Chapter 8 - The Deadline Written Into the Trust
Chase was taken to a private hospital under police protection.
The wound in his side came from a knife, but it had missed his vital organs.
He claimed he did not see his attacker.
Samuel did not believe him.
Neither did Nora.
In the hospital room, Chase looked smaller without his expensive suit and confident voice.
Vanessa stood near the window, refusing to approach the bed.
Nora remained beside Adrian.
“What happens at midnight tomorrow?” Nora asked.
Chase looked toward the security guard outside the door.
“The Vale trust has a dormant-beneficiary clause.”
“Explain it.”
“The patents were placed in trust for Evelyn’s grandchildren. If both designated beneficiaries appeared and established identity before the thirty-third anniversary of the St. Catherine’s fire, control would transfer to them.”
“And if they did not?”
“The patents pass permanently to the administrator.”
“Theodore.”
Chase nodded.
“Why the thirty-third anniversary?”
“I don’t know.”
“You expect us to believe that?”
“My grandfather never shared the original trust. He only explained the deadline.”
“When?”
“When you bought the mansion.”
Nora frowned.
“Why did my purchase matter?”
“The deed triggered a notification provision. The lake house was the trust’s registered correspondence address. When the sale was recorded under your name, the administrator received an automated legal notice.”
“That is how you knew where I lived.”
“Yes.”
Nora thought of Margaret appearing at the boathouse.
“Did you send my mother to remove the music box?”
“My grandfather did.”
“Why?”
“It contained proof of Elias.”
“Who attacked you?”
Chase looked toward Vanessa.
“I tried to access Grandfather’s private archive.”
“That does not answer the question.”
“One of his security men found me.”
“Name him.”
Chase closed his eyes.
“Bennett Shaw.”
Samuel stood in the corner of the room.
“That name is familiar.”
Chase opened his eyes again.
“He worked for Dr. Reeves during the guardianship cases.”
Samuel stepped outside to make a call.
Vanessa finally spoke.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Chase looked at her.
“About what?”
“My house. My parents’ money. Nora’s trust. Pick one.”
“I was protecting you.”
“From knowing I married a liar?”
“From my grandfather.”
“You brought me into his family.”
“I thought I could control the situation.”
Vanessa laughed softly.
“You sound exactly like my mother.”
Chase turned toward Nora.
“The address on Reeves’s card leads to a records storage facility beneath the old clinic. Grandfather believed Lillian Cross kept Elias’s identity there.”
“Did he search it?”
“Many times.”
“Then why has he not found the records?”
“Because Lillian designed the archive. She worked as a military communications clerk before joining Evelyn. She used layered codes.”
Nora took the business card.
“Why would Reeves have the address?”
“He treated Lillian before she disappeared.”
“Disappeared?”
“She vanished in 2004.”
“Was she the witness who vanished before Reeves’s fraud trial?”
“Yes.”
Samuel returned.
“Bennett Shaw died six years ago.”
Everyone looked at Chase.
Chase went pale.
“That’s impossible.”
“I confirmed it through state records,” Samuel said. “Car accident.”
“I saw him tonight.”
“Then either you saw someone else, or the death certificate is false.”
Chase struggled to sit higher.
“My grandfather keeps people on payroll under old identities.”
Adrian glanced at the clock.
“We have less than thirty hours.”
“Can the deadline be challenged?” Nora asked.
“Possibly, but not before tomorrow. We need Elias.”
Samuel arranged for officers to remain with Chase while the others returned to the mansion.
Vanessa refused to stay at the hospital.
On the drive, she sat beside Nora in silence.
After several miles, she said, “Do you think Chase arranged the attack?”
“Yes.”
Vanessa looked at her.
“You do?”
“I think he was injured. I do not know whether he was attacked while helping us or punished for failing someone else.”
“He gave us the clinic.”
“He gave us a place Theodore has searched repeatedly.”
“You think it is a trap.”
“I think every useful fact Chase has given us also directs our attention away from him.”
Vanessa absorbed that.
“You should have been a detective.”
“I design risk systems.”
“For banks.”
“For anyone who pays me.”
Vanessa looked surprised.
“Mom said you processed loan applications.”
Nora smiled faintly.
“Mom has never understood my job.”
“What do you actually do?”
“I founded a financial security company.”
Vanessa stared at her.
“You founded it?”
“Eleven years ago.”
“How large is it?”
“Large enough to buy the house.”
Vanessa looked out the window.
“All those years, I thought I was ahead of you.”
“You were measuring the wrong things.”
At the mansion, Nora received an encrypted message from her laboratory.
A preliminary DNA match had been located.
The probability of a full biological sibling was 99.98 percent.
The matching profile belonged to a man named Elias Grant.
Age thirty-two.
Current address unknown.
The account had been created through a veterans’ medical research program.
Samuel searched public records.
Elias Grant had served in the Army as a combat medic.
After leaving the military, he worked for disaster relief organizations.
Three years earlier, he disappeared during a flood response operation in Central America.
He had been declared missing, presumed dead.
Nora stared at his military identification photograph.
He had dark hair, serious eyes, and a small scar above his eyebrow.
She saw Richard’s jawline.
She saw Evelyn’s eyes.
She saw herself.
“He is alive,” Nora said.
Samuel did not answer.
“What?”
“The DNA account was accessed six days ago.”
“By whom?”
“I cannot tell yet.”
Nora looked at the date.
Six days earlier was the day her lake house purchase became public record.
Someone using Elias’s credentials had accessed his own DNA profile.
“Can we contact the account?”
“We can send a protected message.”
Nora typed:
My name is Nora Mercer. I believe I am your twin sister. Evelyn is alive. The trust deadline is tomorrow at midnight. Please respond with the name written on the photograph from St. Catherine’s.
They sent it.
For three hours, nothing happened.
Then, at 2:17 a.m., a response appeared.
Nora,
Do not trust the man in the hospital.
The name on the photograph is Elias.
I have been trying to reach you for twenty-three years.
Before Nora could type another message, the security cameras went black.
A voice came through the mansion’s internal speaker system.
May you like
“Good evening, Nora.”
Theodore Holloway had taken control of the house.
