My daughter-in-law said I’d get nothing from my husband’s 77 million. She sat all smiles at the will reading. But minutes later, the lawyer put the papers down… and laughed…

I was with him nearly every hour then. The only time he was ever alone was when Rebecca came to take over. The folder was thin, but it weighed a thousand pounds in my hands.

I placed the pages gently on the desk and leaned back. The ceiling fan spun above me, slow and steady. I closed my eyes, thinking back to the last time Patrick and I had talked about the will.

It was over dinner. Simple, calm, like any other night. He had said, You don’t have to worry about anything, Ma.

I’ve made sure of that. I remembered the way he reached across the table and squeezed my wrist. I remembered the way his thumb had pressed gently into my skin.

Now all I could feel was the cold imprint of his absence. I didn’t sleep that night. I sat in the study re-reading the pages until the sky outside shifted from black to pale grey.

I watched the morning take shape around me one corner at a time. By dawn I knew this wasn’t just a mistake. It wasn’t a clerical oversight.

This was deliberate. Rebecca had orchestrated something, and Patrick had sensed it maybe even tried to stop it. But it was too late.

I placed the pages back in the folder and hid it under a stack of old National Geographic magazines in the hallway closet. I didn’t know what I was going to do yet. I didn’t have a plan.

But I knew I couldn’t let this go. The next morning I called Daniel Chow. We hadn’t spoken in years, not since Patrick’s retirement party.

Daniel had always been steady, the kind of man who never raised his voice but still filled a room. Patrick trusted him. So did I. He picked up on the second ring, and when I said my name, he paused for a beat before responding.

His voice was calm, but I could hear the surprise underneath. He agreed to meet the next day. As I hung up the phone I stood by the window and looked out over the yard.

The wind was tugging at the last of the maple leaves, the same trees Patrick had planted 30 years ago. He said they’d outlive us both, and maybe they would, but I wasn’t going to let silence be the final thing he left behind, not while I still had breath in me. Daniel met me at a quiet corner cafe off Elm Street.

It hadn’t changed in years. Still the same wooden booths, chipped mugs and soft jazz humming overhead. He slid into the seat across from me, coat still damp from the morning drizzle, and gave a quiet nod.

I didn’t waste time. I opened the manila folder and pushed it across the table. He read in silence, lips pressed into a thin line.

When he reached the note in Patrick’s handwriting his brow tightened. He didn’t speak right away. He just flipped the pages back and forth like he was trying to stitch together a timeline in his head.

I sat still, my hands wrapped around a cup of lukewarm tea. Watching him read made the whole thing more real, like I hadn’t imagined the edits or the red markings or that line that used to carry my name now crossed out in silence. He finally spoke, not with panic, not with pity, just a quiet firmness that told me he had seen things like this before.

It’s more than suspicious, he said. It’s intentional. He pulled out a notepad from his coat pocket and began making a list.

He jotted down dates from the folder names of law firms Rebecca had mentioned and circled one particular detail I hadn’t thought about. The witness signatures on the updated will weren’t names I recognised. Neither of them had ever stepped foot in our home.

Patrick had always preferred to use people he knew, a neighbour, a friend from the golf club. The fact that Rebecca had brought in outside witnesses without telling me raised more than a few red flags. We agreed to dig quietly, no confrontation, not yet.

Daniel said we’d start with validating the last version of the will filed with the county. He would request certified copies and cross-check them with the notes I had. In the meantime, I would keep everything else exactly as it was.

Back at home, I opened the hallway closet and tucked the folder into a lockbox we used for passports and medical papers. Then I sat at Patrick’s old desk and opened his calendar. Rebecca had taken most of his belongings already.

She had boxed up his books, donated his clothes and sent his golf clubs off to a friend. But the calendar was still here, a simple leather-bound planner with notes scribbled in pencil. That was where I found the name Hal Givens.

It was penciled in on a Tuesday morning circled twice. I recognised the name faintly. He was a tax consultant Patrick had met through a non-profit years ago.

I hadn’t seen him in ages, but the fact that Patrick had met him while he was ill and never told me stung more than I wanted to admit. I called Daniel and told him. He said he’d look into it, maybe get in touch discreetly.

If Hal had been part of the estate planning process even briefly, he might have seen something Rebecca didn’t intend for anyone to notice. The next few days passed slowly. I went about my routines as if nothing had changed.

Grocery shopping, watering the plants, attending my book club, though I barely spoke a word that week. On the surface everything looked the same, but underneath I was alert. Watching.

Waiting. Then on Friday Daniel called. He had spoken with Hal.

What he told me made my stomach drop. Hal remembered Patrick coming in looking thin and exhausted, barely able to hold a pen. They talked for nearly an hour about the trust.

Patrick had questions about naming beneficiaries and ensuring long-term protections for me, but Hal said Patrick seemed hesitant. He kept saying Rebecca would take care of things, that she was helping. Hal had offered to set up an independent review just to make sure everything was filed clearly and transparently, but Patrick never followed through.

A week later Rebecca called to cancel the appointment and said Patrick no longer needed the service. Daniel paused on the phone letting that part sink in. He said Hal still had the intake notes.

They weren’t legally binding, but they proved Patrick had concerns. They showed intent. Doubt.

And that might be enough to open a formal inquiry if we decided to go that route. I thanked him and sat on the edge of the bed, the phone still in my hand, long after the call ended. That night I pulled out an old photo album, not for nostalgia but for clarity.

I looked at pictures of Patrick at family events, holidays, dinners with friends. In nearly every photo Rebecca was somewhere in the background, smiling, helping, hovering. I had once believed she was loyal, that she wanted what was best for us…