My Husband And His Stepmother Called Me Their “cash Cow” While Sleeping Together. Then He Trapped Me In A Cave To Die For My Money. How Do I Make Sure They Never See Daylight Again?

Whispers from the Estate

Leaving the cafe, I didn’t go home. I drove straight to the family estate in the Berkshires. The memorial was tomorrow, and I needed to be there, not just to fulfill my role as the beautiful daughter-in-law, but to search for something else.

I had a hunch that the answers to Evelyn’s past might be hidden in this solemn old place.

The Thompson family estate sat quietly at the end of a small lane, isolated from the noise of the main road. It had a timeless, somber beauty with a moss-covered slate roof and stone walls that had darkened with age.

This wasn’t my first time here. For the past seven years on the anniversary of Kevin’s mother’s death, I would come here a day early, all by myself, to clean and prepare. Kevin always said he was busy; Evelyn claimed she wasn’t used to manual labor. Only I, the daughter-in-law with no blood ties, was the one who meticulously cared for the ancestral heart of my husband’s family.

But today, I returned not just with the reverence of a daughter-in-law, but with another purpose. I was looking for something—a missing piece of Evelyn’s past.

The estate’s caretaker was Mr. Henderson, a distant relative well into his 80s but still sharp as a tack. He lived alone in a small cottage next to the main house. Since I had married into the family, he was one of the few people who treated me with genuine warmth. He often called me a good, hard-working girl.

Seeing me arrive, he was delighted, leaning on his cane as he came to greet me at the gate.

“Anna, is that you? All by your lonesome again, getting things ready for the missus? Where’s that boy Kevin and his new mother letting you do all this heavy lifting?”

I smiled and took his arm.

“Kevin has a meeting and Evelyn isn’t feeling too well, so I came ahead. How have you been, Mr. Henderson?”

He sighed and shook his head.

“Getting old, deary. Can’t complain, just taking it one day at a time. Come on in, rest your feet, have a cup of tea.”

I sat and talked with him for a long while, asking about his health and chatting about trivial family matters. I didn’t rush to ask about Evelyn. I knew that with old folks like him, you needed patience and a natural way of bringing things up.

I feigned a sigh.

“I don’t know why, but I’ve been having trouble sleeping lately. Just worrying about things. I’m concerned about Arthur’s health. He was so devastated after Kevin’s mother passed. It’s a good thing Evelyn came along to take care of him, otherwise…”

I let my sentence trail off. Mr. Henderson took a sip of his tea, his eyes gazing out at the mossy yard.

“Well, it’s all fate, I suppose. Evelyn coming into this family was a strange thing. Everyone was surprised back then.”

“Surprised? Why?”

I feigned curiosity.

“I heard she was an old family friend.”

He let out a short, dismissive laugh.

“Friend? No. She was introduced by some acquaintance. The strange part is, before she met your father-in-law, she’d been married before. But somehow all information about her ex-husband and his family was kept quiet as a tomb. No one’s ever even seen a picture from her first wedding. We only heard whispers that she was originally from way up north, near the Canadian border. Married a fella and followed him down south to start a life. Then something happened, they divorced, and she ended up back here all alone.”

His words hit me like a lightning bolt. A previous husband from near the border? Why had I never known any of this? In seven years, Kevin and his entire family had deliberately hidden this from me.

Seeing my stunned expression, Mr. Henderson continued, his voice lowering.

“It was a long time ago. Nobody in the family likes to talk about it. But I’ll tell you this, since she arrived, the character of this Thompson family… it’s just been different. Your father-in-law got quieter and quieter, like a ghost in his own house. And Kevin, he was always a good, respectful boy, but since she became his stepmother, he just does whatever she says. No mind of his own. Sometimes I look at the situation and I feel so sorry for his poor mother. She was a saint of a woman, spent her whole life caring for her husband and son, and yet…”

He didn’t finish, just sighed. But I understood. I understood his vague sense of unease. Evelyn was not just a stepmother; she had a mysterious past and she had somehow manipulated both my husband and my father-in-law.

The Poisoned Journal

I sat for a while longer then excused myself to go clean the main house. My mind was in turmoil. The information Mr. Henderson had shared, though fragmented, opened up a new line of investigation. A woman with a hidden past, an ex-husband erased from history. What had happened?

While dusting the memorial mantle, my hand brushed against an old wooden box tucked deep inside a cabinet. It was fastened with a tarnished brass lock. Curious, I gave it a gentle shake. The lock wasn’t very secure.

I used a hair pin from my bun and, after a moment of fiddling, it clicked open. Inside were not memorial items, but a few keepsakes from Kevin’s late mother: a yellow journal, a few black and white photographs, and a bundle of letters tied neatly with a faded purple ribbon.

My heart pounded. This was the private property of the deceased. I shouldn’t touch it, but some instinct told me that the answers I was searching for might lie within these fragile pages.

With trembling hands, I opened the journal. Her handwriting was soft and gentle. I flipped to the last few entries, written in the time leading up to her death. And then a line of text made my entire body go cold.

She came again today. She brought medicine, said it was a traditional family remedy. But I don’t know why, every time I take her medicine, I feel so tired, my head feels foggy. She…

Who was the mysterious woman who brought medicine to Kevin’s mother in her final days? The shaky handwriting on the old journal page was like a cold needle piercing my mind. She came again today. My whole body trembled, not from fear, but from a rage that was beginning to boil over.

Kevin’s biological mother, a woman who by all accounts from Mr. Henderson and other family elders was kind and virtuous, had to spend her final days in such fatigue and doubt. I hastily flipped to the next pages.

Her handwriting grew increasingly unsteady, difficult to read, and in some places it was smudged as if by tears.

Arr…

She wrote, referring to my father-in-law,

…has been so strange lately. He’s withdrawn and quiet. When I ask about the medicine, he just brushes it off and tells me not to worry. But I can see the fear in his eyes. Fear of whom? Fear of what?

And then on the very last page, there was only a single word scrolled hastily as if the writer had used her last ounce of strength:

Evelyn. Careful. Evelyn.

The name was like a clap of thunder. My entire body froze. She—the mysterious woman with the traditional remedy—was Evelyn. So her connection to this family didn’t begin after Kevin’s mother died. She had been here before, playing the part of a caring friend with a cure.

And was the death of Kevin’s mother really just from a sudden illness? A horrifying theory began to form in my mind, one that sent a chill down my spine just thinking about it. Kevin’s mother didn’t die of natural causes. She was slowly poisoned, and the person who did it was none other than the woman who now occupied her place, slept in her bed, and was having an affair with her own son.

I sank to the cold floor, clutching the journal, my body shaking uncontrollably. This was no longer just about financial fraud or a sick relationship. This was murder. A crime that had been perfectly concealed for ten years.

Now I understood. I understood why my father-in-law had become so withdrawn and silent. He knew. He knew everything, but he had chosen silence, perhaps out of fear or for some other reason I couldn’t yet comprehend.

I understood why Evelyn’s past was so carefully hidden. Because it wasn’t just about a divorce; it likely contained even darker secrets.

With trembling hands, I placed the journal and letters back in the wooden box. I couldn’t let anyone know what I had discovered—not yet, not until I had more concrete evidence. Things had now escalated far beyond my ability to handle alone. I needed Maya, and I needed to proceed with more caution than ever.