Chapter 10 - The Third Person
Margaret stared at her younger son.
“You idiot.”
Evan shook his head. “I’m done protecting him.”
Daniel stepped closer. “Protecting who?”
Evan rubbed both hands over his face.
“There’s a third person.”
Lawson’s expression did not change. “Name.”
“I can’t.”
Daniel grabbed the front of Evan’s shirt.
“You forged my name. You helped Mom frame my wife. You almost burned evidence in my office, and now you want privacy?”
Evan pushed his hands away. “You think I planned this? I was trying to fix it.”
“By committing five more crimes?”
Margaret said, “Stop talking, Evan.”
He turned on her. “You stop.”
For the first time all day, she looked genuinely afraid.
Evan pointed toward the study.
“Dad borrowed money before he died.”
Lawson frowned. “Richard had no major outstanding personal debt.”
“Not personal. Business. Off-books.”
“From whom?”
Evan swallowed.
“Victor Sloane.”
The name meant nothing to me.
It meant something to Daniel.
He went pale.
Sloane had been Richard’s business partner twenty years ago. Their partnership ended in a lawsuit and a public fight so ugly the local paper ran it on the front page.
Daniel whispered, “Dad hated him.”
“He also owed him eight million dollars,” Evan said.
Lawson shook his head. “Impossible.”
Evan pointed at the loan documents. “North Crest belongs to Sloane.”
I looked down at the forged guarantees.
A terrible picture began forming.
“Did Sloane force you to sign these?”
Evan gave a bitter smile. “He didn’t need to. Mom volunteered.”
Margaret’s eyes flashed.
“I was buying time.”
“For what?” Daniel demanded.
“To save this family!”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because none of you know what your father left behind.”
She walked into the study and reached into the safe.
At the very bottom, beneath the folders, was a sealed red envelope.
She held it up.
“I do.”
Lawson stared at it.
His voice dropped.
Victor Sloane's name had lived in the Hale family like a curse nobody explained. At dinners, Richard would leave the room if a business channel showed Sloane's face. Margaret called him a thief. Daniel once told me only that the two men had nearly destroyed each other in court. Nobody had ever mentioned debt.
May you like
“That envelope was not there when I sealed the safe.”
—
