Chapter 4 - Someone Had Forged Charles’s Signature
Charles knew his own signature.
The one on Bellmere’s authorization looked close.
Too close.
But the C curved differently.
And Charles never wrote his middle initial that way.
Margaret leaned closer.
“You didn’t sign this?”
“No.”
Emma had already suspected forgery.
That was why she texted him.
A former colleague at Bellmere sent her the document after recognizing
Willowbrook.
Charles asked why Emma still had contacts there.
She hesitated.
“I worked for Richard after I left your father.”
Margaret stared.
“You what?”
“For nine months.”
Emma explained.
After Robert died, she needed work.
Bellmere hired her as an accounting consultant.
She accepted because she believed Robert’s suspicions might have been
wrong.
Then she discovered a Willowbrook acquisition file.
Bellmere had been monitoring the property for years.
Richard’s team tracked Margaret’s finances.
Property taxes.
Equipment loans.
Repair costs.
Even Charles’s relationship with Stephanie appeared in the file.
Charles felt cold.
“How long?”
Emma opened a timeline.
Stephanie and Charles met fourteen months earlier.
Bellmere’s internal file added Stephanie’s name two weeks after their
first date.
That did not prove she had been sent to meet him.
But it proved her family quickly connected the relationship to
Willowbrook.
Margaret whispered:
“She kept asking me how much the farm cost to run.”
Charles remembered Stephanie’s questions.
Why keep so much land?
Would Margaret ever move?
Had Charles considered building luxury cottages?
He had treated them as casual conversation.
Then Emma showed them an email.
FROM: STEPHANIE VALE TO: RICHARD VALE
He says Margaret will never sell while she’s alive. Stop pushing. You’re
making this obvious.
Charles read it twice.
Stephanie had known.
But the message did not sound like someone happily participating.
It sounded like someone warning Richard to stop.
Charles looked at Emma.
“Do you have the rest?”
“No.”
“Then I don’t know what Stephanie’s role actually was.”
“Exactly.”
For the first time since leaving the church, Charles felt something more
complicated than anger.
Stephanie had humiliated his mother.
That fact did not change.
But whether she had entered their relationship as part of Richard’s plan
remained unanswered.
Then Margaret whispered:
“There was another envelope.”
Charles turned.
“What envelope?”
“Your father left it.”
“Where?”
May you like
Margaret looked toward the staircase.
“I hid it six years ago.”
