Chapter 4 - THE MONEY
Rachel arrived eighteen minutes later carrying a brown accordion folder and the expression of someone walking into a fire she had already smelled from miles away.
The moment she entered, I hugged her.
Then I stepped back.
“You should have told me.”
“I know.”
Her eyes filled with guilt.
“I wanted to.”
“But?”
She glanced at Michael.
“He asked me not to until we could prove it.”
I looked at him.
“That was your first mistake.”
Then I looked at Rachel.
“And agreeing was yours.”
She nodded.
No excuses.
That mattered.
Rachel placed the folder on the dining table.
Diane stayed near the fireplace.
She hadn’t tried to leave again.
Maybe because six relatives were now watching her.
Maybe because running would look worse.
Rachel opened the file.
“The monthly payments to Lauren came from Halston Development.”
Michael’s family company.
Robert leaned forward.
“That’s impossible.”
Rachel shook her head.
“They were disguised as consulting expenses.”
Michael asked, “How much?”
“Originally?”
Rachel turned a page.
“Five thousand dollars a month.”
Diane scoffed.
“Hardly a fortune.”
Rachel looked up.
“For fourteen years.”
Nobody spoke.
She slid a spreadsheet across the table.
“With increases, one-time transfers, housing payments, and private school tuition, the total is just under 1.4 million dollars.”
Michael stared at the number.
“Why would Mom pay Lauren that much just to stay away?”
Rachel looked at Diane.
“That’s the question.”
Diane’s jaw tightened.
Rachel pulled out another document.
“The stranger part is that three years ago, the payments stopped coming from the company.”
Michael frowned.
“Then where did they come from?”
Rachel looked at me.
I immediately understood I was not going to like the answer.
“Your joint investment account.”
I stared at her.
“No.”
“I checked it four times.”
“That account requires both our approval for large withdrawals.”
Rachel said nothing.
I looked at Michael.
He looked horrified.
“I never approved them.”
Diane muttered, “This is ridiculous.”
Rachel removed one final paper.
“Then explain Claire’s signature.”
She slid it toward me.
My name was at the bottom.
Claire Bennett.
Except I had never signed it.
I knew every curve of my own handwriting.
That signature was close.
Very close.
But wrong.
I lifted the page.
“This is forged.”
Diane laughed.
“You’re becoming hysterical.”
I looked at her.
“You slapped me.”
I placed the forged document on the table.
“You insulted my child.”
I placed another page beside it.
“And now I’m looking at my name on a document I never signed.”
I stepped closer.
“Hysterical is not the word you’re looking for.”
Diane’s eyes flicked toward Michael.
For help.
He didn’t move.
Rachel quietly said, “There’s one more signature.”
She turned the last page around.
Michael looked down.
Then he went pale.
The signature belonged to his father.
A man who had been dead for nine years.
May you like
The document had been signed six months ago.
*
