Chapter 4 - THE WOMAN WHO VISITED MY FATHER BEFORE HE DIED
"Something you need to hear from me?"
I read Ethan's message aloud.
Rebecca watched my expression.
"Claire, you don't owe him another private conversation."
"I know."
But I also knew something else.
If Ethan was hiding information about my father, I wanted to hear him say it.
I called.
He answered before the first ring finished.
"Where are you?"
"At Dad's office."
"Claire, leave that building. Please."
"Why?"
"Because I don't know how much of the acquisition paperwork has been compromised."
"Then explain it."
He exhaled.
"Daniel Pierce, my chief financial officer, manages the redevelopment financing. Vanessa oversees the property acquisitions. Both have access to transactions processed through my executive office."
"Your signature is on the clearance approval."
"That signature is mine."
At least he wasn't denying it.
"I approved a clearance schedule based on information they provided," he continued. "I believed the property had been purchased months earlier."
"You didn't bother checking?"
"No."
The single word shocked me more than another excuse would have.
"I was careless," Ethan admitted. "And I let Vanessa handle something I should have reviewed."
I looked at Dad's empty desk.
"Careless is forgetting an anniversary, Ethan. Careless is leaving your wife waiting at dinner."
My voice broke.
"Your people tried to erase my father's name from a building before we had finished mourning him."
"I know."
"No, you don't."
Silence stretched between us.
Then he said something unexpected.
"Claire, I need to tell you about the medical bills."
My stomach tightened.
"What about them?"
"Vanessa knew I was paying them. She offered to coordinate with the hospital because you were exhausted."
"And you let her?"
"Yes."
"Did you ever ask my father what he needed?"
"No."
I pressed my fingers against my forehead.
Ethan continued.
"I found out this morning that Vanessa contacted the hospital several times about his financial account."
"What did she do?"
"I don't know yet."
"That's becoming a familiar answer."
"I deserve that."
I swallowed.
"Tell me one thing. Were you aware she was offering to make his bills disappear in exchange for something?"
"No."
His answer came quickly.
For once, I couldn't tell whether it was truthful.
"I'll send you everything I uncover," he said.
"Send it to Rebecca. And Ethan?"
"Yes?"
"If you find evidence that someone hurt my father, don't protect them because it might hurt your stock price."
The line went quiet.
Then he answered.
"I won't."
I ended the call without promising to believe him.
That afternoon, Rebecca accompanied me to the hospital.
The building looked exactly as it had the night Dad died.
The same glass entrance.
The same reception desk.
The same elevator I'd ridden while begging God for another hour with him.
I stopped outside the surgical waiting room.
For a moment, I could hear the memory of the nurse saying my name.
I'm sorry, Mrs. Blackwood.
Rebecca gently touched my arm.
"We can come back."
"No."
I looked toward the hallway.
"I spent months coming here because Dad needed me. Today I'm here because he deserves the truth."
We met with a hospital administrator and Cynthia Phelps, one of the nurses who had cared for him.
Cynthia recognized me immediately.
"Your father talked about you constantly," she said.
My throat tightened.
"He always said you were braver than you knew."
We explained the disputed transaction.
The administrator couldn't immediately provide everything we requested. Formal access records had to be reviewed through the hospital's privacy and legal departments.
But Cynthia remembered Vanessa.
"She came with financial paperwork," she said. "Your father became upset when she visited."
"Upset how?"
"He insisted that she wasn't to make decisions for him."
I looked at Rebecca.
"Did she claim to be family?"
"She described herself as someone assisting with Mr. Blackwood's financial arrangements."
I wanted to scream.
Vanessa had never been part of our family.
She'd been part of the reason mine was falling apart.
Cynthia hesitated.
"There's something else."
"What?"
"Your father asked me to leave his wristwatch on the bedside table whenever Vanessa visited."
I touched the watch beneath my sleeve.
"Why?"
"He said he didn't want to lose track of time."
The words sounded ordinary.
But Dad had been a surveyor.
He understood measurements.
Distances.
Dates.
Every detail mattered to him.
I remembered the watch stopping at 2:47.
He'd worn it until the doctors prepared him for surgery.
I had put it back on his wrist afterward, before the funeral director arrived.
Then I'd taken it home because he once told me it should belong to me.
Cynthia continued.
"He also asked me to keep a note from his last conversation with Vanessa. I recorded his concern in my nursing notes."
"What did he say?"
She looked toward the administrator.
"I remember his exact words, but the administrator should review the record before it's released."
The administrator nodded.
"We'll arrange the proper process."
I was frustrated, but I understood.
Dad's medical information deserved protection, even after death.
Before leaving, Cynthia reached into her pocket.
"I can tell you something he said to me personally."
I waited.
"He told me, 'My daughter thinks I've been fighting to keep a building. I'm fighting to keep a promise.'"
A tear rolled down my cheek.
"What promise?"
Cynthia shook her head.
"He didn't say."
Back at the office, Nora had spent the afternoon examining Dad's old notebooks.
When we arrived, she had spread several surveys across his desk.
"Come look at this."
One map was dated 1987.
It showed a public passage connecting the neighborhood streets to the river.
The passage had been reserved for pedestrians when the old industrial district was divided into smaller properties.
A later map showed the same area with the passage missing.
"Someone changed the boundary treatment," Nora explained. "The newer survey depicts the path as private development land."
"Can they do that?"
"Not just by drawing a different map. If the right was legally established, there should be a valid recorded agreement terminating or changing it."
Rebecca leaned forward.
"Do we have one?"
"Not here."
Nora pointed to a stamp.
The revised survey carried an engineer's certification.
I recognized the signature immediately.
MARTIN BENNETT.
My father.
"That isn't possible," I said.
But the document was dated eighteen months earlier.
Dad had still been working then.
He'd been ill, but he could write.
I compared the signature with his notebook.
The letters looked painfully familiar.
His tall M.
His narrow B.
Even the little line beneath his surname.
For several seconds, I couldn't speak.
Then Rebecca noticed something.
"Claire, this document doesn't merely show that the public passage disappeared."
She traced another line.
"It certifies that the original survey was incorrect."
I looked at the wording.
According to the revised document, my father had admitted that the public access he originally surveyed in 1987 had never legally existed.
If that statement was genuine, Dad had helped clear the way for Ethan's development.
If it was false, someone had been using his professional reputation to hide the truth.
Nora picked up his notebook.
"He wrote 'never vacated' only weeks before he died."
"Then why would he have signed this?"
Rebecca examined the stamp.
"We need the original submission and every version of the survey."
My eyes returned to Dad's signature.
I knew his handwriting better than my own.
May you like
And I had to admit the possibility I'd been refusing to consider.
Someone hadn't merely forged my father's name after his death. They might have persuaded him to sign away the truth while he was still alive.
