PART 2 — The Shadow of the Past
The winter morning light shone weakly through the dusty attic window, falling upon the open ruby-red chest. With bated breath, I pulled out the thick, yellowed envelope. The paper felt thick and heavy, as if carrying decades of sorrow and evidence. My father's signature and notary Van der Linden's signature adorned the seal, but it was my late wife Clara's handwriting that captured my gaze. Clara had always had a sharp mind, sharper than mine. Where I was blind in my love for Jons, she had fathomed our son's true nature long before he grew up.
I tore open the envelope and pulled out a handwritten letter dated the day before she was hospitalized.
"Dear Thomas," it began. "If you are reading this, I am no longer here, and you have reached the point for which I warned you. Jons is not cut from the same cloth as us. He possesses a hunger for status that blinds him to love and loyalty. The house on Lindelaan, the house you are now taking care of, was never truly his. And furthermore... the mortgage, the property deeds, everything rests on a foundation of deception that Sabine and Jons have carefully kept hidden from you."
My heart skipped a beat. The house on Lindelaan. The property whose renovations I had funded for ten years, where I had done the painting work, where I had straightened every tile. Jons had always claimed he bought the house entirely on his own with the help of a generous starter loan and an inheritance from a distant uncle of Sabine's. But when I pulled the cadastral documents out from under the letter, the ground trembled beneath my feet.
The title deed was not in Jons's name. Moreover, it bore a name I hadn't heard in thirty years: Mr. G.H. van Dijck, a notary from Rotterdam known for his practices in third-party real estate transactions. And as the beneficiary, with a usufruct that only takes effect after the original owner's death—or upon an official breach of contract—one person was listed: Clara H. de Jong, my late wife.
How was that possible? Clara had never had money, I always thought. She had been a simple librarian. Where did this property come from?
I flipped through the photos. The first photo showed a younger version of Sabine, standing in front of that very house, talking to an older man I remembered as Sabine's uncle—the same uncle who supposedly left the inheritance. But on the back of the photo was a handwritten note by Clara: "Sabine and her uncle are meeting in secret. They are plotting the takeover of Lindelaan via a sham mortgage."
The puzzle pieces fell into place with terrifying speed. Jons had never told me about the true financial structure because Sabine had forbidden him to. They wanted my labor, my money, and my kindness while plotting behind my back to completely shut me out as soon as the house was fully transferred to their name. And the deadline for that transfer? That was today. January 1st.
Suddenly, the doorbell of my apartment rang downstairs. A sharp, piercing chime echoing through the quiet house. I froze. Who could that be on New Year's morning, less than twelve hours after I was shown the door?
