Page 115 of Montana Manhunt

Violet pushed the blanket from her legs and sat up.

“How is the headache?” Noah asked as he sat beside her.

“Better.”

“The pain is gone?”

“For the moment.”

“Good.” He leaned over and brushed a kiss over her lips. “What time do we need to be at the funeral home?”

Her stomach knotted at the prospect of facing citizens of Morrison whom she hadn’t seen in more than a decade. “The visitation is from three to seven.”

“Do you want to go somewhere this morning, or would you rather stay here?”

“I want to check on Lauren, but we’re not family. I’m afraid the medical staff won’t allow me to see her.”

Noah set his coffee on the table in front of the sofa. “I’ll text Zane. He was keeping tabs on her overnight. He should be on duty for another hour.”

He received an answer seconds later. “Z says she’s stable and asking to see you.” Noah glanced up. “She called you Camilla.”

Violet flinched. “I’ll explain to the nurse at the desk. Maybe they’ll let me see her, anyway.”

“All right. After breakfast, we’ll go to the hospital.”

She studied him. Something was up. “What’s wrong?”

Grant turned from his post to watch them. Rayne sat nearby, her expression somber. So her friends already knew the news.

“I did some research during my shift,” Noah said.

“What did you find?”

“You said your parents didn’t have a life insurance policy.”

Where was he going with this? “That’s what Aunt Rosalie told us.”

“She lied.”

Violet froze. “Are you sure?”

Noah retrieved his laptop and booted it up. “It’s been bothering me since you told me how your aunt treated you and your sister while you were with her for those ten years. I looked into your parents’ history and searched for their life insurance policies.” He pointed at the screen. “This is what I found.”

Violet scanned the document until she reached the payout. She gasped. “Five million dollars? That’s impossible. Aunt Rosalie always said that taking care of us was draining her retirement account.”

“According to the records, the insurance company paid your aunt the life insurance money six weeks after your parents’ deaths.”

“What did Rosalie do with the money, Violet?” Grant asked.

“I don’t know.” This made little sense. How could Rosalie lie to her and Cami for years?

“We can have Zane or one of the other Fortress tech geeks look into it, but my guess is your aunt kept the money stashed away in various accounts.”

Rayne frowned. “You and your sister wore clothes and shoes from second-hand stores or from box stores. What about your aunt? Did she have the same buying habits?”

“No, she didn’t. Rosalie worked for an architectural firm. She always dressed nice, saying she had to in order to keep her job.” Violet shrugged. “We never questioned her.” In hindsight, that was incredibly naïve of her and Cami. Then again, they never expected their aunt to straight up lie to them.

They struggled for years, worked whatever jobs they could find to pay for school clothes and supplies while their aunt squirreled the money away for her own use. Did Cami know or suspect what Rosalie had done? Perhaps that was why her sister never pushed hard for Violet to return to Morrison to visit her. Under normal circumstances, Violet would have noticed the nicehouse and luxury SUV her aunt drove and wondered where the money came from.

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