Chapter 11 - Thirty-One Percent
The full message thread was recovered from Grant’s laptop backup.
It began two years before Nathan married Bianca.
Grant: He won’t sell while the trust blocks him.
Bianca: Then make him want a different life.
Grant: You think you can get close?
Bianca: You introduced us. Leave the rest to me.
Months later:
Grant: He proposed?
Bianca: Last night.
Grant: That was fast.
Bianca: He’s lonely.
Nathan stopped reading.
His hands shook.
David said, “You don’t have to finish now.”
“Yes, I do.”
Another exchange.
Bianca: He still talks to Amelia.
Grant: She’s dead.
Bianca: He talks to her picture.
Grant: Then become the future.
Bianca: That’s the plan.
Nathan’s throat tightened.
There were hundreds of messages.
Some business.
Some sexual.
Some cruel.
Some strangely ordinary.
Bianca complaining about Nathan’s snoring.
Grant joking about hotel food.
Then references to Lily became more frequent.
Bianca: The kid hates me.
Grant: Doesn’t matter.
Bianca: It matters if she keeps telling Catherine things.
Grant: Nathan never believes her over you.
Bianca: True.
Nathan closed his eyes.
The sentence echoed Marisol’s recording.
Because he wants to.
Then came the trust.
Grant: Rebecca still blocks sale of the 31.
Bianca: Can Nathan replace her?
Grant: Not while Lily is living beneficiary.
Bianca: If Lily dies?
Grant: Jesus.
Bianca: Legal question.
Grant: Shares revert to Nathan.
Bianca: Meaning?
Grant: He has 82. We need 75.
Bianca: Good to know.
Three months later:
Bianca: Ridgewell still at 410?
Grant: Could go 450.
Bianca: My postnup scales with his proceeds.
Grant: If it survives.
Bianca: It will.
Then the message that changed the criminal case.
Nine days before the rapids:
Bianca: What would happen if Lily had an accident before a sale?
Grant: Stop.
Bianca: Answer.
Grant: I’m not discussing this.
Bianca: You already did.
Grant: I told you trust mechanics. Not this.
Bianca: Then forget I asked.
There were no further written references to harming Lily.
Ruiz leaned back.
“Grant is in serious trouble for fraud and conspiracy related to Ridgewell.”
“But not attempted murder,” Nathan said.
“Not yet.”
“He knew.”
“He knew Bianca raised the possibility.”
“He didn’t report it.”
“That is morally terrible. Criminal liability for what Bianca later did is a separate question.”
Nathan hated the distinction.
But he was learning to survive distinctions.
Grant was arrested that afternoon on charges related to wire fraud, commercial bribery, falsified corporate disclosures and conspiracy.
He was released under strict conditions after surrendering his passport.
Reporters surrounded him.
“Did Bianca Hayes try to kill Lily?”
Grant said nothing.
“Did you have an affair with Mrs. Hayes?”
Nothing.
“Did you arrange her marriage to Nathan?”
Grant entered a black SUV.
Nathan watched on television.
Lily entered the room.
He switched it off.
“You don’t have to hide it,” she said.
“I don’t want you seeing everything.”
“Why?”
“Because some things are adult problems.”
Lily crossed her arms.
“That’s what Bianca said.”
Nathan froze.
“What?”
“When I asked why she was always with Mr. Grant.”
Nathan felt another knife turn.
“She told me it was adult business.”
“What did you see?”
Lily sat.
“They kissed.”
“When?”
“At our house.”
Nathan looked away.
“I’m sorry.”
“Why are you sorry?”
“Because that probably confused you.”
Lily shrugged.
“I knew it was bad.”
Nathan almost laughed at the simplicity.
Seven-year-olds understood certain truths adults spent fortunes avoiding.
Lily continued.
“I took a picture.”
Nathan turned sharply.
“What?”
“On my tablet.”
“Do you still have it?”
“Bianca deleted it.”
His heart sank.
“But Mom taught me pictures go to the cloud.”
Nathan stared.
Amelia had taught Lily that when she was four.
A child’s tablet backup account still existed under Nathan’s family cloud subscription.
Digital forensics recovered deleted photographs.
There was Bianca.
Inside Nathan’s home office.
Kissing Grant.
The timestamp was eight months earlier.
But another photograph mattered more.
Lily had taken it accidentally while hiding behind a chair.
Grant and Bianca stood beside Nathan’s desk.
A document lay between them.
Grant’s finger pointed to a highlighted paragraph.
Nathan zoomed in.
It was Amelia’s trust agreement.
The highlighted section was the remainder clause.
If Lily died before twenty-five, the thirty-one percent reverted to Nathan.
The photo had been taken six months before the rapids.
Nathan looked at Ruiz.
“They weren’t discussing a hypothetical.”
Ruiz nodded.
“They were studying the exact clause.”
Then the forensic examiner enlarged the edge of the photograph.
May you like
Beside the trust document sat a printed schematic.
Silver Pine Rapids.
