Chapter 9 - The Deadline
My thirty-fifth birthday was twenty-three days away.
That became the most frightening number in my life.
Twenty-three days.
If nothing changed, the trust would become mine automatically.
Teresa knew that.
Suddenly every recent event had a deadline.
The forged deed.
The fake debt.
The conservatorship documents.
The lies about Amy.
The pressure on my father.
They were racing against my birthday.
Rachel filed an emergency petition challenging the trust amendment.
Douglas agreed to cooperate.
He also gave police every message Teresa had sent him.
One message stood out.
WE ONLY NEED TO KEEP CONNOR FROM CONTROLLING THE ASSETS UNTIL AFTER THE TRANSFER.
Rachel read it several times.
“What transfer?”
She asked.
Nobody knew.
Detective Hill contacted the trust’s investment manager.
That afternoon we discovered an attempted transaction.
Someone using documentation bearing Douglas’s electronic signature had submitted instructions to liquidate nearly $900,000 in securities.
The funds were supposed to move into an account belonging to a company called Cumberland Heritage Holdings.
I had never heard of it.
Rachel searched the corporate registration.
The company had been formed three months earlier.
Its listed organizer was Gerald Pike.
There it was.
The destination.
My mother and Gerald were not merely positioning Teresa to control the trust.
They were preparing to drain it.
The investment manager had delayed the transfer because one authorization code was missing.
That delay may have saved almost a million dollars.
Police obtained another warrant.
Gerald’s apartment was empty.
His clothes were gone.
His computer was gone.
He had disappeared.
Teresa was released on bond under strict conditions.
She was prohibited from contacting me, Amy, or Douglas.
That evening, a black SUV stopped across the street from our hotel.
It remained there for forty minutes.
Security photographed the license plate.
The vehicle was registered to Cumberland Heritage Holdings.
By the time police arrived, it was gone.
Amy looked at me.
“We can’t keep living like this.”
“We won’t.”
I said.
The next morning, we moved into a secured rental property arranged by Rachel’s firm.
Nobody in my extended family received the address.
Then Detective Hill called.
“We located Gerald’s phone.”
“Where?”
“Airport parking garage.”
“Did he leave Nashville?”
“We don’t think so.”
“Why?”
Hill hesitated.
“Because security footage shows someone else parking the vehicle.”
He emailed me a still image.
The picture was grainy.
But I recognized the person immediately.
May you like
Aunt Betsy.
And in her hand was the blue birthday gift bag I had brought home for Amy on Frederick’s birthday.
