"You're right. You don't."
Margaret suddenly stepped forward.
"Olivia, let him speak."
Olivia looked at her grandmother.
"You knew he was coming?"
Margaret said nothing.
That silence hurt more than Olivia expected.
"Grandma?"
The elderly woman lowered her eyes.
"I received a letter from him three days ago."
Olivia stared at her.
"A letter?"
"He told me he was coming."
"And you didn't tell me?"
"I thought it would be better if you heard his explanation in person."
Olivia laughed bitterly.
"Better? My brother disappears for fifteen years, and now everyone expects me to welcome him because he has decided to show up at a funeral?"
Daniel stepped closer.
"I didn't come here expecting forgiveness."
"Then what did you come for?"
He looked toward the coffin.
"Because there is something about Mom that you need to know."
Olivia's expression hardened.
"She is dead, Daniel. Whatever you wanted to say, you're too late."
"No," he whispered. "I'm not talking about her death."
He reached into his jacket and pulled out a large envelope.
It was old, slightly damaged by the rain, and sealed with a strip of yellowing tape.
"I found this in a safety deposit box."
Olivia stared at it.
"What is it?"
"Something Mom left for us."
He looked at Margaret.
"She told me to bring it here if anything ever happened to her."
Margaret's face suddenly lost its color.
"Daniel, not here."
He turned toward her.
"Grandma, we cannot keep hiding this."
"Please," Margaret whispered.
Olivia looked between them.
"What are you talking about?"
Daniel took a deep breath.
"Fifteen years ago, when I left home, I believed Mom had betrayed me. I believed she had chosen money over her own family."
Olivia folded her arms.
"You left because you had an argument with her."
"That's what she told you?"
"That's what happened."
Daniel shook his head.
"No, Olivia. That's what she wanted you to believe."
He looked down at the envelope.
"I was twenty-three. I had just finished college, and I had been offered a job in Chicago. Mom was supposed to help me pay for the apartment deposit. Instead, she told me she couldn't give me anything."
"Because we were struggling financially," Olivia replied.
"That's what I thought, too."
Daniel opened the envelope.
Inside were several documents, a handwritten letter, and a photograph.
He held the photograph out to Olivia.
She took it reluctantly.
It showed their mother standing outside a hospital with a newborn baby in her arms.
Beside her was a young man Olivia had never seen before.
But what caught her attention was the date written on the back.
It was the day Daniel had been born.
Olivia looked up.
"Who is this man?"
Daniel swallowed.
"His name was Thomas Reed."
Margaret closed her eyes.
Olivia looked at her grandmother.
"Do you know him?"
Margaret nodded slowly.
"He was your grandfather's business partner."
Olivia frowned.
"Why was he at the hospital when Daniel was born?"
Daniel unfolded the letter.
"Because he wasn't just a business partner."
He paused.
"He was my biological father."
The room seemed to lose its air.
Olivia stared at him.
"What?"
Daniel's voice trembled.
"Mom never told me. I found out fifteen years ago, after I discovered some old documents in her bedroom."
"That's impossible."
"Thomas Reed was involved with Mom before she married our father. He died when I was a baby, but he left behind a substantial estate."
Olivia shook her head.
"No. Dad was your father."
"Richard raised me. He loved me. I will never deny that. But biologically, Thomas Reed was my father."
Margaret reached for the back of a nearby chair.
She looked as though her legs might give way.
"Please," she whispered. "Not like this."
But Daniel continued.
"Thomas had established a trust for me. It was supposed to provide for my education and future. Mom was the trustee until I turned twenty-five."
Olivia looked confused.
"Then why didn't you receive it?"
Daniel gave a bitter smile.
"Because when I discovered the documents, the trust was empty."
A murmur passed through the room.
Olivia looked at the envelope.
"How much money?"
Daniel hesitated.
"At the time I found out, the account should have contained nearly four hundred thousand dollars."
Olivia looked at her grandmother.
"Did Mom take it?"
Margaret's lips trembled.
"No."
Daniel lowered his voice.
"Someone did."
For the first time since his arrival, Olivia noticed something other than grief in her brother's eyes.
Fear.
Not fear of being rejected.
Fear of what would happen once the truth came out.
He placed the documents on the small table beside the coffin.
"Mom spent fifteen years trying to find out where that money went."
Olivia stared at him.
"Why didn't she tell me?"
"Because she believed telling you would put you in danger."
Olivia felt her stomach tighten.
"What danger?"
Daniel looked at Margaret.
The elderly woman finally began to cry.
"Because the person who took the money was someone we trusted."
Fifteen years earlier, Daniel Carter had been a different person.
He was ambitious, confident, and determined to build a life beyond the small town where he had grown up.
His father, Richard, had died when Daniel was sixteen. His mother, Eleanor, had raised him and Olivia alone.
Daniel remembered the difficult years.
He remembered his mother leaving the house before sunrise and returning after dark.
He remembered Olivia falling asleep at the kitchen table while waiting for their mother to come home.