“Steven,” she said quietly, voice carrying more weight than she expected, “do you have any idea what it’s like to give someone forty years and be told it meant nothing?”
Steven flushed. “Father left you a property.”
“A mystery,” Peggy said. “You got millions and this house and the satisfaction of knowing he valued you as legacy. I got a rusty key and thirty days to vanish.”
Steven’s mouth opened, but Peggy got into her car before he could respond.
She drove away from Brookline—away from the mansion, away from the life she thought she lived—following her GPS toward a town she’d never heard of.
She glanced at the brown envelope on the passenger seat like it might suddenly speak.
Trust me one last time.
Peggy whispered into the empty car, “If this is a cruel joke, Richard… if this is all there is…”
She didn’t finish the sentence.
Because she wasn’t sure what would be left of her if it was.
Milbrook, Massachusetts wasn’t on most maps people cared about.