Chapter 17 - Isabelle's Missing Page
Among thousands of Greyhaven documents, Marianne found one thing Jonathan had missed.
A carbon copy.
Isabelle had numbered every page of the original ledger evidence.
Pages 1 through 216.
Jonathan apparently possessed them.
But there had been a Page 217.
The final certification.
Without it, the ledger could be challenged as incomplete.
Where was Page 217?
Clara returned to her mother's letter.
Choose joy.
Choose dignity.
Choose safety.
Choose yourself.
Four choices.
Four words.
JDSS.
Meaningless.
Then Elias remembered Isabelle's habit.
“She used acrostics.”
They examined the first letters of four paragraphs in the longer letter from Box 417.
H.
A.
R.
T.
Hart.
Marianne froze.
“Judge Hart.”
Judge Samuel Hart had overseen the sealed Greyhaven settlement.
He had died eight years earlier.
But his daughter, Rebecca Hart, still practiced law.
They contacted her.
Rebecca listened quietly.
Then said:
“My father left something for Isabelle Voss.”
She had never known why.
Inside Judge Hart's estate archive was a sealed package.
Page 217.
Signed.
Notarized.
Authenticated by three witnesses.
Attached to it was a sworn statement identifying Jonathan Sterling as the principal architect of Greyhaven's fraudulent transfers.
Clara stared at the document.
Her mother had not hidden the truth in one place.
She had distributed it among people she trusted.
Jonathan never possessed the complete ledger.
His greatest weapon had always been incomplete.
Marianne smiled.
“He doesn't know.”
May you like
Clara looked at her.
“Then let's keep it that way.”
