Chapter 5 - The Woman Who Was Not Invited
The Holloway family reunion was scheduled for the final Saturday in June.
Helen had planned it for months. Relatives were traveling from four states. The backyard had been repainted, the old fence repaired, and the garden filled with white hydrangeas.
Bradley insisted the event continue.
“Cancelling would make people suspicious,” he told Claire.
Claire pretended to agree.
Over the next three weeks, Ethan and Julian searched for the woman Bradley had mentioned.
The Northbridge payment led to a rented mailbox.
The mailbox application used a false identity.
Security footage showed a woman wearing a hat and dark glasses. Her face remained hidden, but she appeared tall, thin, and familiar with the building.
The only clear detail was a ring on her right hand.
A silver band containing a small black stone.
Claire recognized it.
“My aunt Rebecca had one like that.”
Helen’s younger sister Rebecca had left the country twelve years earlier after a bitter dispute with Richard. According to the family, she had borrowed money from the construction company and refused to repay it.
Helen rarely spoke about her.
“Where is she now?” Ethan asked.
“No one knows. Mom said she moved to Portugal.”
Julian found no travel record under Rebecca’s legal name.
He did, however, find a domestic business filing from five months earlier.
The registered agent was Rebecca Sloan.
Sloan was Margaret the notary’s surname.
Margaret had never married and had no children.
Claire called her mother.
“Was Aunt Rebecca ever close to Margaret Sloan?”
Helen became quiet.
“They were friends years ago.”
“How close?”
“Why are you asking?”
“Bradley mentioned Margaret was helping with documents.”
It was a lie, but a necessary one.
Helen’s response came too quickly.
“Margaret would never work with Bradley.”
“Why not?”
“Because she knows what he did.”
Claire sat upright.
“What did he do?”
Helen ended the call.
Ten minutes later, Richard called Claire and asked her to stop investigating family history.
That request confirmed something Ethan had already begun to fear.
Bradley’s fraud was new.
The secret beneath it was not.
At Vale Meridian, Julian obtained the original records from Maya’s Northbridge company. One archived client file had been accessed twice during the previous year.
The client name was Willowmere Family Trust.
The trust had been created thirty-two years earlier, shortly before Richard and Helen purchased the house.
Its beneficiaries were listed as Helen Holloway and Rebecca Sloan.
Ethan read the document in stunned silence.
Claire stood beside him.
“My aunt owns part of the house?”
“Not according to the current title.”
“But according to this?”
“According to this trust, your mother and Rebecca used inherited money to purchase the property together.”
Claire looked at the old signatures.
“Then why is only my parents’ name on the deed?”
“That is what we need to ask them.”
The final page contained a handwritten amendment.
It stated that Rebecca surrendered her interest in exchange for repayment of her original contribution.
A payment receipt was attached.
The receipt was signed by Rebecca.
Lena examined the signature.
It was forged.
Claire stepped away from the table.
“So my parents stole her share?”
“We don’t know what happened.”
“The signature is false.”
“Yes.”
“And Maya had this file?”
“Northbridge inherited archives from another legal office. Maya may never have seen it.”
Claire stared at the trust.
“Bradley found it.”
Ethan nodded.
“He probably discovered that your aunt still had a claim. He offered her money or revenge in exchange for helping him transfer the property.”
“Then why use Maya’s company?”
“To make the document trail look connected to me.”
Claire understood.
If the fraud were discovered, evidence would lead from the Holloway transfer to a company associated with Ethan’s late wife. Bradley could claim Ethan had designed the transaction to seize the house.
It was not only theft.
It was a frame.
“Bradley wants the house,” Claire said. “Rebecca wants revenge. And they both want you blamed.”
Ethan looked at the archived trust.
“There’s still a missing piece.”
“What?”
“If Rebecca legally owns part of the property, she doesn’t need forged documents. She could file a claim openly.”
“Unless she already accepted payment.”
“Or unless she isn’t the person Bradley is working with.”
Two days before the reunion, Margaret Sloan called Ethan.
Her voice was tense.
“You’ve been searching for my sister.”
“Rebecca is your sister?”
“Half-sister.”
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know.”
“Someone is using her name.”
Margaret asked to meet in person.
They chose a quiet café outside the city. Margaret arrived with a leather briefcase and refused coffee.
“My notary seal was stolen last winter,” she said.
“Did you report it?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because my nephew took it.”
“Bradley?”
Margaret nodded.
“He told me he needed copies of old family records. When I confronted him, he returned the case. The seal was inside, so I believed nothing had happened.”
“Why didn’t you tell Claire’s parents?”
“Richard asked me not to.”
Ethan was no longer surprised to hear that sentence.
“What does Richard know?”
Margaret looked toward the café window.
“Thirty-one years ago, Richard altered the documents used to purchase Willowmere Lane.”
“Did he steal Rebecca’s ownership share?”
“He believed he was protecting Helen.”
“From her own sister?”
“Rebecca was unstable then. She had debts and dangerous associates. Richard repaid her investment, but she refused to sign away the claim.”
“So he forged her signature.”
Margaret’s eyes filled with regret.
“I notarized it.”
Ethan leaned back.
“You committed fraud.”
“Yes.”
“And Maya’s company?”
“Years later, the law office handling the trust archives closed. Northbridge acquired the records. I knew Maya professionally. She found inconsistencies.”
“Did she confront you?”
“She did more than that.”
Margaret opened her briefcase and removed a sealed envelope.
The front displayed Ethan’s name in Maya’s handwriting.
Ethan stopped breathing for a moment.
“Maya gave this to me six years ago,” Margaret said. “She said I should deliver it only if someone tried to use the Willowmere trust again.”
“Why didn’t you contact me when the seal was stolen?”
“Because I was afraid.”
“Of Bradley?”
Margaret shook her head.
“Of the person directing him.”
Ethan looked at the envelope.
“Rebecca?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
Margaret glanced toward the café entrance.
A dark vehicle had stopped across the street.
Her face changed.
“We should leave.”
Before Ethan could stand, Margaret pushed the envelope toward him.
“Do not open it here.”
The dark vehicle’s driver-side door opened.
Margaret rose quickly.
“If I do not attend the reunion, open the envelope in front of Claire and her parents.”
“Margaret, who is helping Bradley?”
May you like
She looked at him with genuine fear.
“Someone Maya trusted.”
