Chapter 2 - The House That Had Already Been Emptied
The men outside left before police arrived.
They did not run.
They simply walked back to the black SUV and drove away, almost as if they knew exactly how much time they had.
Natalie photographed the vehicle through the upstairs bedroom window.
No rear license plate.
The front plate was covered in snow.
When the patrol officer arrived, Richard said very little.
He reported suspicious persons.
He reported attempted entry.
He did not mention the trust.
He did not mention the forged documents.
And he definitely did not mention Vanessa’s threat.
Natalie waited until the officer left.
“Why didn’t you tell him?”
“Because I don’t know who I can trust.”
“You think the police are involved?”
“I think whoever is doing this has had access to documents that should have been secure.”
“That isn’t the same thing.”
“No.”
Richard took his keys from the counter.
“But I stopped making assumptions when someone forged my death certificate.”
Natalie stared at him.
“My what?”
Richard opened his phone.
He showed her a photograph.
Certificate of Death.
Richard Elliot Cole.
Age 67.
Cause of death: cardiac arrest.
Location: St. Matthew Regional Hospital.
Time of death: 2:14 a.m.
Natalie felt nauseated.
“This says you died last night.”
“Yes.”
“Who signed it?”
“A physician named Dr. Paul Mercer.”
“Do you know him?”
“No.”
“Is he real?”
“I don’t know.”
Richard took back the phone.
“But apparently he declared me dead without the inconvenience of meeting me.”
Natalie remembered Vanessa saying Dad died last night.
Not we heard.
Not somebody called us.
She had spoken as though it were settled fact.
“You knew about this certificate before she called?”
“No. It appeared in the county electronic filing system at 6:10 this morning.”
“How did you find it?”
“My attorney has an alert on my name.”
“I thought your attorney was Danner.”
“Danner thinks he is.”
Richard smiled faintly.
“My actual attorney is Judith Sloane.”
Natalie closed her eyes.
“Is there anything about your life that is real?”
“My terrible cholesterol.”
Despite herself, Natalie almost smiled.
Almost.
They drove toward the old Cole property twenty minutes later.
Richard insisted on taking Natalie’s car.
He left his phone powered off inside a metal-lined pouch.
He gave Natalie a different phone she had never seen.
“Emergency prepaid.”
“You have burner phones now?”
“I prefer backup phone.”
“That doesn’t make it less insane.”
The snow thickened as they left town.
Natalie had grown up on the Cole property, forty acres of woods and pasture surrounding a two-story farmhouse built by her grandfather.
She had not lived there since she was nineteen.
Vanessa stayed until twenty-seven.
Grant moved in and out until he married.
Natalie had always been the one who left.
The one who supposedly did not care about family tradition.
The one Vanessa called selfish.
Now, watching the bare winter trees pass her window, Natalie wondered whether leaving had been the only reason she had survived the family.
Richard spoke quietly.
“There’s something else.”
“Of course there is.”
“The will you saw really does disinherit you.”
Natalie looked at him sharply.
“I thought you said it was bait.”
“It is.”
“But it’s legally valid?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because fake bait is useless if the people stealing it know what to look for.”
Richard explained that six months earlier he had signed a new will before two independent witnesses.
Vanessa received the farmhouse.
Grant received a commercial parcel near the highway.
Natalie received nothing.
Richard made sure a copy passed through Philip Danner’s office.
Within eleven days, someone attempted to obtain the underlying trust records.
“So you sacrificed me on paper.”
“Yes.”
“Did Vanessa know?”
“She knew about the will.”
“And she never said anything.”
“No.”
Natalie looked out the window.
She remembered Christmas dinner.
Vanessa had hugged her.
Grant had handed her a cheap bottle of wine.
Both had known that their father had supposedly cut Natalie out.
Neither had mentioned it.
That hurt more than the document.
Richard seemed to read her expression.
“I’m sorry.”
“For which part?”
“All of it.”
They reached the driveway.
The first thing Natalie noticed was the gate.
A new electronic keypad had been installed.
The second thing was the sign attached to the fence.
PRIVATE PROPERTY.
TRESPASSERS PROSECUTED.
The third thing was her father’s truck parked beside the barn.
Grant was loading boxes into it.
Natalie hit the brakes.
Richard opened the passenger door before the car fully stopped.
Grant looked up.
A cardboard box slipped from his hands.
For one second, nobody moved.
Then Richard walked through the snow.
Grant’s face went gray.
“Dad.”
“You keep saying that as though you’re surprised.”
Vanessa emerged from the front door.
She wore Richard’s brown winter coat.
Natalie recognized it immediately.
Their mother had given it to him twenty-five years earlier.
Vanessa stopped on the porch.
Her eyes moved from Richard to Natalie.
“You shouldn’t have come here.”
Richard looked around his property.
Two unfamiliar vehicles were near the barn.
Furniture was visible through the open garage.
Stacked.
Tagged.
Some pieces already wrapped for transport.
“You’ve been busy,” Richard said.
Vanessa descended the porch steps.
“We thought you were dead.”
“For approximately four hours?”
“We were following instructions.”
“Whose?”
Vanessa looked toward Grant.
Grant looked toward the barn.
Richard noticed.
“So there is someone here.”
“No,” Grant said too quickly.
A door slammed inside the barn.
Natalie heard an engine.
Then a dark sedan shot through the side access road behind the property.
Richard turned.
“Who was that?”
Vanessa’s face tightened.
“Nobody.”
Richard walked toward the barn.
Grant blocked him.
“Dad, don’t.”
Richard stopped.
Grant was taller.
Forty-three years old.
Broad shouldered.
But something about Richard’s stillness made Grant step backward.
“What is in my barn?”
Grant said nothing.
Richard went inside.
Natalie followed.
The building smelled of oil, hay and cold metal.
At first she saw only boxes.
Then she noticed the folding table.
Files.
A laptop.
A portable printer.
A stack of notarization stamps.
And beside them, six copies of Richard Cole’s death certificate.
Richard stared.
Natalie whispered,
“Oh my God.”
Then she saw the photograph.
It lay beside the laptop.
A surveillance photograph.
Taken through a window.
Natalie sleeping on her own couch.
Timestamped two nights earlier.
On the back, someone had written:
NATALIE COLE
May you like
SECONDARY OBSTACLE
REMOVAL ONLY IF NECESSARY.
