupied the basement of an administration building that smelled of dust and floor wax.
