PART 4: THE KEY HIDDEN INSIDE MOM’S MUSIC BOX
I watched Harold walk toward my bedroom through the security camera.
“He has a key to my house,” I whispered.
Dad stared at the screen.
“I never gave him one.”

“Neither did I.”
Sheriff Mercer grabbed her radio.
“Contact the police department in Natalie’s county. Tell them an intruder is inside her home and may be destroying evidence connected to a suspicious death.”
As she spoke, Harold reached my bedroom.
He opened the closet and immediately pulled down the cardboard box containing the blue music box.
He knew exactly where to look.

“He’s been inside my house before,” I said.
Dad shook his head.
“No. That’s impossible.”
Harold placed the music box on my bed.
The faded blue paint was visible through the camera.
Mom had given it to me when I was seven.
A tiny ballerina danced whenever the lid opened.

I had not touched it since the package arrived three years earlier.
Harold opened the lid.
The music began playing.
For one second, his expression softened.
Then he tore the ballerina from its base.
“Stop him!” Dad shouted at the screen.
Harold pulled a screwdriver from his coat and began prying apart the bottom of the box.
I pressed the microphone button on my security app.
“Harold.”
He froze.
Slowly, he looked toward the camera.
“You’re being recorded,” I said. “The police are coming.”
He stared at the camera without speaking.
Dad leaned close to my phone.
“Why are you doing this?”
Harold’s eyes narrowed.
“You should have stayed dead until I finished.”
Dad recoiled as if Harold had struck him.
“What did you say?”
“You heard me.”
“You called me this morning and warned me about Vanessa.”
“I warned you because I needed to know where you were.”

Dad went silent.
Harold looked down at the music box again.
He drove the screwdriver beneath the wooden base and twisted.
The bottom cracked open.
A small brass key fell onto the bed.
Beside it was a folded piece of paper.
Harold grabbed both.
“Put them down,” I ordered.
He slipped the key and note into his coat.
Then he stepped toward the camera.
“Your mother caused all of this,” he said. “She should have kept quiet.”
Dad’s face twisted with rage.
“What did you do to Eleanor?”
Harold reached up and ripped the camera from the wall.
The screen went black.
I could still hear him moving.
Then the audio cut out too.
Sheriff Mercer’s radio erupted.
“Local units are four minutes away.”
“He could be gone in four minutes,” I said.
I opened another camera.
The backyard appeared.
A third camera showed the driveway.
Harold’s black pickup was parked behind my house with its engine running.
“He’s leaving through the back,” I said.
Dad reached for his phone.
“Who are you calling?” the sheriff asked.
“My neighbor.”
“Do not ask a civilian to confront him.”
Dad ignored her warning.

A man answered on the second ring.
“Frank?”
“Mr. Cole?”
“Harold is inside Natalie’s house. Lock your doors and watch the alley. Do not approach him.”
My neighbor moved to his front window.
“I see his truck.”
“Police are coming.”
A moment later, Harold appeared on the backyard camera.
He carried the blue music box beneath one arm.
As he reached the gate, sirens became audible through my phone.
Harold stopped.
He looked toward the street.
Then he threw the music box into a trash bin and ran in the opposite direction.
“He has the key in his coat!” I shouted, even though the officers could not hear me.
Harold climbed over my fence and disappeared into the neighboring yard.
The first police car pulled into my driveway.
Two officers ran around the house.
Another cruiser blocked the alley.
For ninety unbearable seconds, every camera showed nothing.
Then a voice came through Sheriff Mercer’s radio.
“Suspect located.”
I closed my eyes.
“Is he in custody?”
There was a struggle in the background.
An officer shouted for Harold to show his hands.
Harold cursed.

Then I heard metal handcuffs close.
“Suspect in custody,” the officer confirmed. “We recovered a brass key and a handwritten note from his coat.”
Dad sat down.
His body seemed to collapse into itself.
Harold had stood beside him at his wedding.
He had held me when I was a baby.
He had carried Mom’s casket.
And now he had broken into my home to destroy the last thing she had left me.
Sheriff Mercer placed a hand on Dad’s shoulder.
“I need to ask you something. Did Harold have access to your financial records?”
Dad slowly nodded.
“He helped me prepare my taxes after Eleanor died.”
“Did he know Vanessa had power of attorney?”
“He was the witness when I originally signed it.”
The sheriff removed the forged power of attorney from the evidence pile.
She examined the signature at the bottom.
Then she turned the page toward us.
Harold Pike’s name appeared beneath the words WITNESS AND NOTARY.
Dad’s lips parted.
“He helped her forge it.”
“He did more than help,” Sheriff Mercer said. “Without his notarization, Vanessa could not have submitted it to the bank.”
She stepped out to call the officers at my home.
While she was gone, Dad stared at Harold’s signature.
“My best friend,” he whispered.
I wanted to comfort him.
But I was still hearing the recording of Mom begging for an ambulance.
“Why would Harold help them?”
Dad did not answer.
Sheriff Mercer returned.

“The note inside the music box contains three things: the name First County Bank, the number 317, and Natalie’s full legal name.”
“A safe-deposit box,” Dad said.
The sheriff nodded.
“The key recovered from Harold appears to be a bank-box key.”
“Then Mom hid the original evidence there.”
“That’s likely.”
“Can we open it tonight?”
“The bank is closed. I’ll place an officer there until morning. Harold will not get near that box.”
“What is he saying?”
“Nothing. He asked for a lawyer.”
“What about Vanessa and Grant?”
“Grant denies knowing Harold was going to your house. Vanessa claims Grant arranged everything.”
“They are blaming each other,” I said.
“They usually do when they realize the evidence is stronger than their loyalty.”
Sheriff Mercer opened Grant’s phone, which had been seized during the traffic stop.
Investigators had already found seventeen calls between Grant and Harold during the previous week.
There were also bank transfers.
Grant had sent Harold five thousand dollars two days before the forged power of attorney was submitted.
Three years earlier, the morning after Mom died, he had sent Harold ten thousand dollars.
Dad stared at the payment date.
“He paid Harold after Eleanor died.”
“We need to find out what that payment purchased,” the sheriff said.
The following morning, Dad and I met Sheriff Mercer at First County Bank.
The manager led us into a private room beneath the building.
Box 317 was registered jointly to Eleanor Cole and Natalie Cole.
I had never known it existed.
Mom had added my name six months before she died.
The manager inserted the bank’s master key.
I used the brass key from the music box.

The lock clicked.
Sheriff Mercer pulled the long metal container from the wall and placed it on the table.
My hands shook as I lifted the lid.
Inside were copies of the private investigator’s report.
There were bank statements proving Grant and Vanessa had stolen more than sixty-one thousand dollars.
There were photographs of Harold meeting them outside the bank.
There was also a receipt from Harold’s funeral home dated the morning after Mom died.
The receipt showed a cash payment of ten thousand dollars.
Beside the amount, someone had written two words.
Immediate cremation.
Dad sank into a chair.
“Harold convinced me not to request an autopsy,” he whispered. “He said Eleanor’s heart condition made it unnecessary.”
“He needed to prevent a toxicology test,” Sheriff Mercer said.
I removed another envelope.
Inside were the original pharmacy records for Mom’s medication.
One prescription had been changed four days before she died.
The dosage was six times higher than what her doctor had ordered.
The request had been submitted using Dad’s name.
The approving witness was Harold.
“He helped them change her medication,” I said.
Dad covered his face.
I continued searching.
Beneath the medical records was a letter addressed to both of us.
Dad and I,
If you are reading this, then Harold found the music box or something happened to me before I could tell you the truth.
Harold’s chest pains are not real.
Grant paid him to get Dad out of the house while Vanessa and Grant confronted me.
They believe I have only one recording.
I made three copies.
Everything you need to prove what they did is inside this box.
But there is one truth I kept from this family for too long.
It is the reason Harold protects Grant, even when Grant does terrible things.
Please forgive me.
Eleanor.
Dad stared at the final paragraph.
“What truth?”
There was one last envelope at the bottom of the box.

It was marked PERSONAL—FOR FRANK.
Dad opened it.
A laboratory report slipped onto the table.
It contained the results of a private DNA test Mom had ordered one month before her death.
Dad read the first page.
Then he read it again.
His entire body began trembling.
“What does it say?” I asked.
He handed the report to me.
The probability listed at the bottom was 99.98 percent.
I looked at the tested names.
The first was Grant Cole.
The second was Harold Pike.
Beside their names were two words that shattered everything Dad believed about his family.
BIOLOGICAL FATHER.
I slowly raised my eyes.
Grant was not Dad’s son.
He was Harold’s.
And Mom had died the same night she planned to tell us….

PART 5: THE TWENTY-THREE MINUTES THEY TRIED TO ERASE
Dad stared at the DNA report until the words blurred beneath his tears.
“Grant is Harold’s son,” he whispered.
I did not know what to say.
For more than forty years, Dad had believed Grant was his child.
He had taught him how to ride a bicycle.
Paid for college.
Helped him buy his first car.
Stayed awake beside his hospital bed when his appendix ruptured.
Now one sheet of paper had revealed that his closest friend was Grant’s biological father.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
Dad folded the report and placed it on the table.
“Grant is still the boy I raised.”
His voice trembled.
“Biology doesn’t erase forty years. But what he did to your mother might.”
Sheriff Mercer removed Mom’s letter from the safe-deposit box.
“This gives Harold a motive to protect Grant,” she said.

“And a reason to silence Mom,” I added.
Dad looked at the receipt for Mom’s immediate cremation.
“He carried her casket.”
His face hardened.
“He stood beside me at her funeral and told me I was lucky to have had such a faithful wife.”
The bank manager quietly left the room.
Sheriff Mercer called one of her detectives.
“Tell Harold’s attorney we opened Box 317. Tell him we found the DNA report, the medication records, and the cremation payment.”
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Giving Harold a reason to talk before Grant or Vanessa does.”
Her phone rang less than five minutes later.
Harold wanted to make a statement.
He asked for protection.
“Protection from whom?” Dad demanded.
“Grant,” Sheriff Mercer replied.
Dad let out a bitter laugh.
“He broke into Natalie’s house to help Grant, and now he’s afraid of him?”
“He’s afraid of spending the rest of his life in prison.”
We returned to the sheriff’s office.
Harold sat in an interview room with his attorney.
His wrists were cuffed to a metal ring beneath the table.
The man on the screen looked nothing like the friend I remembered.
He looked old.
Small.
Defeated.
Dad and I watched from the observation room while Sheriff Mercer entered.

She placed copies of the DNA report and funeral-home receipt in front of Harold.
His attorney leaned toward him.
“Do not answer until you understand the agreement.”
“There is no agreement yet,” the sheriff said. “If Mr. Pike wants consideration, he needs to tell us everything.”
Harold looked toward the dark observation window.
He could not see Dad standing on the other side.
But somehow, he seemed to know we were there.
“Eleanor and I made one mistake,” he said.
Dad flinched.
“It happened during the year Frank and Eleanor separated. Grant was born nine months later.”
“Did Frank know?”
“No.”
“Did you know Grant was your son?”
“I suspected it.”
“When did you become certain?”
Harold looked at the DNA report.
“One month before Eleanor died.”
“Eleanor told you?”
“She came to my office with the results. She said she had ordered the test after finding old letters I wrote to her.”
“Where did she find the letters?”
“Grant had them.”
Sheriff Mercer leaned forward.
“How did Grant get them?”
“He stole them from my house after my wife died.”
The pieces slowly came together.
Grant had discovered Harold’s letters.
He realized Harold might be his biological father.
Then he used that secret to demand money.
“How much did Grant take from you?” the sheriff asked.

“Almost ninety thousand dollars over three years.”
“Why didn’t you go to the police?”
“I would have lost my business. My family. My reputation.”
“So instead, you helped him steal from Frank and Eleanor.”
Harold lowered his head.
“I notarized the power of attorney.”
“You knew it was forged.”
“Yes.”
“You helped change Eleanor’s prescription.”
His eyes lifted.
“No.”
“The request contains your signature.”
“Vanessa brought it to me. She said Eleanor’s doctor had approved it.”
“You were a funeral director for thirty-five years. You understood what that dosage could do to a woman with a heart condition.”
“I didn’t read the dosage.”
Sheriff Mercer stared at him.
“Try again.”
Harold swallowed.
“We only wanted her confused.”
Dad made a sound beside me.
I grabbed his arm before he could enter the room.
On the screen, Harold continued.
“Grant needed Eleanor to sign financial documents. She refused whenever she was alert.”
“So you increased her medication to impair her judgment.”
“I didn’t know Vanessa would give her so much.”
“What happened the night she died?”
Harold looked toward the observation window again.
“I told Frank I was having chest pains.”
Dad’s jaw tightened.
“You were never sick,” the sheriff said.
“No.”
“You used Frank to create an alibi.”
“I needed to get him out of the house so Grant and Vanessa could speak to Eleanor.”
“You mean pressure her into signing.”

Harold did not answer.
“What hospital did Frank take you to?”
“St. Matthew’s.”
“We checked their records. You were never admitted.”
“I told Frank to wait in the family area while I registered. Then I slipped through a side exit.”
“Where did you go?”
Harold’s attorney touched his arm.
“You do not have to answer that.”
Sheriff Mercer gathered the papers.
“Then we’re finished.”
“Wait.”
Harold’s face had turned gray.
“I went to Eleanor’s house.”
Dad stepped closer to the glass.
Sheriff Mercer sat down again.
“Why?”
“Grant called me. He said Eleanor had collapsed.”
“Why didn’t he call 911?”
“He was afraid the paramedics would find the medication.”
“What condition was Eleanor in when you arrived?”
“She was on the kitchen floor.”
“Was she alive?”
Harold hesitated.
“Yes.”
Dad closed his eyes.
“She was conscious?”
“Yes.”
“Was she speaking?”
“Yes.”
“What did she say?”
Harold stared down at his cuffed hands.

“She kept asking for Natalie.”
My throat tightened.
Mom had been alive.
She had known I was the only person who would protect her.
And the three people standing around her had refused to call me.
Sheriff Mercer slid the audio transcript across the table.
“The recording contains twenty-three minutes between Eleanor’s collapse and the emergency call. What happened during those twenty-three minutes?”
“I tried to help her.”
“Then why did you arrange an immediate cremation?”
“Grant panicked.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“He said the hospital would perform a toxicology test.”
“So you destroyed the body before anyone could discover what was in her system.”
“I didn’t kill Eleanor.”
“You altered the removal time on your funeral-home records.”
“I was protecting Grant.”
“You falsified the cremation authorization.”
“Vanessa signed it.”
“You accepted ten thousand dollars in cash.”
“That was for the funeral.”
“The funeral had already been paid through Eleanor’s burial policy.”
Harold looked at his attorney.
The attorney remained silent.
Sheriff Mercer stood.
“Grant says you changed the medication. Vanessa says you gave Eleanor something after you arrived. Both of them say you were the last person to touch her before she stopped breathing.”
Harold slammed both hands on the table.
“They’re lying!”

Dad pulled away from me and opened the observation-room door.
“Frank, stop!” I shouted.
He walked into the interview room before the deputy could reach him.
Harold stared at him.
For a moment, neither man spoke.
Dad placed the DNA report on the table.
“Was he worth it?”
Harold’s face collapsed.
“Frank—”
“I raised your son while you stole from me.”
“I never asked you to raise him.”
“No. You only watched me love him.”
Harold lowered his eyes.
Dad stepped closer.
“You helped him poison my wife.”
“I didn’t.”
“You kept her from receiving help.”
“I tried to save her.”
“Then tell me what happened during those twenty-three minutes.”
Harold began crying.
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because Grant will destroy both our families.”
Dad struck the table with his palm.
“Our families are already destroyed!”
A deputy guided Dad out of the room.
Harold’s attorney ended the interview.
But as the door closed, Harold shouted one final sentence.
“Eleanor recorded more than you know!”

Sheriff Mercer stopped.
“What does that mean?”
Harold refused to answer.
We returned to the evidence room.
The safe-deposit box had been placed beneath a bright examination lamp.
Investigators had removed every document and photographed every page.
An evidence technician held up a thin piece of black plastic.
“This was attached beneath the metal handle.”
It was another flash drive.
Much smaller than the first.
Mom had hidden it where someone searching quickly would never notice.
The technician connected it to an isolated computer.
Three video files appeared.
The first showed Grant removing money from Mom’s desk.
The second showed Vanessa photographing Dad’s banking information.
The third was dated the night Mom died.
Sheriff Mercer pressed play.
The video came from a hidden camera inside Mom’s kitchen.
Grant stood beside the table holding several documents.
Vanessa blocked the doorway.
Mom sat in a chair, breathing heavily.
“You are not getting my signature,” she told them.
Grant leaned over her.
“You’re going to lose the house anyway.”
“It isn’t your house.”
“It will be when Dad dies.”
Mom looked directly toward the hidden camera.
“Natalie will see everything.”
Vanessa grabbed Mom’s medication bottle.
“She won’t believe you.”
“She will when she hears the recording.”
Grant knocked the bottle from Vanessa’s hand.
Pills scattered across the floor.
Mom tried to stand.
Her knees buckled.
She reached for the table, missed it, and collapsed.

For several minutes, Vanessa cried while Grant searched Mom’s pockets and drawers.
Neither called an ambulance.
Then someone knocked on the back door.
Grant opened it.
Harold entered carrying a small medical bag.
Dad gripped my hand.
On the video, Mom lifted her head.
“Frank trusts you,” she whispered.
Harold knelt beside her.
“I’m sorry, Eleanor.”
“Call Natalie.”
“I can’t.”
Grant pointed at Mom.
“She knows everything.”
Harold checked her pulse.
“She needs an ambulance.”
“If you call one, the police will find the pills,” Vanessa said.
Grant crouched beside Harold.
“Can you make this look like her heart failed?”
Harold stared at him.
“You don’t understand what you’re asking.”
“I understand perfectly.”
“You’re asking me to murder your mother.”

Grant leaned closer.
“I’m asking you to protect your son.”
Harold’s hands began shaking.
Then he opened the medical bag.
Dad turned away from the screen.
Harold removed a small vial and a syringe.
Mom saw it.
With the last of her strength, she reached toward the hidden camera.
“Natalie,” she whispered.
Harold filled the syringe.
Vanessa covered her mouth.
Grant locked the kitchen door.
Then Harold looked at the two children he was protecting and said the sentence that finally revealed what happened during those missing twenty-three minutes.
“Once I give her this, Eleanor will never tell anyone the truth.”
And the video showed him lowering the needle toward my mother’s arm….

Click Here to continue read next: PART6: My sister called at 6:30 a.m. and said, “Dad died last night.” I looked across the kitchen—Dad was sitting three feet away, drinking my coffee and eating my bacon.