Chapter 2 - Ten Percent
Daniel locked Vanessa out of the private study.
He did not lock her out of the lodge.
Not yet.
A snowstorm had closed the mountain road, and Daniel refused to create another dangerous situation with Caleb and Mia inside.
Instead he called the county sheriff.
Vanessa laughed when she heard him.
“You’re calling police because of family paperwork?”
“No.”
Daniel looked at Caleb’s wet sweater.
“I’m calling because you hit my son, threw water in his face, planted stolen property on yourself to frame him, and prepared documents to remove my children.”
Vanessa folded her arms.
“I disciplined him.”
Mia whispered, “You framed him.”
Vanessa turned.
“Mia, you have no idea what you recorded.”
“I know enough.”
Daniel immediately stepped between them again.
“Do not speak to her like that.”
Vanessa’s face tightened.
“You never used to treat me like an enemy.”
“I never watched you strike Caleb before.”
“You weren’t here.”
The words landed badly.
Daniel had been at a lodge-management meeting in Vail.
Vanessa knew exactly when he would return.
Or thought she did.
The storm had ended the meeting early.
Had Daniel arrived thirty minutes later, Caleb might already have been forced to repeat a false confession.
Daniel looked toward his son.
Caleb’s cheek was red.
Not seriously injured.
But humiliated.
Daniel crouched.
“I believe you.”
Caleb looked at him as though he needed to hear it again.
“You believe me?”
“Yes.”
“I never touched Grandpa’s watch.”
“I know.”
Caleb began crying harder.
Daniel pulled him close.
Behind them, Vanessa said quietly, “This is exactly why he has problems.”
Daniel slowly stood.
“What?”
“He cries, he lies, and you rescue him.”
Mia raised the phone again.
“You’re still being recorded.”
Vanessa shut her mouth.
Sheriff’s deputies arrived forty minutes later using a county snow vehicle.
Deputy Sarah Monroe separated everyone.
Mia showed the video.
Daniel showed the watch.
Then the safe.
Vanessa immediately requested a lawyer.
That was her right.
Daniel did not object.
Deputy Monroe photographed Caleb’s face, the wet clothing, the watch, the leather case, the silver key, and every document visible inside the safe.
“Who owns the safe?” she asked.
“I do.”
“Who has access?”
“I believed only I did.”
“Where is your key?”
Daniel opened a locked desk drawer.
His primary key was still there.
Monroe looked at the silver duplicate.
“Who could have made this?”
Daniel knew immediately.
Victor.
Arthur had installed the safe twenty years earlier.
Victor handled estate documents kept inside it.
Daniel had never changed the lock.
A mistake.
The deputy asked, “What exactly is Blackwood Lodge Holdings?”
Daniel sat down.
“The company that owns this property and the commercial lodge operation.”
“Who owns the company?”
“Forty percent belongs to me.”
He hesitated.
“Twenty-five percent belongs to Mia. Twenty-five belongs to Caleb. Victor owns ten.”
Monroe looked at the children.
“They own half?”
“My father arranged it that way.”
Arthur had wanted Blackwood Lodge to remain family property.
Daniel received forty percent outright.
Mia and Caleb each inherited twenty-five percent in custodial ownership structures administered under Colorado’s version of the Uniform Transfers to Minors Act, with Daniel serving as custodian until the ages specified in Arthur’s estate plan.
Victor retained the ten percent he had owned since helping finance Blackwood Lodge’s expansion twenty-five years earlier.
Daniel had voting authority over Mia’s and Caleb’s units while serving as custodian.
That meant Daniel effectively controlled ninety percent.
Victor controlled ten.
Unless Daniel lost custodial authority.
Daniel looked at the guardianship papers again.
A cold realization formed.
Temporary guardianship of the children would not automatically transfer their company interests.
But the files included something more.
Petitions asking a court to remove Daniel as custodian of their property due alleged emotional instability and financial mismanagement.
The proposed successor custodian was a professional fiduciary.
Eleanor Price.
Daniel knew the name.
“She works with Victor.”
Deputy Monroe asked, “Would she control the children’s votes?”
“Potentially.”
Mia stared at him.
“So Vanessa wasn’t trying to own our shares?”
“No.”
“She was trying to control whoever controls them?”
“Yes.”
Vanessa’s expression remained unreadable.
Daniel continued reviewing.
Another document requested authorization for the proposed custodian to vote the children’s units in “extraordinary restructuring matters.”
A sale.
A mortgage.
A merger.
If Eleanor voted Mia and Caleb’s combined fifty percent with Victor’s ten, Victor would control sixty percent.
Enough to outvote Daniel.
Enough to control Blackwood Lodge Holdings.
Daniel looked at Vanessa.
“You were going to use the kids’ shares.”
“I didn’t prepare those.”
“Victor did?”
She said nothing.
The deputy bagged the documents as potential evidence after Daniel consented to their removal and photographing, subject to later legal procedures.
Vanessa was not arrested that night.
The deputy explained that investigators would consult prosecutors concerning the assault, theft-related conduct, and potential fraud.
Daniel hated how unsatisfying law could feel.
He wanted Vanessa gone.
Immediately.
But he also knew the children needed calm.
Vanessa packed a suitcase while Deputy Monroe remained present.
She stopped in the foyer.
“You think Victor is the villain?”
Daniel stared at her.
“He helped you plan this.”
Vanessa smiled faintly.
“You still don’t understand your father.”
Daniel’s jaw tightened.
“Leave Arthur out of this.”
“Arthur is the reason any of this exists.”
She pulled on the burgundy coat.
The same coat that had held the watch.
Caleb flinched when he saw it.
Daniel noticed.
That single movement erased any hesitation.
“You will communicate through lawyers.”
Vanessa’s expression hardened.
“You can’t keep me out of my own home forever.”
Daniel looked around the lodge.
The home belonged to Blackwood Lodge Holdings.
Vanessa owned no membership units.
But as Daniel’s wife, she still had marital rights and due process.
He would handle it correctly.
He had already learned what happened when people treated law as something they could manufacture.
Vanessa left with deputies escorting her to a nearby hotel accessible by county vehicle.
Mia sat beside Caleb near the fireplace afterward.
Neither child wanted dinner.
Daniel made hot chocolate anyway.
Then Mia asked the question he had been avoiding.
“Dad?”
“Yes?”
“Why would Grandpa give Victor ten percent?”
Daniel looked toward the old portrait of Arthur Mercer hanging over the staircase.
“Because Victor saved the lodge once.”
“When?”
“Before either of you were born.”
“How?”
Daniel hesitated.
Arthur had nearly lost Blackwood Lodge during a recession.
Victor invested cash and negotiated with lenders.
Arthur always said Victor had saved the family property.
Mia looked at him.
“Maybe Grandpa was wrong about him.”
Daniel thought about the photograph.
The key.
The paperwork.
Then Mia’s phone chimed.
Her cloud backup had completed.
A transcription application had processed the entire recording.
Mia looked at the screen.
“Dad.”
“What?”
“There’s more after the part we heard.”
Daniel sat beside her.
The man believed to be Victor said:
“Price signs once Daniel is declared conflicted. Then we call the vote before he can appeal.”
Vanessa answered:
“And after the sale?”
Victor’s voice became clear.
“North Ridge owns the lodge.”
Daniel frowned.
He had never heard of North Ridge.
Then Vanessa laughed softly on the recording.
“And North Ridge belongs to us.”
Daniel looked toward the storm outside.
The children’s removal was not the final objective.
May you like
It was merely the mechanism.
Someone had already created a company to buy Blackwood Lodge from them.
