Chapter 4 - THE LETTER THAT DIVIDED OUR FAMILY
I read the sentence again.
Then a third time.
The handwriting looked like Dad's.
The paper was old.
But the words made no sense.
“Dad gave me the company,” I said.
Mom sat across from me, twisting a tissue.
“He gave you control.”
“He left me the business.”
“He said Grant would receive his share when he was ready.”
I looked at the letter.
There was no percentage.
No date.
No reference to the company's legal name.
Only an instruction that Grant should receive what Dad had promised.
“What exactly did he promise?”
Mom shook her head.
“He never explained it clearly.”
“Then how can you know this means Grant owns part of my company?”
“Because your brother found additional paperwork.”
“Where?”
“In your father's storage boxes.”
I remembered those boxes.
After Dad died, I had taken the business records.
Mom kept the personal papers.
Grant had volunteered to organize the garage.
At the time, I thought he was finally trying to help.
“What paperwork?” I asked.
“He showed me a certificate.”
“What kind?”
“An ownership certificate.”
My stomach tightened.
“Mom, the company was incorporated years before Dad died. Ownership doesn't work through a certificate someone discovers in a garage.”
“I don't understand those things.”
“Then why did you sign financial documents?”
Her eyes filled.
“Because I was afraid.”
“Of what?”
“Of losing the house. Of losing your brother. Of having nothing left of your father.”
I glanced at the photographs on the mantel.
Dad at twenty-five.
Dad holding baby Grant.
Dad helping me ride a bicycle.
“Mom, you've never been in danger of losing the house because of me.”
She looked at her hands.
“Grant said you might sell it.”
I stared.
“Why would I sell your home?”
“He said the business needed money.”
For a moment, I couldn't speak.
Grant had been feeding Mom a story in which I was reckless, desperate, and controlling.
Then he had presented himself as her protector.
“You could have asked me.”
“You always sound so certain,” she whispered.
“That isn't a reason to believe lies.”
“No,” she admitted.
It was the first honest thing she'd said.
I folded the letter.
“I need to have this examined.”
She reached for it.
“Please don't take your father's words away.”
“If they're his words, they'll still be his after someone verifies them.”
I drove home with the letter in my purse.
Lucy was staying with my neighbor, Mrs. Alvarez, who had spent the afternoon teaching her to make cinnamon cookies.
When I picked her up, she handed me a small paper bag.
“These are for Grandma,” she said.
I looked down.
“Grandma?”
Lucy nodded.
“She likes cinnamon.”
After everything that had happened, my daughter was still thinking about Diane.
I kissed her forehead.
“You have a very generous heart.”
“Is that okay?”
“It's wonderful. Just remember you don't have to give people things so they'll be nice to you.”
Lucy thought about that.
“Okay.”
That night, while she slept, I examined the letter beneath my desk lamp.
Dad's handwriting had a particular slant.
His capital E looked almost like a backward three.
The first paragraph matched.
The rest was slightly different.
Maybe my imagination.
Maybe not.
The following morning, I met with Daniel and a business attorney named Rachel Monroe.
Rachel had helped me negotiate our most recent warehouse lease.
She was practical and direct.
She studied the letter.
“This isn't an ownership transfer,” she said.
“Even if Dad wrote it?”
“Even then. It might express an intention, but we'd need the governing documents and evidence of an actual transfer.”
I felt a small measure of relief.
Then Rachel added, “However, we should take it seriously.”
“Why?”
“Because someone may be using it to assert ownership. And whoever accessed your electronic signature may have tried to create records supporting that claim.”
Daniel opened a second folder.
“There's something else.”
He showed me the Northbridge registration.
The registered agent was a company-service provider in Delaware.
The mailing address was a rented mailbox.
But an old invoice carried a contact name.
G. Bennett.
Grant.
“That isn't surprising,” I said.
“No,” Daniel agreed. “This is.”
He displayed a vendor payment summary.
Several Northbridge invoices included descriptions of work supposedly completed at our warehouse.
Security upgrades.
Loading-dock improvements.
Inventory software integration.
I recognized some of those projects.
They had actually happened.
But different vendors had performed the work.
“Are we paying twice?”
“That appears possible.”
Rachel leaned closer.
“Who approved the original work?”
“Usually me.”
“And the duplicate invoices?”
“Grant.”
She nodded.
“That gives us a specific pattern to investigate.”
For two hours, we traced payments.
By lunchtime, we'd found a legitimate maintenance company whose invoice had been copied almost word for word onto a Northbridge bill.
The amount was different.
The description was nearly identical.
Grant hadn't simply bought expensive gifts.
Someone had built a system that could keep drawing money.
Then Daniel found a transaction dated December twenty-third.
Two days before Christmas.
A transfer of sixty-four thousand dollars had been scheduled for January second.
It was marked as a year-end consulting settlement.
I stared at the screen.
“Can we stop it?”
“The payment is on hold.”
“Good.”
Rachel looked at me.
“Elise, do not confront Grant about the specific evidence yet. We need to preserve records and determine whether anyone else was involved.”
I nodded.
But the trouble came to me that afternoon.
At four, Heather appeared at the warehouse.
She wore a wool coat and no makeup.
I almost didn't recognize her.
“Can we talk?”
I led her into the conference room.
She sat without removing her coat.
“Grant told me you're trying to ruin us.”
“I'm trying to find out what happened.”
“He says you owe him half the company.”
“Has he shown you proof?”
She looked away.
“He showed me the letter.”
“What did you think?”
“I thought it was strange.”
“Why?”
Heather opened her purse.
She removed a photograph.
It showed Grant and Dad standing outside the warehouse approximately five years earlier.
Dad was holding a leather briefcase.
Grant wore a broad smile.
On the back, written in Dad's handwriting, were the words:
One day, you'll understand why I couldn't give you this.
“Grant keeps this in his desk,” Heather said.
I studied the picture.
“What is this supposed to prove?”
“I don't know. But every time Grant talks about the company, he takes it out.”
I handed it back.
“Why are you showing me?”
Her face crumpled.
“Because he lied to me about the Christmas gifts. And yesterday, I found something in his office.”
“What?”
“A statement from the home-equity account.”
I waited.
“He told me your mother offered us that money because she wanted to help with the twins' education.”
“How much did you receive?”
Heather swallowed.
“Forty thousand dollars.”
“And the rest?”
“I don't know.”
She looked genuinely frightened.
“Grant says everything will be fixed when he gets what your father promised.”
I leaned forward.
“Heather, what exactly is he planning?”
Her gaze moved toward the conference-room windows.
“Elise, I think he's preparing to take your company.”
My phone vibrated on the table.
A notification from our document-management system.
An ownership-record folder had been accessed through Grant's credentials.
Then another alert appeared.
Three files had been copied.
Rachel, who was still reviewing records in the next office, came in when I called her.
She studied the activity report.
“Who can access your ownership records?”
“Me. Margaret. Our outside accountant.”
“And Grant?”
“Not normally.”
I felt the room tilt.
Rachel turned her laptop toward me.
A newly uploaded document had appeared in our corporate records archive.
Its title was simple.
Bennett Distribution — Transfer of Controlling Interest.
The effective date was January second.
May you like
The listed recipient was Grant Bennett.
And beneath my printed name was a signature that looked exactly like mine.
