Mój siostrzeniec zadzwonił do mnie o 5 rano: „Babciu, proszę… nie zakładaj dziś czerwonego płaszcza”. Jego głos drżał. „Dlaczego?” – zapytałam. „Wkrótce zrozumiesz” – mruknął. O 9 rano poszłam złapać autobus. Kiedy tam dotarłam, zamarłam – i zrozumiałam dlaczego.

“It started about six months ago. Right after that big housing development went up near the highway. She got obsessed with it. Started bringing home paperwork about land values and zoning laws.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Mom, you don’t think she would actually forge something? That she’d go that far?”

“Your wife was watching the crime scene this morning, Robert. She was parked down the road with binoculars, just watching. And when she saw me looking, she drove away. That’s not the behavior of someone innocent.”

His face crumbled. “I need to talk to her. Now.”

When we got back to my farmhouse twenty minutes later, Vanessa’s white Lexus was parked near the barn. The barn where Frank had died. I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the November cold.

We found her in my kitchen, going through my filing cabinet. Papers were spread across the table—old tax returns, insurance policies, Frank’s death certificate.

“What the hell are you doing?” Robert demanded.

Vanessa spun around, startled but recovering quickly. Her face arranged itself into an expression of concern so perfectly practiced it looked almost real. “Robert, Alexia—thank God you’re here. I was just looking for documents to help your mother. The police are asking questions, making terrible accusations. We need to be prepared.”

I stepped forward, my voice steady despite the rage building in my chest. “Vanessa, did you forge my signature on a property deed?”

The mask cracked. Just for a second, I saw something underneath—something cold and calculating and utterly without remorse. Then the concerned daughter-in-law expression snapped back into place.

“Of course not. How dare you accuse me of something like that? After everything I’ve done for this family?” Her voice rose, taking on a wounded edge. “I’ve been trying to help you, Alexia. This farm is a burden. You can barely manage it. You’re isolated out here, aging, alone. I’ve been trying to protect you from yourself.”

“By stealing my property?”

“I haven’t stolen anything!” The volume increased, sharp and brittle. “But maybe if someone did forge that deed, they were doing you a favor! This place is falling apart. You’re falling apart. How long before you fall down those stairs and no one finds you for days? How long before you forget to turn off the stove and burn the whole place down?”

“Vanessa, stop it!” Robert grabbed her arm.

She jerked away from him, her face flushing with anger. “No! Someone needs to tell her the truth. She’s clinging to this farm like it’s a life raft, but it’s an anchor dragging all of us down! We could be set for life, Robert. Millions of dollars. But she’s too selfish to see it!”

“Get out,” I said quietly.

Her eyes narrowed, and for just a moment, I saw raw hatred. “Fine. But you should know, Alexia, that deed is legal and binding. Your signature is notarized, properly witnessed according to Montana law. Whether you remember signing it or not, you did. And the transfer will be final in thirty days unless you can prove fraud—which you can’t, because I was very, very careful.”

She grabbed her purse and walked out, her heels clicking sharply on the hardwood floor Frank and I had refinished together thirty years ago.

After she left, Robert sank into a chair at the kitchen table, his head in his hands. “I’m sorry, Mom. I swear I didn’t know. About any of it.”

I believed him. Robert had always been weak, easily led by stronger personalities. First by me, then by Frank, now by Vanessa. But he wasn’t malicious. He was just… absent. A nice man without the backbone to stand up to the woman he’d married.

“What do we do now?” he asked.

My phone buzzed. A text from an unknown number.

Grandma, I’m sorry. I didn’t know it would go this far. I thought I was helping. Meet me at the old Clearwater Mill at midnight. Come alone. They’re watching you. Remember the strawberry summer?

Strawberry summer. When Danny was eight, we’d planted a huge strawberry patch together. He’d eaten so many berries he’d gotten sick, and when Vanessa scolded him, he’d looked at me with tears in his eyes and whispered, “But Grandma said it was okay.” I’d backed him up, and Vanessa had been furious. After that, “strawberry summer” became our code for “trust me no matter what.”

“I have to go,” I said, showing Robert the message.

“Absolutely not. It could be a trap.”

“It’s from Danny. I know it is.”

“Then I’m coming with you.”

“The message said come alone.”

“Mom, someone tried to kill you this morning. I’m not letting you meet some stranger at an abandoned mill in the middle of the night.”

But I’d already made up my mind. Robert, bless him, wasn’t equipped for whatever was coming. I needed to protect him the way I’d always protected him—by handling things myself.

At eleven-thirty, I grabbed my flashlight, Frank’s old hunting knife, and the pistol he’d taught me to shoot forty years ago. I left Robert a note: Gone to help Danny. If I’m not back by 2 AM, call Tom Brennan. Then I climbed into my truck and headed for the Clearwater Mill.

As I backed out of the driveway, headlights flicked on behind me. Someone had been waiting in the dark, watching my house. They followed me at a professional distance—close enough to track me, far enough to avoid suspicion.

Three miles from the old mill, I made a decision born from forty years of ranching in Montana. I killed my headlights and swung onto a narrow logging road Frank and I used to take hunting. My truck bounced over ruts and frozen potholes, branches scraping the sides. Behind me, the other vehicle’s headlights swept past the turnoff. I’d lost them.

I circled back on an old fire road, approaching the mill from the opposite direction. By the time I pulled into the crumbling parking lot, it was twelve-fifteen a.m., and the Clearwater Mill rose against the November sky like a tombstone to a dead industry.

The mill had closed in 1987, a victim of the timber recession that had hollowed out so many Montana towns. Now it was just a shell, slowly being reclaimed by the forest. Broken windows stared like empty eyes. The old water wheel that had once powered the saws hung motionless, frozen in time.

“Danny?” I called softly, stepping into the main floor. The smell of rot and bird droppings filled my nose.

Footsteps echoed from the floor above. I climbed the dangerous stairs carefully, testing each board before putting my weight on it. The second floor had been offices once. Now it was just open space, moonlight streaming through the gaps in the roof.

Danny sat on the floor in the corner, and when he looked up at me, I barely recognized my grandson. He’d aged five years in three days. His face was hollow, his eyes red and wild. “Grandma,” his voice broke. “I’m so sorry. I’ve done something terrible.”

I sat down beside him, ignoring the cold and the dirt, and put my arm around his thin shoulders. He leaned into me the way he used to when he was small and had nightmares.

“Tell me everything,” I said.

The story came out in jagged fragments. Three months ago, Danny met a girl named Rachel Morrison at a coffee shop near his school. She was twenty-three, beautiful, smart, working at the County Records office. She’d approached him, started a conversation about his grandmother’s farm. Said her own grandmother had been tricked out of her property by developers and died heartbroken. Said she wanted to help make sure the same thing didn’t happen to me.

“She seemed so genuine,” Danny said, his voice thick with tears. “She said she could access property records, watch for any suspicious filings. She said she’d protect you. And I believed her, Grandma. I believed everything she told me.”

“What did you give her?”

“Information. Old property deeds, tax records. Copies of Grandpa’s will. She said she needed to understand the legal status of the farm to protect it.” He pressed his hands against his eyes. “I was so stupid. I thought I was helping you.”

“When did you realize the truth?”

“Last week. I saw her meeting with Vanessa at an upscale restaurant in Billings. They were sitting in a booth, and Rachel was showing Vanessa something on her phone. They were laughing. When I confronted Rachel the next day, she didn’t even try to lie. She just laughed in my face and said I was a useful idiot. Said Vanessa had hired her months before we even met, that the whole relationship was a setup to get information and access.”

My heart broke for him, but I needed the rest of the story. “Why was she killed, Danny?”

“Because she got greedy. Two days ago, Rachel called me, terrified. Said she’d demanded more money from Vanessa—a lot more. She had copies of everything—the forged signatures, emails, proof of conspiracy. She was going to blackmail Vanessa into paying her half a million dollars or she’d go to the police.”

He pulled a small thumb drive from his pocket. “Rachel gave me this for safekeeping. She said it was insurance. Copies of everything she had on Vanessa.”

“Have you looked at what’s on it?”