Chapter 16 - THE DAUGHTER NO ONE TALKED ABOUT
For twenty minutes, nobody explained Emily Prescott to me because nobody seemed certain what there was to explain.
Daniel knew only the family version.
Before I was born, my parents had a daughter named Emily.
She became ill as an infant and died before her first birthday.
My father almost never spoke about her.
My mother never spoke about her at all.
There were no photographs in our house.
No framed birth announcement.
No grave visits I remembered.
Nothing.
"Why would Gregory's succession model reserve five million dollars in her name?" I asked.
Daniel shook his head.
"I don't know."
Sarah looked at Rachel.
"Who created that spreadsheet?"
"Gregory."
"Did you ask him about the reserve?"
"Once."
"What did he say?"
"He told me it was a family obligation and none of my business."
I stared at the screen.
A dead child should not need a reserve account thirty years later.
Unless the account was not for the child.
Miriam traced the formula.
The planned five million dollars would have moved into a charitable foundation called the Emily Prescott Foundation.
The foundation existed.
It had been created eleven years earlier.
Its stated mission was pediatric medical support.
Its annual filings showed very little activity.
Its board had three members.
Evelyn Prescott.
Gregory Bennett.
Peter Lang.
I laughed because the alternative was putting my fist through the table.
"Of course Peter is on it."
Sarah searched the filings.
The foundation had received small annual donations from my mother.
Nothing close to five million.
Miriam examined the banking records available through public disclosures.
"This could be a destination vehicle."
"For stolen money?"
"For hidden money. We do not know stolen."
"Yet."
She ignored me.
The foundation was another compartment.
The question was whose.
My mother's deposition was scheduled the next morning.
For the first time, I wanted to cancel it.
Not because I feared what she would say about the trust.
Because I feared what she would say about Emily.
Sarah did not let emotion rearrange the schedule.
"We ask what is relevant."
"A dead sister I didn't know existed feels relevant."
"To you."
"And potentially to a five-million-dollar reserve in Gregory's plan."
"Then we ask about the reserve."
My mother arrived at nine with Robert Gaines and two civil attorneys.
She did not look at me when she sat down.
Sarah began with the trust.
My mother admitted she wanted Austin to receive a larger share.
She admitted she helped collect old documents containing my signature.
She insisted she believed Peter Lang needed them for legitimate drafting.
Sarah showed her the email.
Need Laura signature package ready before trust conference.
My mother's response.
I have her old documents and can get what you need.
"What did you think signature package meant?"
"Signature examples."
"Why did Peter need them?"
"He said Laura might execute documents remotely."
"Did Laura agree to execute documents remotely?"
"Not that I knew."
"Then why prepare her signature examples?"
My mother looked at Gaines.
He told her to answer if she knew.
"Gregory said it was standard."
Sarah slid another exhibit across the table.
Fine, but this ends when Austin is safe.
"What did you mean?"
"That I wanted the fighting to stop."
"The fighting had not started. Charles was still alive."
My mother swallowed.
"The financial fighting."
"Were you aware Gregory planned to challenge Charles's estate structure after his death?"
"He discussed possibilities."
"Four months before Charles died?"
"He was sick."
"That was not my question."
My mother's eyes flashed.
"Yes."
The word sat in the room.
Sarah continued.
"Were you aware of the Marston guarantee before Charles died?"
"Yes."
"Did you know he had refused to sign it?"
My mother stared at the table.
"He refused that night."
"Did he later change his mind?"
"Gregory said he did."
"Did Charles tell you he changed his mind?"
"No."
"Did you see him sign?"
"No."
"Then why did you allow the lender to believe he had?"
"I didn't speak to the lender."
Sarah did not let her escape into grammar.
"Why did you allow your family to use the loan proceeds knowing Charles had refused?"
My mother's mouth trembled.
"Because Austin would have lost the company."
"So you knowingly benefited from a transaction Charles had rejected."
Gaines objected to the characterization.
My mother whispered anyway.
"Yes."
I looked down at my hands.
There are admissions you spend days wanting.
When they arrive, they do not feel like victory.
They feel like a room finally losing oxygen.
Sarah moved to the fake military email.
"Did you know this email was fabricated?"
My mother closed her eyes.
"Yes."
"Did you authorize Voss to create it?"
"Gregory did."
"Did you authorize its release?"
Silence.
"Mrs. Prescott?"
"Yes."
My mother looked at me for the first time.
"I thought they would investigate you and you would finally back down."
I felt no anger.
That surprised me.
Maybe there was no room left for it.
"You wanted them to question my integrity."
Sarah placed a hand slightly toward me, reminding me this was her deposition.
I stopped.
My mother answered anyway.
"I wanted you to stop trying to destroy Austin."
"Austin was using Dad's name on an eleven-million-dollar loan."
"Because your father would rather watch him fail than help him."
"He was not entitled to help."
"You always had help."
There it was.
The oldest wound in the room.
My mother did not see the trust.
She saw every Christmas when my father praised me.
Every time he attended a military ceremony.
Every phone call where he asked about my work.
Every dollar he refused to hand Austin without conditions.
Evidence did not erase resentment.
It only showed what resentment had been used to justify.
Sarah changed exhibits.
The Emily Prescott Foundation appeared on the screen.
My mother's face drained of color.
She looked at Gregory's succession model.
Then at Sarah.
"Where did you get this?"
"Do you recognize the foundation?"
"Yes."
"Who was Emily Prescott?"
My mother's eyes moved to me.
For several seconds, she said nothing.
Then she began to cry.
Not loudly.
No performance.
Two tears moved down her face while she stared at the table.
"She was your sister."
"I know that now."
"She died."
"When?"
"Six months old."
"Where is she buried?"
My mother stopped crying.
That was the moment I knew the answer would not be simple.
"Mom."
Gaines leaned toward her.
"You can take a break."
"No."
Her voice shook.
"No more breaks."
She looked at me.
"Emily didn't die the way we told people."
My heartbeat slowed.
"What does that mean?"
"She was born very sick."
"And?"
"Your father and I were twenty-three. We had no money. We were terrified."
"What happened?"
"My sister and her husband offered to care for her while we got stable."
"Care for her?"
"They lived in Ohio."
"Mom."
"They adopted her."
The room vanished around me.
"Emily lived?"
My mother nodded.
"For a while."
"How long?"
"Until she was twenty-seven."
I stared at her.
Twenty-seven.
My sister had lived twenty-seven years and I had been told she died as an infant.
"Why did you lie?"
"At first because the adoption was private."
"For twenty-seven years?"
"Then because Charles couldn't forgive himself."
"That doesn't explain me."
"He wanted to tell you. I didn't."
"Why?"
"Because I was ashamed."
Her voice broke.
"I gave away my first child."
No one spoke.
I did not know what emotion belonged in my body.
Grief for a sister I never met.
Anger at a lie older than most of my memories.
Pity for two terrified young parents.
Disgust at what the secret had become.
Sarah brought us back to the legal point.
"Why does the foundation exist?"
My mother wiped her face.
"Emily contacted us when she was twenty-four."
"Us?"
"Me and Charles."
"Did Laura's father have a relationship with her?"
"For three years. Quietly."
I felt betrayed all over again.
My father had known my sister as an adult and never told me.
My mother continued.
"Emily had a daughter."
My head snapped up.
"A daughter?"
"Sophie."
"Where is she?"
"With Emily's adoptive family."
"How old?"
"Sixteen."
I closed my eyes.
A niece.
Another person hidden behind a family story.
"The foundation was for Sophie?"
"Partly."
"Then why is Gregory reserving five million dollars for it in a scheme involving Dad's trust?"
My mother looked confused.
"He isn't."
Sarah turned the spreadsheet toward her.
My mother read it.
Her face changed from grief to fear.
"I never approved this."
"You are on the foundation board."
"Gregory handles the filings."
"Did you authorize five million dollars to be moved there?"
"No."
"Did Peter?"
"I don't know."
My mother looked at me.
"Laura, I swear to you, I didn't know about this."
For the first time, the evidence supported her confusion.
The five-million-dollar reserve was not part of the story she thought she knew.
Gaines asked for a break.
Sarah agreed.
In the hallway, Miriam called.
She had traced the Emily Prescott Foundation's dormant bank account.
Three days earlier, someone had initiated a new linked account in the Cayman Islands.
The authorized signer was Gregory Bennett.
The planned five million dollars had never been about my dead sister.
It had been an exit channel with an innocent name.
Then Miriam added something worse.
"There was already money in the offshore account."
"How much?"
"One point three million dollars."
The exact unidentified amount missing from PSS in 2009.
Seventeen years earlier, Gregory had moved part of the missing company money into an offshore structure.
Now he was preparing to use a foundation named after my sister to move another five million.
My mother had spent years believing Gregory saved my father.
May you like
The records were beginning to show he may have been feeding off him instead.
