Chapter 7 - Margaret’s Secret Changed The Investigation
Margaret did not deny the meeting.
She asked Clara to come to the Vance estate.
Clara refused.
“Neutral place.”
They met in Rebecca’s office.
Margaret looked smaller without chandeliers and family portraits around
her.
“I said those words,” she admitted.
Clara folded her arms.
“Good start.”
“But not for the reason you think.”
“That sentence is becoming very popular in your family.”
Margaret accepted the hit.
Julian had contacted her after finding the Bennett trust.
He claimed Clara’s twin brother had survived and was preparing to
challenge Clara’s ownership.
Margaret believed public exposure could trigger competing claims before
anyone verified his identity.
“So you told my husband to keep me ignorant.”
“Yes.”
“That is not protection.”
“I know.”
“Did my brother survive?”
Margaret’s eyes filled.
“I don’t know.”
Clara leaned back.
“You were at the hospital.”
“I saw two babies after delivery. Then Anna hemorrhaged. Charles sent me
out. When I came back, the boy was gone.”
“Who told you he died?”
“Charles.”
“Did you see a body?”
“No.”
“Death certificate?”
“No.”
“Burial?”
“No.”
Clara looked at Rebecca.
Margaret continued.
“Years later, Anna told me she believed the baby had been taken.”
“By Charles?”
“She never said.”
“Did you believe her?”
“I was afraid to.”
That answer was cowardly.
But human.
Then Margaret gave Clara something Julian had shown her.
A photograph of a man in his mid-twenties leaving a federal building in
Washington.
Dark hair.
Gray eyes.
On the back was a name.
Nathan Bennett.
“Who is he?”
“Julian said he was your brother.”
“Where did Julian get this?”
“He wouldn’t tell me.”
Rebecca examined the print.
“This could be anyone.”
Margaret showed them a message from Julian.
If she knows Nathan exists, she’ll never sign.
Clara read it three times.
“Sign what?”
Margaret assumed the redevelopment consent.
Clara remembered the power of attorney.
Maybe the land had never been the end goal.
Rebecca’s forensic team reviewed Anna’s ledger.
One account belonged to the Bennett Minor Beneficiary Trust.
Another led to an old life-insurance policy.
The insured person was Thomas Bennett.
The beneficiary was listed only as N.B.
The policy had paid $2.4 million in 2003.
Two years after Thomas supposedly disappeared.
“Who collected it?”
A corporate trustee had accepted the funds.
Vance Fiduciary Services.
Then Rebecca opened the trustee authorization.
Margaret Vance had signed it.
Margaret’s face collapsed.
“I never saw that document.”
“Your signature is on it.”
“Then somebody used my name too.”
Clara almost dismissed it as another denial.
Then Rebecca enlarged the signature.
The final stroke curved backward.
Exactly like the forged signature on Clara’s deed.
Same habit.
Same hand.
May you like
Whoever had forged Clara’s signature had apparently been forging Vance
signatures for more than twenty years.
