My Family Saved Their Adopted Daughter First, Then I Died Before Their Eyes novel · Chapter 8 of 24
Chapter 8: Ray's Toolbox
Ray Hadley's cottage sat at the end of a gravel lane on my parents' lake property, and it had been empty for three years.
Eli picked me up at the corner of Mill Street so no one would see my car.
He unlocked the door with a key from his ring. Dust floated in the light from the front window.
"I haven't been able to sell it," he said. "It isn't mine to sell. Your father holds the deed."
"Since when?"
"Since the day after the clinic."
He took me through to the back room, where a red metal toolbox sat on a shelf.
"He kept every receipt for forty years," Eli said. "Even the ones for nails."
He knelt and opened the latch.
On top lay a folded sheet of lined paper, soft from handling.
It had Eli's name on the front.
Eli unfolded it and read quietly, to himself first.
Then he held it out. "You read it."
The writing was a big man's careful print.
"Eli, if you find this, I'm gone. Mr. Ostrander gave me forty thousand dollars and the cottage for as long as I live. He said it would keep you from making a scene about the girl. I signed. I told myself you would get over her. I did not know what the paper really said. I am sorry, son. Dad."
Under it was the release, folded in thirds.
It was signed Raymond Hadley, for himself and his family, and it gave up any claim against Dale Ostrander or his household.
A bank deposit slip for the same amount was clipped to the corner.
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