Everything is Everything Book 2 by Pepper Pace Read Free Book Online Page A

grandmother had to say and so she clenched her teeth and waited silently for her to explain.
    “When you were still a baby, your mother took out a life insurance policy which named me the beneficiary.” Vanessa frowned in confusion at the direction the story was taking. “When she died I … couldn’t stop thinking about how she’d lost her life. To me that money was not something that I wanted possession of. So what I did was I put it in the bank … for you.”
    Vanessa’s mouth parted in confusion. Was her grandmother telling her that she had a trust as well as the money from her mother’s life insurance policy?
    “When you first came to me you were so lost. I wanted to give you something to focus on, something that would show you that your mother loved you very much-”
    “My trust … ” Vanessa whispered.
    “There is no trust. Your mother had a savings account with fifty-two hundred dollars in it but that money is long gone.”
    Vanessa began to tremble. Her mouth just hung open. “Gone? But … ”
    Bertha Mae shook her head. “That money was taken out of your mother’s bank account the same day that we found out about her death. Your mother didn’t have a will and she never talked to me about setting aside money for your college fund. It was you that told me that. When I checked her bank statements I saw that there was money in her savings account but it had been taken out; fifty-two hundred dollars. Once I produced her death certificate and showed the bank that I was the beneficiary of her life insurance I was able to get a copy of the withdrawal slip. It was signed with her name, and dated after her death.”
    Vanessa lowered her head into her hands. She felt tears stinging her eyes. She looked up quickly at her grandmother. “Who took the money out of my mother’s account?”
    Bertha Mae White leaned forward and stared directly into her granddaughter’s eyes. “Your guess is as good as mine,”
    Vanessa blinked and then sat slowly back in her chair.
    She changed the house after your mother … you know, Jalissa had said.
    The morning that she had been told about her mother’s death, aunt Callista had left with the police to identify her mother’s body. But after doing that … maybe she got possession of mama’s personal effects, her identification. And maybe Callista had gone to the bank and used that identification to make a withdrawal. She didn’t look like her mother but they had some similar qualities …
    Bertha Mae continued to talk, her voice quieter but just as firm. “So there is no trust fund. There’s only the money that was left to me; the money that I’m giving to you. When I feel that you’re ready for it.”
    Vanessa felt like fainting. Everything in her life had once again gone upside down, and even though her aunt had never fooled her, it destroyed something in her that the woman’s treachery could be so far reaching.
    “There is no trust fund.” Vanessa repeated as if trying to absorb the information. Aunt Callista had stolen the money. And her grandmother had sixty thousand dollars that she had promised her for years would come to her on her eighteenth birthday.
    Vanessa felt her face drain of color as her blood grew cold. She met her grandmother’s eyes.
    “Would you have told me the truth if I hadn’t spent the summer with them, if I hadn’t moved out and told you that I wasn’t going to college.”
    Her grandmother sighed. “No. You would have just thought that your mother had left it directly to you. I wouldn’t have told you about the stolen savings. I would have allowed you to … have a relationship with those people. I would have kept that secret.”
    Heat stung Vanessa’s eyes and she realized that they were swimming in unshed tears. “Are you punishing me because I didn’t go on to college--because you think I chose them over you?” her voice was soft but accusatory.
    Bertha Mae leaned in close her eyes suddenly so much like those of her