Chapter 9
I replayed the video.
My father looked tired.
Older than I remembered.
“Catherine created the first fraudulent transfer,” he said.
“She convinced Evelyn that Henry was hiding assets. Evelyn retaliated. What began as greed became blackmail.”
David stood behind me.
Lily was asleep safely upstairs with a police officer stationed outside.
Robert continued.
“Years later, Catherine discovered the trust I created for Lily. She wanted control.”
I felt sick.
My own mother.
The woman who had sat beside Lily’s hospital bed after previous allergy attacks.
The woman who baked her birthday cakes.
“She joined Evelyn?”
Robert answered from four years in the past.
“Catherine and Evelyn hate each other, but greed makes strange partners.”
Then he described the arrangement.
Evelyn would seek custody through David’s side.
Catherine would challenge through mine.
Whichever woman gained control would split access to trust assets and destroy the archive.
My hands went numb.
“They’ve been planning this for years.”
Collins nodded.
The video continued.
“If I die unexpectedly, test for flecainide.”
That was the drug found in Robert’s preserved sample.
My father had known.
He suspected someone was going to kill him.
Then he said:
“Michael is reckless, but he does not know the full plan.”
I breathed slowly.
Michael was guilty of helping Evelyn attack Lily’s custody rights.
But perhaps not murder.
“Catherine knows where Emily is,” Robert continued.
“She also knows Henry’s death was not the first.”
Emily moved closer.
“What does that mean?”
Robert leaned toward the camera.
“Twenty-nine years ago, before either family unraveled, an accountant named Thomas Bell discovered the forged transfers.”
Collins immediately searched.
Thomas Bell.
Died in a vehicle accident.
Twenty-nine years ago.
My stomach tightened.
Another accident.
The video ended with Robert saying:
“Find Thomas’s daughter.”
Collins searched.
Her name was Laura Bell.
Current occupation:
Assistant District Attorney.
Everyone stared at the screen.
An hour later, Laura arrived.
She knew our names immediately.
“I’ve been waiting for this.”
She carried a box her father had left with relatives before his death.
Inside were original partnership records.
They proved Catherine and Evelyn had stolen nearly two million dollars from Mitchell-Walker Development decades earlier.
Inflation and investment growth explained the three-million-dollar trust.
Robert had recovered much of the stolen money and placed it where neither woman could access it.
Lily’s trust.
Laura also had a recording.
Thomas Bell arguing with Catherine.
“You forged Henry’s signature.”
My mother answered:
“You have no idea what you’re involving yourself in.”
Then Evelyn’s voice.
“Take the money and walk away.”
Thomas refused.
The recording ended.
He died two days later.
I felt numb.
“How many people did they hurt?”
Laura looked at me.
“We’re going to find out.”
Then Collins’s phone rang.
He listened.
His expression became urgent.
“They found Catherine’s car.”
“Where?”
“Near the old Walker lake house.”
David went pale.
“My family sold that place twenty years ago.”
“No.”
Emily whispered.
“Mom bought it through a shell company.”
I stood.
“Then Catherine might be there.”
Collins grabbed his coat.
Police headed out immediately.
Before leaving, Laura stopped me.
“There’s something else in your father’s trust.”
“What?”
“A sealed amendment.”
“About Lily?”
“Yes.”
“What does it say?”
Laura hesitated.
“If Lily is intentionally harmed by anyone attempting to obtain the trust…”
My heart pounded.
“…that person and every cooperating beneficiary permanently loses any claim.”
I stared at her.
“So Evelyn and Michael already lost?”
“Yes.”
“And Catherine?”
“If she participated, yes.”
“Then who gets control?”
Laura looked toward the stairs where my daughter slept.
“Not control.”
“What?”
“Everything.”
When Lily turns twenty-one, the trust does not remain three million dollars.
It receives Robert’s remaining development shares.
Current estimated value:
Thirty-two million.
My stomach dropped.
May you like
Suddenly three million was only the beginning.
And somewhere across town, two women who had already endangered my daughter might have just learned the same thing.
