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I’m reeling as I board my flight back to DC I don’t remember anything that happened since last night clearly. I haven’t slept; I haven’t eaten. All I think about is that I’m about to lose everything.

I’ll have to tell Milly what I’ve discovered. I couldn’t live with myself or her if I didn’t. But I know that in telling her, I’m basically destroying any hope I have of being with her.

I barely hear the flight attendant offer me a drink when I sit down. I'm completely lost in thought. I can’t believe that less than forty-eight hours ago, I felt like I had everything I ever wanted.

On Friday morning, I was just leaving my final meeting of my trip to discuss a project I was an investor in. My client and I had met for breakfast at the Le Peep in Rice Village. It was an old favorite of my dad’s. He used to meet his buddies for breakfast here almost every Saturday and started taking me with him when I was thirteen.

As I walked out to my car, I heard someone call my name. I turned around to see a man I recognized right away.

“Hey, Mr. Holly,” I greeted him with a warm smile as he approached my car, smiling wide.

Ed Holly had been my dad’s insurance agent and one of his best friends. I hadn’t seen him since my dad’s funeral. I was happy to see him looking so well all these years later. He’s just as tall as he ever was, though he’s got a lot less hair. He looks like he takes care of himself, and I remember that he was a runner like my dad. Which was how they met in the first place.

“Dean, I told you to call me, Ed, son,” he returned warmly.

I laughed. “Ed, good to see you. How are you doing? How’s Mrs. Holly?” I ask, remembering his kind wife, who always sent my dad home with something delicious, sweet, and homemade. My mother couldn’t stand her.

“Oh, everyone’s great. I’ve got two grandchildren now. I’m going to retire in a couple of years. And I’ve found an agent I’m grooming to take over my business. Can’t leave my clients in a lurch now, can I?” he returned jovially, his accent showing his East Texas roots.

“How’s your mama? She doing okay? I heard she moved to Arizona. I’ve been keeping up with you online. And I’m glad you’re doing so well. It must be a relief to able to take care of her now,” he says while patting my shoulder.

I can’t hide my confusion while I say, “Well, thank goodness, my dad’s life insurance policy was so big she didn’t have to wait for me to make it big before she was able to buy her house and settle into her life of retired luxury.”

And clearly, now I was the one confusing him. He looks utterly perplexed when he says, “What life insurance policy? Did he buy one from someone else?”

My heart stopped.

“No. I thought he’d bought one from you three years before he died. That’s what his suicide note said. That he was worth more dead than alive because of that policy,” I said this slowly, ice cold fear starting to prick every single nerve ending in my body.

“Dean, your parents stopped paying his policy about a year before he died. He told me he couldn’t afford it anymore, which shocked me. But he said your mother had some debts and he needed the income for that. He didn’t have a policy in place when he died,” he says equally slowly.

Concern spreads on his face. I told him maybe he had another policy, and I might be misremembering his note. It had been a long time ago. I changed the subject and asked about his grandkids before he was saying goodbye and continued on his way.

This was when I started reeling. Where did the money, the millions of dollars my mother claimed came from the life insurance, really come from? My mother told me the insurance payout came within days of my dad’s death. My dad’s note, which I could never forget after reading it so many times, said specifically that he bought the policy from Ed three years ago.

My mother is in Marseille, and I know calling her won’t get any answers to my questions. So, I do the only thing that makes sense, I decide to go and search her house while she's away. I shot Milly a text, but purposely didn’t say anything more than where I was going.

I didn’t want to upset or worry her while she was in Paris with her family for what was supposed to be a happy occasion.

And there might be a very simple explanation. What that could be? I didn’t know. But right now, nothing I can think of seemed more plausible than this just being some sort of mistake.

I was wrong.

I went to my mother’s house. She keeps her spare key in the same place as she always has, and I have always known her alarm code. It’s the same one we had for our house in Houston.

The first place I look is her little desk. I spend an hour searching through her bank statements. Just when I was ready to give up and look somewhere else, I dropped my phone into the bottom of the drawer. When it hit the drawer, the bottom of it moved.

I removed the panel and found it was a false bottom. Inside was a big manila envelope and as I picked it up, I knew. Whatever was inside was going to change my life forever. My hands shook as I picked it up, pried open the prongs holding it shut, and poured the contents out onto the desk.

It only held three things. A checkbook, some sort of bank record, and a bundle of pictures.

I looked at the pictures first.

My entire body broke into gooseflesh as I looked at them. The pictures were of Milly’s father. He was sitting on a park bench talking to another man. The man was wearing a thobe, the white dress typical of Saudi Arabian men. The picture was dated September 9, 2001.

There was another one of her father on the same park bench a week later, meeting with the same man. In fact, all of the picture were of the two men, sitting on the same bench. They weren’t interacting, just both sitting there.

What in the world was my mother doing with these pictures?

And then I picked up the checkbook. The checkbook was for an account at a Swiss bank. The sole transaction on this statement was dated for December 2, 2001.

I pulled out my phone and look at a picture I took weeks ago. The picture of the blackmailer’s note Milly’s dad left as a clue for their mother. It was as I feared. The bank name, account number, and routing on the note were the same as the bank name, account number, and routing number on this checkbook.

I just made it to the bathroom when the nausea roiling in my stomach overwhelmed me.

I sat there for an hour, stunned at what I’d found. I couldn’t make any sense of it. My parents, one or both of them, blackmailed Milly’s father. They are the reason he left town. They are the reason he cleaned out his bank accounts. They are the reason Milly’s family was destroyed. They are the reason the woman I love has lived without her father for all of these years.

I sat there until the sun set. I didn’t know what to do, all I knew was that I had to show Milly. Then, I walked out to my rental car, put the envelope into my carry-on, and drove back to the airport to catch a flight back to Washington.

I called Cristal. I asked her to go to my office, pick up my passport, and meet me at the international terminal at Dulles. Then I booked a flight for Marseille. I was going to confront my mother. Now. And then, I’ll come back here and wait for Milly to get back from her trip with her family. And when she does, I’ll tell her everything.