Chapter 5 - The Trust
Anna emptied her purse onto the hospital chair.
Nothing.
The trust documents were gone.
Richard’s expression turned hard. “What was in the envelope?”
Anna looked at Leo before answering.
“Your father’s amended estate trust.”
Richard stared at her. “Why do you have it?”
“Because his attorney called me three days ago. He said there was a clause that affected Leo.”
“What clause?”
Anna had planned to tell him that night over dinner.
Now the words felt dangerous.
“When your father died, he left voting control of Mercer Holdings divided between you and Vanessa. But his amendment says that when Leo turns three, twelve percent of the family voting shares transfer into an irrevocable trust for him.”
Richard’s eyebrows drew together.
“That still wouldn’t give Leo control.”
“No. But there’s more.”
Anna swallowed.
“If anything happens to you before Leo turns twenty-one, the trustee controls those shares on Leo’s behalf.”
Richard understood immediately.
“Who is the trustee?”
“Me.”
Silence.
Richard stood slowly.
Anna continued. “If I’m dead or legally found unfit, the alternate trustee takes over.”
“Vanessa.”
“Yes.”
Richard turned away, one hand over his mouth.
Suddenly Vanessa’s complaints about Anna made sense. The comments at dinners. The whispers to relatives that Anna was unstable after childbirth. The stories about wine Anna had never drunk. The insinuations that she forgot things.
She had not been gossiping.
She had been building a case.
“What did Leo mean by ‘Mommy paper’?” Richard asked.
Anna thought back to before the fall.
She had left her purse on a console table near the stairs while making dinner. Leo had been playing with wooden blocks in the upstairs hall because Vanessa had offered to watch him for five minutes.
Then Anna remembered something.
When Vanessa arrived that evening, she had hugged Anna.
Too warmly.
And she had asked, “Did you meet with anyone downtown today?”
Anna had said it was nothing important.
Vanessa must have followed her.
Richard’s phone rang again.
This time it was the estate’s night guard.
“Mr. Mercer, we have a situation.”
“What situation?”
“Someone just entered your house through the service door.”
Richard looked at Anna.
“Who?”
“We can’t tell. They cut the hall lights.”
A crash sounded over the phone.
May you like
Then the guard shouted.
The line went dead.
