Chapter 8 - The Notary
I did not confront Nathan in front of anyone.
That surprised even me.
Instead, I asked Marissa to drive me to White Plains.
Nathan rose from his chair.
"I am coming."
"No."
"Claire."
"Eleanor asked for me."
"And she mentioned my name."
"Exactly."
He stared at me for a long second.
Then he nodded.
"Take outside counsel with you."
"I will."
"And security."
"I will."
"Do not let anyone move Eleanor without police approval."
"Nathan."
He stopped.
"I know how to protect a witness."
Something like sadness crossed his face.
"I know you do."
The ride north took forty minutes.
I spent almost all of it reading documents from 2018.
Every road led back to that year.
My fertility records were altered in 2018.
Lucas Trent vanished in 2018.
The questionable stock transfer carried a 2018 notary seal.
Vanta Shore began receiving money in 2018.
And now Eleanor claimed the original certificate had been destroyed seven years ago.
The assisted-living residence smelled like disinfectant and overcooked vegetables.
Two police officers stood outside Eleanor's room.
Rebecca met me in the hallway.
She looked exhausted.
"She is scared."
"Did she say who took her?"
"Not clearly."
"Has Diane been here again?"
"No."
"Everett?"
"No."
Rebecca gripped my hand.
"Please do not push her too hard."
"I won't."
Eleanor Shaw looked smaller than I remembered.
She had once been a formidable woman with steel-gray hair, red lipstick, and a voice that could silence a room of junior lawyers.
Now she sat beneath a hospital blanket with both hands around a paper cup.
Her eyes were still sharp.
"Claire Beaumont."
"Hello, Eleanor."
"You look like your father when you are angry."
"People keep telling me that tonight."
"Then perhaps you should believe them."
I sat beside her.
Outside counsel remained near the door.
A police detective stood against the wall with Eleanor's permission.
"Rebecca said you wanted to tell me about the certificate."
Eleanor nodded.
"It is not real."
"The paper is real."
"The certificate stock is real."
"The seal?"
"Mine."
"The signatures?"
She looked at me.
"Yours is forged."
"And Nathan's?"
"I do not know."
"You said he knew the original was destroyed."
Eleanor's fingers tightened around the cup.
"Because he was there."
"Where?"
"Your father's office."
"When?"
"October 2019."
Not 2018.
That mattered.
"What happened?"
Eleanor looked toward the detective.
He nodded for her to continue.
"Your father had discovered someone copied legacy certificates from the Hale recapitalization."
"Who?"
"He did not know."
"Did he suspect Everett?"
"He suspected someone close to Everett."
"Diane?"
Eleanor closed her eyes.
"Your father never said her name to me."
"What did he do?"
"He canceled the paper certificates and moved the valid shares into electronic registration."
I understood.
The document found in Diane's safe looked original because it had once been valid blank stock.
But it represented shares that had already been canceled.
"Nathan knew?"
"Nathan witnessed the cancellation package."
"Why did he not tell me?"
Eleanor looked almost annoyed.
"Because your father ordered us not to."
"Why?"
"He believed someone was testing access to your inheritance."
"So he let them?"
"He let them believe the paper trail still mattered."
My father had laid a trap seven years earlier.
He had never told me.
Anger and grief mixed in my chest.
"Did the trap catch anyone?"
"Not while he was alive."
"Then why keep it secret after he died?"
Eleanor's eyes softened.
"That is a question for Nathan."
"I am asking you."
"And I am telling you what I know."
I forced myself to slow down.
"What happened yesterday?"
Eleanor's face changed.
"Diane came to see me."
"What did she want?"
"A statement saying I notarized the transfer."
"Did she offer money?"
"At first."
"How much?"
"Five hundred thousand dollars."
The detective wrote something.
"Then what?"
"When I refused, she reminded me that my grandson has debt."
"Was that a threat?"
"It was meant to be."
"Did she say anything else?"
"She said Everett would control the company by Friday and that anyone helping you would regret choosing the wrong side."
I felt my jaw tighten.
"And this morning?"
"A man came to my room."
"Did you know him?"
"No."
"What did he say?"
"That Rebecca had been in a car accident."
Rebecca covered her mouth.
"He said he would drive me to the hospital."
"And you believed him?"
Eleanor looked ashamed.
"For five minutes."
"What happened in the car?"
"He took my phone."
"Did he threaten you?"
"Not directly."
"Where was he taking you?"
"I do not know."
"How did you get away?"
A faint smile touched her mouth.
"He stopped for gasoline in Stamford."
"And?"
"Your father once told me that if a man underestimates an old woman, let him."
Despite everything, I almost smiled.
Eleanor had slipped out the passenger side while the driver was inside.
She crossed behind a delivery truck and walked three blocks to the bus terminal.
A transit officer recognized that she was disoriented and called police.
"Can you identify the driver?"
"I think so."
"Did he mention Diane or Everett?"
"No."
"Anything else?"
Eleanor looked at me for a long time.
"He received a phone call."
"What did he say?"
"Only one sentence."
"What sentence?"
"He said, 'Tell Mrs. Hale the old woman is handled.'"
The detective stopped writing.
"Mrs. Hale could mean Diane or me."
Eleanor nodded.
"Yes."
That ambiguity was poison.
Someone could use it against either of us.
I was about to ask another question when Eleanor touched my wrist.
"There is something more important."
"What?"
"Your father left me a copy of a memorandum."
"Where?"
"In a bank box."
"What memorandum?"
"His notes about the missing forty-seven million."
My pulse jumped.
"Lucas Trent?"
"Yes."
"What did my father know?"
"He did not believe Lucas stole it."
"Who did he believe?"
Eleanor glanced toward the detective again.
"He believed Lucas discovered the theft and was blamed for it."
The room went silent.
"Then who stole the money?"
"Your father wrote three initials."
"Which?"
"D.H."
Diane Hale.
"E.H."
Everett Hale.
I already knew the third would hurt.
Eleanor said it anyway.
"N.C."
Nathan Cole.
I felt as though the floor had dropped beneath me.
"My father suspected Nathan?"
"He wrote the initials."
"That is not the same thing."
"No."
"Did he confront him?"
"I do not know."
"Did Nathan know about the memorandum?"
"I do not know."
The detective asked where the box was located.
Eleanor gave him the bank name and said Rebecca was an authorized contact.
Then she looked back at me.
"Claire, your father was afraid near the end."
"Of Everett?"
"Not exactly."
"Then of whom?"
"Of what Everett would become if he ever learned how close he was to controlling the Beaumont voting block."
I remembered my father's final year.
He had become more guarded.
He had asked strange questions about my marriage.
Did Everett ever ask about my trust documents?
Did Diane enter my office when I was away?
Did I keep passwords on the home computer?
I had laughed at him.
I told him Everett loved me, not my inheritance.
My father had not argued.
He had only said, "Then make sure he never has to choose between the two."
At the time, I thought he was cynical.
Now I wondered if he was warning me.
My phone vibrated.
A breaking-news alert filled the screen.
HALE MERIDIAN DIRECTOR CLAIMS CLAIRE HALE FORGED EVIDENCE.
I opened it.
Julian Price had called an emergency press conference.
He alleged that the hidden-room video had been "selectively edited."
He said Nathan controlled the security team that recovered it.
He said my father and Nathan had manipulated Hale Meridian's ownership for years.
Then Julian produced a document.
A memorandum signed by my father.
It accused Nathan Cole of unauthorized transfers in 2019.
I stared at the screen.
Eleanor saw my face.
"What happened?"
I showed her.
She read slowly.
Then she shook her head.
"That is not the memorandum I have."
"How do you know?"
"Because your father never signed his investigative notes."
"Can you prove it?"
"If the bank box is intact."
The detective's phone rang.
He listened, asked two questions, and looked at Eleanor.
"The bank box was accessed forty minutes ago."
My heart stopped.
"By whom?"
"Someone using a notarized power of attorney in Eleanor Shaw's name."
Eleanor's hands began to shake.
"I never gave anyone power of attorney."
The detective's expression darkened.
"The person removed the contents."
The one document that could tell us what my father actually discovered about the forty-seven million was gone.
And someone had stolen it while Eleanor was missing.
May you like
Everett was no longer just defending himself.
He was rewriting the past faster than we could recover it.
