Chapter 4 - The $3.8 Million LieBy nine the next morning, Samuel had Northline Development’s purchase agreement spread across his conference table.
He read the first page once.
Then again.
“This is fraudulent.”
“How bad?”
“Potentially criminal.”
He pointed toward a paragraph.
“The seller is identified as Kearns Property Trust, represented by Priscilla Kearns as trustee.”
“She isn’t trustee.”
“No.”
“Who is?”
Samuel looked at me.
“You.”
I leaned back.
Apparently discovering I owned things had become the theme of my week.
“Your father named you successor trustee upon his death. Our office should have supervised the transition, but communication was deliberately redirected.”
“So Mom just declared herself trustee?”
“It appears someone filed an amended certificate.”
“Someone?”
He turned the page.
Roger’s signature appeared as witness.
I laughed without humor.
“Of course.”
Samuel called an attorney specializing in financial crimes.
Her name was Tessa Monroe.
She arrived forty minutes later wearing navy slacks, running shoes, and the expression of a woman who had already decided nonsense would not survive contact with her.
She listened without interrupting.
Then she asked, “Do you want your family protected?”
“No.”
Samuel looked at me.
I surprised myself with how easily the answer came.
Tessa nodded.
“Good. That simplifies things.”
She explained that we needed evidence before confrontation.
Bank records.
Company communications.
Original trust documents.
Loan applications.
Closing paperwork.
Any messages demonstrating knowledge or intent.
“I have texts.”
“Save them. Export everything.”
“I also have Dad’s video.”
“That establishes his intent, but what your mother did after his death matters more.”
Then Tessa asked something no one else had.
“Does Priscilla know you know about the sale?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Keep it that way.”
I returned to the store that afternoon.
Not through the front.
There was an old delivery entrance beside the alley.
My key still worked.
Inside, everything smelled exactly as it had since childhood.
Coffee.
Bread.
Floor cleaner.
The faint metallic chill from the produce coolers.
For a moment I nearly cried again.
Then I heard Roger’s voice.
He was in Dad’s office.
My office, technically.
The door was mostly closed.
“You told me she was staying at the hotel.”
Heather answered.
“She turned off location.”
“She met Samuel.”
“I know.”
Roger swore.
“What exactly did you say to her?”
“Nothing.”
“You always say too much.”
“Don’t talk to me like that.”
I raised my phone and started recording.
Roger lowered his voice, forcing me closer.
“We only need four days.”
“Three,” Heather corrected.
“Whatever. Closing happens, debts are paid, and she can fight over whatever’s left.”
My heart hammered.
Heather asked, “What if Northline finds out she’s trustee?”
“They won’t.”
“And the ownership records?”
“I told you. Collins handled it.”
Collins.
A name.
“She’s going to sue us.”
Roger laughed.
“With what money? She dumped everything into this place.”
There it was.
The thing they found funniest was the thing I had once been proudest of.
They had encouraged me to drain my savings because it left me weaker.
Heather said, “Mom shouldn’t have thrown the soup.”
“No kidding.”
“She panicked.”
“Priscilla always panics when Lorraine says no.”
Then Roger said the sentence that erased the last traces of hesitation I had about destroying their plan.
“Once we close, Lorraine can scream all she wants. You can’t unspend money.”
I quietly backed away.
Behind me, someone whispered:
“Lorraine?”
I spun.
Miguel Alvarez, our deli manager, stood holding a crate of tomatoes.
I put one finger to my lips.
His eyes shifted toward Dad’s office.
Then back to me.
Miguel had worked for Dad nineteen years.
He didn’t ask questions.
He simply nodded toward the walk-in cooler.
We stepped inside.
Cold air wrapped around us.
“What’s going on?” he whispered.
“I’m figuring that out.”
“You know they’re selling?”
“You knew?”
“Everybody knows something is happening. Roger had surveyors here.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I tried.”
I stared.
“When?”
“Three weeks ago. Your mother said you were taking time away because you were sick.”
A horrible realization settled over me.
“How long has she been telling people I’m sick?”
Miguel’s expression turned uncomfortable.
“Months.”
“What kind of sick?”
“I thought…”
He stopped.
“What?”
“She said you were having some problems. Stress. Maybe mental health.”
I almost smiled at the precision of it.
My mother hadn’t just intercepted my mail.
She had been constructing a version of me that couldn’t be trusted.
“What else?”
Miguel rubbed his arms against the cold.
“Roger started telling vendors all decisions go through him.”
“He has no authority.”
“I figured.”
“Why?”
Miguel smiled faintly.
“Your father would haunt the building before he let Roger run it.”
Despite everything, I laughed.
Miguel sobered.
“There’s something you should see.”
He took me to a storage closet behind the office.
An old filing cabinet stood pushed behind boxes.
“Roger told me to throw it away last month.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Your dad bought me groceries when my oldest daughter was born and I couldn’t make rent.”
He shrugged.
“I don’t throw Thomas Kearns’s things away because Roger Bell tells me to.”
Inside the cabinet were accounting ledgers.
Dad had always kept paper backups.
Numbers lined the pages in his square handwriting.
Transfers.
Property expenses.
Equipment.
A separate section labeled P.
Priscilla.
Beside several entries:
Roger — loan?
Roger again
P denies
Then one final note written six weeks before Dad died:
If anything happens, check Unit 44. L knows nothing. Keep her that way until necessary.
“Unit 44?” I whispered.
Miguel shook his head.
“No idea.”
I photographed everything.
Back at Samuel’s office, we searched Dad’s records.
Unit 44 turned out to be a storage locker rented under Thomas Kearns’s name.
It still existed.
The fees had been automatically paid every year from a trust account.
At four-fifteen, Samuel and I stood outside a storage facility on the edge of town.
The manager cut the old seal after verifying our documents.
The metal door rolled upward.
Inside were twelve banker’s boxes.
Dad’s handwriting covered them.
Taxes.
Property.
Priscilla.
Roger.
Store.
Personal.
And one box labeled:
LORRAINE — ONLY IF THEY FORCE HER HAND.
I stared at it.
Samuel whispered, “Your father was thorough.”
I opened the box.
Inside were copies of bank statements, photographs, handwritten notes, and a sealed envelope.
On the front:
Kiddo, this is the part I hoped you’d never need.
My hands went cold.
Inside the envelope was a key.
And a single address.
The address belonged to a house thirty miles away.
A house I had never seen.
A house county records later showed had been purchased eleven years earlier.
The owner listed on the original deed was Roger Bell.
The down payment had come from my parents’ joint investment account.
But that wasn’t the worst part.
Property-tax correspondence listed a second resident.
Priscilla Kearns.
May you like
My mother had been financing a second life with Roger while my father was alive.
And apparently, Dad had known.
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