Chapter 5 - Margaret Had Hidden Robert’s Letter
Margaret returned carrying a small cedar box.
Inside was an envelope addressed to Charles.
The handwriting belonged to Robert.
Charles looked at his mother.
“You had this for six years?”
Tears filled her eyes.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because your father wrote it when he was angry and frightened.”
“That wasn’t your decision.”
“I know.”
Margaret did not defend herself.
That mattered.
Charles opened it.
Robert wrote that if anything happened to him before the Willowbrook
issue was resolved, Charles should contact a surveyor named Nathan Cole.
He also wrote:
Do not sell the north pasture until you understand what Eleanor did.
Charles frowned.
“Who is Eleanor?”
Margaret looked confused.
Emma did too.
Robert’s letter continued.
Eleanor Vale.
Richard’s mother.
Stephanie’s grandmother.
Charles felt the story shift again.
Robert claimed Eleanor Vale had once owned part of Willowbrook.
Not Richard.
Not Bellmere.
Eleanor.
Margaret shook her head.
“That’s impossible.”
Her family had owned Willowbrook for decades.
Emma began searching county records.
The oldest deed showed Margaret and Robert purchased the farm
thirty-eight years earlier from a company called Willow Agricultural
Cooperative.
But an earlier ownership record listed three partners.
One was Margaret’s father.
One was a local farmer named Samuel Price.
The third:
Eleanor Vale.
Margaret stared.
“My father never told me.”
Robert apparently discovered the connection only shortly before his
death.
Eleanor sold her interest years before Margaret and Robert bought the
property.
But the old partnership agreement contained an unusual clause.
If commercially significant groundwater rights were ever separated from
the surface land, descendants of the original partners could have a
claim to a portion of proceeds.
The clause might or might not still be enforceable.
That required lawyers.
But suddenly Richard’s obsession made more sense.
Buying Willowbrook outright could eliminate years of uncertainty.
Charles looked at Stephanie’s email again.
Maybe Richard’s interest was not simply greed.
Maybe he believed his family had an old claim.
Then Emma found something else.
Eleanor Vale had not voluntarily sold her share.
According to an old court filing, she alleged Margaret’s father had
forced her out using false debt records.
The case was dismissed.
And the attorney representing Margaret’s father had been Robert’s
May you like
father.
Both families had been connected long before Charles and Stephanie met.
