Chapter 2 - The Ghost on the Screen
The enormous screen above the ballroom stage flickered, completely cutting off the company’s anniversary montage.
Daniel stopped speaking. He tapped the microphone, a frown breaking his perfectly polished, fake smile. Next to him, Lauren Mitchell, wearing my dead mother’s pearls, shifted nervously in her champagne gown.
“Apologies, folks,” Daniel said smoothly. “Technical difficulties.”
But it wasn’t a glitch.
The speakers crackled to life, and a face appeared on the twenty-foot screen.
It was my mother, Margaret.
A collective gasp echoed through the ballroom. My breath caught in my throat. The video was clearly taken in our old kitchen, the sunlight hitting the faded yellow wallpaper I had spent my childhood staring at. Mom looked tired but fiercely determined, wearing her favorite blue cardigan. It had to have been recorded just weeks before she passed away.
“Grandma,” Ellie whispered next to me, her voice trembling but full of absolute steel.
On the screen, my mother looked directly into the camera.
“If you are watching this, Daniel,” my mother’s recorded voice boomed through the Grand Palmer Hotel, “it means you broke your promise. It means you finally pushed my daughter too far, and you thought you were smart enough to take what isn’t yours.”
Daniel went completely pale. He stepped back from the podium, his eyes wide with a terror I had never seen in our twenty-two years of marriage.
“Cut it off!” Daniel shouted at the sound booth. “Turn the screen off!”
“Don’t you dare!” I yelled, my voice suddenly finding its power. I stood up, pushing my chair back. The entire room of three hundred people turned to look at me, but I only had eyes for my husband.
On screen, my mother held up a piece of paper.
“Twenty years ago, you didn’t start Harrison Custom Homes with a toolbox and a dream, Daniel,” she said, her voice dripping with venom. “You started it because I gave you my life savings to keep you out of federal prison. And in exchange, I made you sign this.”
She held the paper closer to the lens. It was a notarized contract.
“You never owned the controlling shares of the company, Daniel,” my mother continued. “I did. And upon my death, they transferred entirely to my daughter.”
The ballroom erupted into frantic whispers. Bankers and clients were suddenly staring at Daniel not as a visionary, but as a fraud.
Daniel lunged for the laptop stand near the podium, desperate to unplug the system. But as he shoved past Lauren, his elbow caught the thin strap of her gown. She stumbled backward, her hand flying up to catch her balance.
Her fingers snagged the pearl necklace.
With a sharp snap, the vintage silk thread broke.
Dozens of iridescent pearls rained down onto the hardwood stage, bouncing and scattering into the orchestra pit.
Lauren screamed, dropping to her knees to gather them, entirely humiliated. But my eyes were drawn to something else. From the hollow silver clasp of the necklace, a small, tightly folded piece of yellow paper fell to the stage.
Ellie didn’t hesitate. She darted up the stairs, moving faster than Daniel, and snatched the yellow paper from the floor.
May you like
She unfolded it, her eyes scanning the text. She looked up at her father, then at Lauren, and finally down at me.
“Mom,” Ellie said, her voice echoing through the microphone Daniel had abandoned. “This is a plane ticket to the Cayman Islands. For tomorrow morning. Under the name Lauren Harrison.”
