Chapter 5 - The Trustee With the Gun
Grant dragged Irene behind the stone fireplace.
Austin dropped beside her.
Detective Quinn drew her weapon.
“Police! Show yourself!”
Another shot struck the filing cabinet.
Metal screamed.
Grant returned fire toward the doorway.
Footsteps thundered down the corridor.
Austin started after them.
Grant caught his shoulder.
“Stay with Irene.”
“I’m not hiding.”
“You’re not armed.”
“That can change.”
Grant cursed, drew his backup pistol, and handed it over.
“Safety’s off.”
Detective Quinn and two security men pursued the shooter.
Austin crouched beside Irene.
“Are you hit?”
“No.”
“Baby?”
“I’m fine.”
Her face said otherwise.
The tape recorder had been destroyed.
But the cassette itself had been thrown to the floor by the impact.
Austin picked it up.
Unbroken.
He slipped it into his pocket.
Grant returned ten minutes later.
“No shooter.”
“How?”
“There’s a servant staircase behind the east wall. Leads outside.”
Quinn came back holding a brass cartridge casing.
“Professional ammunition.”
Austin looked toward the nursery window.
“Charles warned us.”
“Doesn’t mean he didn’t send the shooter,” Quinn said.
Irene stared at her.
“You think his father tried to kill us?”
“I think everyone connected to this story has lied at least once.”
They searched the hidden room.
Inside the bottom drawer of Evelyn’s desk, Irene found a ledger.
Not the ledger Margaret had wanted.
This one was smaller.
Names filled the pages.
Doctors.
Lawyers.
Trust officers.
Social workers.
Some had red lines through them.
Beside several names were initials.
C.W.
Austin recognized his father’s handwriting beside one entry.
Thomas Mercer — relocation approved.
Another:
Claire Mercer — emergency identity transfer.
Then:
Irene — protect at all costs.
Austin stared.
“My father helped your parents hide you.”
Irene read another line.
Margaret Wentworth — believes child deceased.
She looked at Austin.
“Your mother thought I was dead?”
“At some point.”
“So when did she realize I wasn’t?”
He remembered the first time he introduced Irene.
A charity dinner six years earlier.
Margaret had dropped her champagne glass.
At the time, she blamed a slippery stem.
Austin now saw the moment differently.
“She knew the second she saw you.”
Irene’s eyes filled with anger.
“She spent six years pretending.”
“And keeping you close.”
“Why?”
Austin looked around the room.
“Maybe because it was safer than losing track of you.”
Detective Quinn photographed the pages.
Then stopped.
“One of these names is familiar.”
She pointed.
Dr. Leonard Vale.
“Who is he?” Irene asked.
“Former director of St. Catherine’s Maternity Center. Shut down after a malpractice scandal in 1998.”
The date mattered.
Irene had been born in 1995.
“Still alive?” Austin asked.
Quinn checked her phone.
“According to public records, yes. Seventy-eight. Lives in Vermont.”
Austin photographed the name.
“Then we talk to him.”
They left Harrow House before sunset.
At the gate, Quinn’s phone rang.
Her expression changed immediately.
“What?”
She listened.
“How?”
Austin waited.
Quinn lowered the phone.
“Carla’s gone.”
Austin stared.
“What do you mean gone?”
“Crowe filed an emergency motion. Judge granted temporary release pending arraignment.”
“After assault and burglary?”
“Her attorney argued the safe belonged to a family-controlled property entity.”
“It’s my bedroom.”
“The ownership structure is complicated.”
Austin laughed without humor.
“Of course it is.”
Quinn continued.
“She was released forty-five minutes ago.”
“Where did she go?”
“No idea.”
Austin called Carla.
Straight to voicemail.
Irene looked back toward Harrow House.
“We need to hear the rest of the tape.”
At a private office Grant used in Hartford, they found an old cassette player.
The tape had survived.
Evelyn’s voice returned.
“If Margaret discovers Irene survived, she will attempt one of two strategies. First, she will bring Irene into the Wentworth family where she can be watched.”
Austin closed his eyes.
Irene looked at him.
Evelyn continued.
“If that fails, she will discredit Irene, isolate her, and ultimately activate the incapacity clause.”
“What incapacity clause?” Irene whispered.
Evelyn answered.
“The Harrow Trust cannot pass to an heir legally declared psychologically or medically incompetent.”
Irene’s face went pale.
Austin remembered every time Margaret had called Irene unstable.
Every private suggestion that she needed therapy.
Every rumor.
Every time Margaret encouraged Austin to place more assets under marital protections.
It had never been about divorce.
It had been preparation.
Evelyn’s voice continued.
“One warning matters above all others.”
Static swallowed several seconds.
Then the recording cleared.
“Do not trust Nathaniel Crowe.”
Quinn exhaled.
“That tracks.”
“He is not merely the Wentworth attorney. He is the current Custodial Trustee.”
Austin looked at Irene.
The trust provision they had found mentioned verification by the custodial trustee.
Crowe.
The man representing Carla.
The man with legal authority over the succession.
Evelyn continued.
“If Irene becomes pregnant, Crowe must certify the heir within ninety days.”
Irene calculated quickly.
“I’m twelve weeks.”
Austin understood.
“Ninety days is almost over.”
The tape clicked.
Then one final sentence.
“If Crowe refuses certification, the trust passes temporarily to the Emergency Steward.”
“Who?” Austin asked.
May you like
Evelyn’s answer came from thirty-one years earlier.
“Charles Wentworth.”
