Chapter 7 - Ethan Finds His Father’s Second Will
Claire’s identity forced a review of Robert’s estate.
That uncovered a second will.
The signed document had never been filed with the probate court.
It was found in Richard’s old legal archive.
Richard claimed he had forgotten it existed.
Nobody accepted that without verification.
Forensic review supported that the signature was Robert’s.
The will predated his death by three years.
It left Harbor House to Claire if she was alive.
If she was dead, it went to Ethan.
More importantly, it contained a handwritten note:
I owe Claire what I took from her. Richard knows where the original
ledger is.
Richard stared at the line.
Margaret turned toward him.
“What ledger?”
Richard claimed ignorance.
Then Ethan remembered something from childhood.
His father kept an old green accounting book in a locked cabinet.
After Robert died, Margaret emptied the office.
Margaret shook her head.
“I never saw it.”
Richard looked toward her handbag.
Margaret’s face changed.
“No.”
“What?”
“This morning, the trust file had a storage receipt clipped behind it.”
A storage unit rented under Robert’s name had been paid automatically
for eight years after his death.
Nobody had noticed.
They opened it with proper legal authority.
Inside were furniture, old company boxes, and one locked metal case.
The case contained the green ledger.
And a photograph of Margaret standing beside Claire.
Dated twenty-three years earlier.
May you like
Ethan stared at his mother.
“You knew her before Dad?”
