Chapter 3 - The Clause No One Mentioned
Ethan stopped on the first stair.
“My wife has been dead for eleven months,” he said. “Why are you telling me about her will now?”
Leonard Shaw looked like a man who had just realized there was no safe answer.
Claire moved quickly. “Leonard, this is not the time.”
Ethan turned. “Interesting. You know what he’s talking about?”
Claire’s lips pressed together.
Leonard lowered his voice. “Rachel amended her estate documents three weeks before the accident.”
Ethan felt the room tilt.
“What amendment?”
Leonard glanced toward the guests. “We should talk privately.”
“No more private conversations.” Ethan looked around the hall. “Apparently everyone in my house knows things except me.”
Harold Price shifted uncomfortably.
Ethan saw it.
“Harold?”
The chairman cleared his throat. “I only knew there had been estate changes. I did not know the details.”
Ethan faced Leonard again. “Talk.”
The attorney rubbed his thumb over the edge of his glass. “Rachel created a protected trust for Sophie. The controlling shares in Cole Meridian Holdings that Rachel owned were transferred into that trust.”
Ethan blinked. “Rachel owned twelve percent.”
“Twelve point four.”
“And?”
“And if you die or are declared legally unfit before Sophie turns eighteen, control of those shares transfers to Sophie’s court-approved guardian.”
The hallway went silent in a new way.
Ethan looked at Claire.
Her face did not move.
But her eyes did.
Mara whispered, “Oh my God.”
Ethan stepped down from the stair. “Who did Rachel name as guardian?”
Leonard swallowed. “Not you.”
Ethan’s anger flared. “I’m her father.”
“You remain Sophie’s parent and primary guardian. Rachel named an alternate guardian if something happened to you.”
“Who?”
Leonard hesitated.
Claire spoke first. “Rachel was sick near the end. She was paranoid.”
Ethan’s head turned sharply. “Near the end?”
Rachel had not been sick.
She had died in a car crash on a rain-slick highway after leaving a charity board meeting.
Leonard looked at Claire, then Ethan.
“I never said Rachel was sick.”
Claire realized her mistake.
Ethan’s voice became dangerously quiet. “How did you know she was worried before she died?”
Claire shook her head. “You told me.”
“No. I didn’t.”
She looked around at the guests as if searching for a way out.
Ethan took one step toward her.
Then Mara called from the stairwell.
“Mr. Cole.”
She was holding a small white baby monitor receiver.
The screen was cracked.
And across the display, a frozen image showed Claire standing over Sophie’s crib with someone else beside her.
May you like
Someone Ethan recognized immediately.
His own attorney.
