Page 174 of Ice Princess

I look carefully. He’s right. The dates don’t match on some of the pages.

“Look again and you’ll see there’s a page missing from the original will.”

I swipe back and forth. The weathered, handwritten will has a section torn from the bottom of the third page. The tampered page is less than a quarter of the document and I could see how an official would be persuaded—financially or otherwise—not to investigate why.

“What about the notary?” I ask, looking up. I don’t know much about wills, but there’s a notary sign on the original paperwork. “Who was the witness?”

“Chuck Princeton.”

My shoulders slump. “Chuck got sick and died a few years after your grandfather did.”

“Given what I know of my uncle’s tactics, I believe Chuck was pressured to take this secret to his grave.”

“But… why would your grandfather leave anything to my mother? She was just his cleaner.”

“I don’t know.”

“Then how are you so sure that missing page named us?”

“Because the person who tore the page confessed it today.” He takes the phone from me and presses a button.

Gunner’s deep, gravelly voice rings out.“You stole from someone else. You stole from Rebel’s family.”

Another voice chuckles cruelly.“So what? There’s no proof. No witnesses. No one knows but you. Do you want to turn our entire family upside down for a truth you’ll never be able to prove?”

I scramble off Gunner’s lap and step away from him.

Poor, poor, mom.

Even a tiny portion of the Kinsey wealth would have been life changing for her. Mom and I could have moved out of the trailer park and had a much better life.

My eyes fill with tears as the unfairness of it all sets in. “Why would Clarence Kinseydothat?” I rage. “Was he so greedy for money that he couldn’t stand to see someone outside of the family benefit even a little?”

Gunner remains quiet.

My eyelashes flutter as I recognize the quiet shame in his face. “What?”

“I’ll be right back.” He moves purposefully down the ladder.

As I wait for him to return, I go through his phone, scouring the pictures he took from Victoria.

Gunner returns to the treehouse a few minutes later, his arms laden with documents and what looks like a map. He spreads everything on the ground in front of me.

“I found the piece of land my grandfather left your family.” He takes a few small stones and uses them as paper weights.

“How?”

“By cross-referencing the land that the will explicitly shares out between Uncle Clancy, my dad, my uncles and all the other relatives.”

I pick up a Lucky Falls Re-Zoning document that has his notes all over it and my heart hurts for him. He put so much effort into unearthing the truth.

“What land was it?” I whisper.

Gunner hesitates before admitting, “The one near Darkwell Ridge.”

Every inch of me stiffens.

Everyone in Lucky Falls knows about that particular Kinsey land. A few weeks after Clay Kinsey passed, there was a thorough survey of all the properties in his portfolio. Surprisingly, oil was found in Darkwell Ridge and the discovery was even mentioned in the national news.

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