Celia Grant spread the documents across her conference table the following morning.
Gavin sat opposite us with his attorney and the stolen blue ledger locked inside a briefcase.
“Mrs.
Hale witnessed both documents,” Gavin said.
“Her sudden denial is convenient.”
Ruth leaned toward him.
“You copied my signature.”
“You signed willingly.”
“I signed one page for Daniel.”
“And now that Anna dislikes the result, you’ve changed your story.”
I placed Gavin’s text message on the table.
“You threatened my daughter’s home.”
“I offered you a settlement.”
“You froze the money I need to care for her.”
“The bank did that, not me.”
Celia tapped the handwritten statement.
“This says Daniel was mentally unfit.
If that were true, any transfer he signed would be invalid.”
Gavin’s attorney turned toward him.
Gavin did not blink.
“He had clear periods.”
“How fortunate that every clear period benefited you,” Celia said.
He pushed an agreement toward me.
“Sign this, Anna.
I’ll release fifty thousand dollars today.
You keep Daniel’s personal videos, and I keep the property and business records.”
“What happens to Ruth?”
“She admits she signed the transfer.”
Ruth stood.
“I will not.”
Gavin’s voice hardened.
“Then I’ll report that you helped Daniel conceal assets from the company.”
“You would accuse your own mother?”
“I would tell the truth.”
“The truth?” I leaned across the table.
“You stole the ledger from my daughter’s room.”
“I removed company property.”
“You tried to sell her house.”
“I sold an asset Daniel purchased with money that wasn’t his.”
Celia opened a thin folder.
“We traced the purchase funds.
They came from Daniel’s personal account after he sold his shares in a separate investment.”
Gavin’s attorney stopped writing.
“May I see that?”
“No,” Gavin said.
His attorney stared at him.
“I was asking Ms.
Grant.”
Celia passed over the bank statement.
Gavin closed his briefcase.
“That proves nothing.”
“It proves your company-money story is false,” I said.
He turned to me.
“Daniel kept secrets from you because he knew you would panic.
He came to me because I was the one person who could clean up his mess.”
My hand moved toward the agreement.
“If I sign, Sophie gets the fifty thousand today?”
“Anna,” Ruth said, “don’t.”
Gavin uncapped a pen and held it out.
“Your daughter needs security, not a ruined house and years of legal bills.”
I saw Sophie’s empty formula tin in my mind.
My fingers closed around the pen.
Eleanor reached across the table and took it from me.
“I bought formula this morning,” she said.
“And nappies.
Enough for a month.”
Gavin gave a short laugh.
“You cannot support her forever.”
“She doesn’t need forever,” Eleanor replied.
“She needs long enough to defeat you.”
Celia placed the handwritten statement beside Ruth.
“Write your full name.”
Ruth did.
Celia aligned the two signatures.
“The letters look similar,” she said.
“But the statement uses the middle initial E.”
Ruth looked up.
“My middle name is Louise.”
Gavin’s attorney slowly shut his notebook.
“Gavin, where did this statement come from?”
“My brother’s files.”
Celia’s assistant entered and whispered in her ear.
Celia turned her laptop around.
The county archive had sent a scan of the original property application.
Daniel had listed a different lawyer as custodian of the trust documents: Arthur Wynn.
“Mr.
Wynn retired last year,” Celia said.
“We’ve been trying to locate him.”
Her assistant swallowed.
“His daughter just called.
She found an envelope marked for Anna Hale.”
My chair scraped back.
“Where is it?”
“At her father’s old office.
But someone arrived ten minutes before she did.”
A security image filled the screen.
Gavin was standing at the office door with the blue ledger in his hand—and a metal bin burning behind him.
part 7 is ready
