Chapter 2 - Northstar Renovation
Grant tried a different tone.
“Emily, listen to me carefully.”
“No.”
“You’ve listened to a recording from a sick man for thirty seconds and decided you understand corporate accounting.”
“My sick father knew exactly what you were going to accuse him of.”
“He was paranoid.”
Emily stared.
The insult came too easily.
Grant had practiced it.
Diane walked to the sideboard and closed the secret drawer.
“You should never have found any of this.”
Emily looked at her.
“Dad said you’d try to make me leave.”
Diane’s face hardened.
“You’ve barely been here since college started.”
“That doesn’t make it your house.”
“It became my home the day I married your father.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
Grant said, “Enough.”
Emily looked at him.
He was used to being obeyed.
Her father had once joked that Grant could turn ordering coffee into a board meeting.
Now it wasn’t funny.
Emily picked up the envelope and phone.
“I’m calling Dad’s lawyer.”
Diane smiled.
“Which one?”
Emily stopped.
Grant’s expression changed.
That was another answer.
Inside the envelope, beneath the proposed property transfer, was a single handwritten card.
Call Rebecca Sloan. Not Daniel Mercer.
Emily recognized Daniel Mercer’s name immediately.
Mercer had handled the probate filings after Thomas died five months earlier.
He had sat beside Diane at the funeral reception and told Emily everything was “being handled.”
Emily had believed him.
She searched her father’s phone contacts.
Rebecca Sloan.
She called.
A woman answered on the fourth ring.
“Thomas?”
Emily’s throat tightened.
“No. This is Emily.”
Silence.
Then Rebecca said, “Where did you get this phone?”
“My dad hid it.”
“Are you alone?”
Emily looked at Grant and Diane.
“No.”
“Is Grant there?”
Emily swallowed.
“Yes.”
“Do not sign anything.”
Grant’s face tightened.
Emily said, “He says Dad stole three-point-eight million dollars.”
Rebecca inhaled slowly.
“Thomas expected that.”
Grant stepped toward her.
“This is confidential family business.”
Emily turned away.
Rebecca said, “I’m twenty minutes from the house.”
“How do you know where I am?”
“Because your father retained me six weeks before he died.”
Emily froze.
“For what?”
“To investigate the company and prepare changes to his estate plan.”
Diane’s voice sharpened.
“He was not competent six weeks before he died.”
Rebecca heard her.
“Diane, I would advise you to stop making legal assertions without your attorney present.”
Diane went pale.
Grant said, “Rebecca has a conflict.”
Rebecca replied through the phone, “And Grant has a financial interest. We can discuss everyone’s conflicts when I arrive.”
Grant walked into the hallway.
Emily heard him making a call.
Diane followed.
For the first time, Emily was alone.
Scout remained beside her.
She lowered herself to the floor again, this time voluntarily.
Her dinner still sat untouched in his bowl.
“You really didn’t eat it.”
Scout rested his head on her knee.
Emily rubbed his collar.
The brass key was still warm from her hand.
She turned it over.
Tiny letters had been scratched into one side.
W.S. 214
She frowned.
Not the sideboard.
Something else.
Her father’s phone vibrated.
A hidden folder had unlocked after the recording played.
Inside were photographs of invoices.
Northstar Renovation LLC.
Address:
A mailbox in Stamford.
Employees:
None listed.
Yet Harper Development had paid Northstar millions over six years.
Emily opened another photo.
A corporate authorization bearing Thomas Harper’s electronic signature.
Then another.
Grant’s signature.
Then a handwritten note from her father.
Grant created the invoices. I approved transfers because he told me Northstar was handling confidential subcontractor disputes. I discovered the truth after the audit.
Emily’s stomach twisted.
Her father had approved the money.
That meant Grant’s accusation was not entirely fabricated.
Thomas had signed.
But he claimed he had been deceived.
The front door opened again.
Rebecca Sloan walked in carrying a leather case.
She was in her early forties, with dark hair pulled back and no patience in her expression.
Grant followed from the hallway.
“You cannot represent Emily regarding estate assets without reviewing the probate file.”
Rebecca set down her case.
“I already reviewed it.”
Diane crossed her arms.
“Thomas’s will leaves me the house.”
Rebecca looked at her.
“No.”
The room went silent.
Diane’s confidence cracked.
Rebecca took out a certified document.
“The house was transferred into the Thomas Harper Residence Trust eighteen months before his death.”
Emily looked at her.
“What does that mean?”
“It means the house did not pass under the will.”
Diane snapped, “That trust was revoked.”
Rebecca turned.
“By which document?”
Daniel Mercer entered from the front hallway at that exact moment.
Emily had not heard him arrive.
The estate lawyer held a folder beneath one arm.
He looked at Rebecca.
Then at Emily.
Then at the black phone.
His face changed.
Rebecca’s voice became very quiet.
“Daniel.”
Emily slowly stood.
May you like
Mercer shut the door.
“I think,” he said, “we need to discuss what Thomas signed three days before he died.”
