Chapter 10 - Beneath the White Roses
The will was not revealed.
The envelope’s contents stayed hidden.
Penelope’s complete plan was not explained.
Calvin did not appear.
No one learned whether he would receive anything.
No final legal consequence arrived.
The story ended in the bright Montecito rose garden, outside the Mediterranean-style mansion with its cream stone walls, tiled roof, arched entrance, balconies, cypress trees, palm shadows, and dew-covered white roses trembling in the California breeze.
Paige stood on the stone path in her pale floral dress and dirt-stained gardening apron, red-handled pruning shears lowered safely at her side.
Her dark hair had loosened from its bun.
Her gloves were wet with soil.
One hand gripped the damp sealed envelope against her chest.
Her smartphone remained recording inside the apron pocket.
Tabitha stood near the black iron garden gate in her ivory satin dress, diamonds glittering uselessly while panic drained the color from her face. The arrogance she had carried into the garden was gone now, replaced by the terror of a woman who had said too much beside the wrong roses.
The phone vibrated again.
Paige answered on speaker without opening the envelope.
Penelope’s voice came through, calm and grave.
“Do not open it yet. Your father left one final trap.”
Tabitha’s hand clamped over her mouth.
Paige looked from the envelope to the mansion.
The roses shook between them.
The handwriting remained unseen.
The trap remained unnamed.
But the garden no longer felt empty without her father.
It felt prepared.
Protected.
Waiting.
Paige’s eyes returned to Tabitha.
This time, she did not look like the abandoned ex-wife or the grieving daughter Tabitha had expected to push out by morning.
She looked like the one person her father had trusted to find what everyone else had missed.
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And Tabitha, trapped between the open gate and the unopened envelope, finally understood that the estate had not been waiting for Calvin.
It had been waiting for Paige.
