Chapter 15 - The Affair Began Before Everett DiedMelanie cried first.
Wyatt looked at her.
“Don’t.”
She laughed through tears.
“Still telling me what to do?”
“No.”
“Good.”
Landon waited.
The snow outside the lake house had thickened.
Everything beyond the windows looked white and silent.
Inside, his marriage kept becoming older.
Dirtier.
More deliberate.
Melanie spoke.
“Two years.”
Landon stared.
“Two years?”
She nodded.
“Twenty-six months.”
Everett died eighteen months earlier.
Six months before his death.
Landon looked at Wyatt.
“You slept with my wife while Dad was alive.”
“Yes.”
“At family dinners?”
Wyatt closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
“At Christmas?”
Melanie began crying harder.
“Yes.”
Landon remembered.
Christmas at Everett’s lake house.
Melanie wearing green.
Wyatt joking with Eli.
Everett unusually quiet.
Had their father known then?
Had he watched?
Why had he said nothing?
“What did Dad see?”
Wyatt shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
Nathan contacted Owen’s attorney.
The recording was delivered through police.
Everett’s voice appeared first.
Dated nine months before his death.
“I know about Melanie.”
Wyatt looked physically ill.
Then Everett:
“I saw you leave Landon’s house at four in the morning.”
Silence on the tape.
Wyatt’s younger voice:
“It isn’t what you think.”
Even Landon almost laughed at the familiar sentence.
Everett answered:
“Then you are stupider than I raised you to be.”
Wyatt said nothing.
Everett continued.
“You end it.”
“Dad—”
“You end it today.”
“You don’t know anything about our marriage.”
“Your brother’s marriage.”
“She was mine first.”
Landon closed his eyes.
There.
The belief.
Everett’s voice became cold.
“No person is yours.”
Wyatt:
“You always take his side.”
“I am taking the side of the man whose brother is sleeping with his wife.”
“Landon doesn’t deserve her.”
“That is for Melanie to decide by leaving him honestly.”
Silence.
Then Everett said:
“If you continue, you will have no role in Reed Development.”
Wyatt stood from the table.
“I never heard this recording.”
Nathan looked at him.
“You were there.”
“No.”
“What?”
Wyatt stared.
“That conversation happened. But Dad recorded it without telling me.”
Landon looked at him.
“Did you end the affair?”
Wyatt’s face answered.
Everett had continued recording after Wyatt left.
His voice became quieter.
“He will hate me.”
Then another voice.
Owen.
Landon froze.
Owen had been in Everett’s room.
Alive.
Months before the supposed natural death.
Owen said:
“Then give him what he wants.”
Everett:
“No.”
“He’ll destroy Landon otherwise.”
“I know.”
“Then remove him.”
“I’m changing the trust.”
There it was.
Everett planned to reduce Wyatt’s control.
Not because he loved Landon more.
Because he knew Wyatt was actively betraying him.
Owen’s voice:
“And when Wyatt finds out?”
“He’ll blame Landon.”
“Yes.”
“That is why I’m writing him a letter.”
Owen laughed.
“You still think letters fix sons.”
Everett:
“No.”
A pause.
“I think truth gives them a chance.”
The recording continued.
Then Owen asked:
“What happens to my son?”
“Nathan is not part of your inheritance.”
“He is Reed blood.”
“He is Olivia’s son and the Coles’ child.”
“He belongs here.”
“No.”
Owen’s voice hardened.
“You stole him.”
Everett:
“I saved him.”
Then the recording ended.
Landon looked at Wyatt.
“You knew Dad caught you.”
“Yes.”
“But you told me the affair started after his funeral.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because fourteen months sounded less monstrous than two years.”
Landon laughed.
“That was your calculation?”
“Yes.”
Melanie looked at Landon.
“I wanted to tell you when your father caught us.”
“But?”
“Wyatt begged me not to.”
“Of course.”
“He said Everett would tell you.”
“He didn’t.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know.”
Landon did.
Everett had always believed he could manage disasters privately.
Protect the company.
Protect sons.
Control outcomes.
Maybe he planned to confront Landon.
Maybe death came first.
Nathan received another file from police.
Everett’s draft letter to Wyatt.
He read aloud.
Wyatt,
I know you will believe I chose Landon over you. The truth is harder. I chose not to reward what you are becoming.
Wyatt lowered his head.
You are angry because Landon has things you want. That anger is making you confuse desire with injustice.
Melanie looked away.
If you love Melanie, tell your brother and accept what follows. If you do not love her, leave her alone. What you are doing now is neither love nor courage.
Wyatt began crying.
Landon felt no satisfaction.
The letter continued.
I will not give company control to a man who solves pain by taking from his brother.
Silence.
Then Nathan stopped.
“There’s another page.”
“What?”
Nathan looked at Landon.
“Addressed to you.”
Landon’s chest tightened.
Landon,
If you are reading this, then I probably failed to tell you something because I was waiting for the right time. That has been my worst habit.
Landon almost smiled sadly.
Your wife and your brother have betrayed you.
Melanie covered her face.
Do not let their betrayal turn Eli into a weapon.
Landon stopped breathing.
Everett knew exactly what Landon might become.
Children do not need perfect parents. They need adults who refuse to make them pay for adult sins.
Landon looked toward Melanie.
She was crying.
His father continued from beyond death.
Be angry. Leave if you need to. Forgive if you can. But do not teach your son that love disappears when adults fail each other.
Landon closed his eyes.
For the first time since the closet opened, his anger did not disappear.
It became clearer.
He could hate what Melanie had done.
He could never trust Wyatt again.
He could still protect Eli from carrying their damage.
Nathan folded the letter.
Then looked at Landon.
“There’s one final line.”
“What?”
Nathan read:
And if Owen is anywhere near this family when I die, do not trust the medical report.
Everyone went still.
The affair had been exposed.
The inheritance explained.
May you like
Now there was only one secret left.
How Everett Reed had really died.
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