Chapter 4 - THE ORIGINAL WILL
I forwarded the photograph of our gate to Maya and our security director before I answered a single message. Whoever had sent it knew where we lived. I wasn't going to reward the mystery with a private meeting.
At breakfast, Noah noticed that Julian and I kept looking at our phones. He made a face over his cereal.
"Is somebody trying to buy Harborline again?"
"Not today," Julian said. "Why?"
"Because you both get the same worried eyebrows when people talk about money."
He demonstrated the expression so perfectly that I laughed in spite of myself. My son had Julian's dimples, my stubborn chin, and an uncanny ability to identify the conversation adults least wanted to have.
"We're dealing with a family problem," I told him. "It's for grown-ups to work out. You haven't done anything wrong."
"The people at the gate?"
I nodded. "They're my parents and my sister. I haven't seen them in a long time."
He put down his spoon. "Why?"
Children deserve the truth. They don't deserve every ugly detail before they're ready. Julian and I had discussed this long before my mother reappeared.
"They said hurtful things about our family," I said. "They haven't shown they can treat us kindly. Until they do, you won't be spending time with them."
Noah considered that. "Are they the reason Dad isn't in your old family pictures?"
"Yes."
He stared at his cereal. Then he climbed off his stool and hugged Julian around the waist. My husband kissed the top of his head and somehow managed to look both proud and devastated.
After school drop-off, I went to my attorney's office with the unsigned threats and every original document I could find. Maya's associate had already retrieved publicly available corporate filings. Whitcomb River Holdings owned three working warehouses, an abandoned grain terminal, and a strip of waterfront property next to a rail connection. Two years ago, the city approved infrastructure improvements that made the property considerably more valuable.
Ruth's eighteen-percent interest was no longer a sentimental inheritance. Based on preliminary figures, it could be worth several million dollars, though a defensible valuation would take expert work.
"Your father is the estate's executor," Maya said. "We need to obtain the records and establish where the originals were deposited. There are formal procedures for that."
"The anonymous message says Dad has the will."
"Then we'll test that information. We won't assume the sender is friendly just because the message supports our theory."
That afternoon, a woman called Maya's office and identified herself as Denise Cole, formerly the Whitcomb family's office manager. She asked to speak with me in the presence of counsel. Maya arranged a meeting in a neutral conference room rather than giving her our address.
Denise arrived carrying a canvas tote with a broken zipper. She looked tired and furious. I remembered her from childhood: the person who knew where every Christmas gift was hidden, who quietly gave the grounds crew hot chocolate when my mother insisted winter employees should be grateful simply to have jobs.
"I should've found you sooner," she told me.
"You took the picture outside my gate?"
"I did. Your mother had me followed after I resigned. I didn't trust her to let a warning reach you if I sent it through the usual channels. The photograph was a mistake. I'm sorry I frightened you."
I was grateful she acknowledged it without pretending good intentions excused everything.
"What do you know?" Maya asked.
Denise removed a folder from her tote. "I handled Ruth's correspondence when she was ill. After she died, Richard told me not to forward anything addressed to Claire. He said she had rejected the family. I objected, but I kept my job. That's on me."
She had copies of a shipping receipt, an inventory of Ruth's office safe, and an email in which my father instructed Denise to transfer a sealed envelope to his private filing cabinet rather than the estate attorney.
"The original will?" I asked.
"I believe so. I never opened it. But I saw Ruth place a signed testament in that envelope. She told me herself it was meant to protect you."
I sat back, my stomach tight. "Why now?"
Denise's eyes filled. "Because they fired two warehouse workers last month and told them the business had no money. Meanwhile, your mother authorized a landscaping project that cost more than those workers earned in a year. I asked questions. Richard said my position was eliminated."
She'd spent seventeen years helping make the family operation run and had been discarded the instant she became inconvenient. The pattern was painfully familiar.
Maya reviewed the documents. "This gives us additional leads. We can seek the original through the proper process. Would you be willing to provide a formal statement?"
Denise nodded. "Yes. But there's something Claire needs to understand."
She slid across one more printout. It was a recent refinancing application for Whitcomb River Holdings, supported by an asset schedule that included Ruth's former interest. My forged release was referenced by document number.
"Your father has been using those shares to support the company's borrowing," Denise said. "The lender is reviewing the loan. If the ownership records unravel, so does his financial story."
"Then why does Mom want Julian's company involved?"
Denise turned the printout over. On the back was a draft letter from my father proposing that Harborline lease the grain terminal for fifteen years and guarantee extensive renovation work. He hadn't merely hoped Julian would give him a job. He wanted Harborline's public-company balance sheet to rescue a family business built partly on assets stolen from me.
When I got home, Julian was helping Noah test his paper bridge with a row of toy trucks. For a moment I watched from the doorway. My husband pretended a particularly heavy truck was stranded in a flood. Noah instructed him to build stronger supports.
"He's right," I said softly.
Julian looked up. He understood I wasn't only talking about cardboard.
May you like
Before dinner, Maya emailed again. The court had recorded a request from Richard's attorney to substitute a newer testamentary document for Ruth's estate. It was dated three months before her death—later than the will Margaret Hale had prepared.
The new document reportedly left everything to my father.
