Chapter 18 - WHAT TRENT WAS AFRAID TO SAY
I did not leave Arizona.
I informed Rebecca about Trent's warning, and we passed it to the appropriate investigators.
Security precautions around my temporary residence and office were reviewed again.
For the first time, the people pursuing the family's records seemed almost as worried about preserving witnesses as preserving documents.
Trent requested a meeting through counsel.
Rebecca agreed to a structured interview attended by lawyers.
He arrived looking thinner, his expensive shirt wrinkled.
I had spent years protecting him from ordinary consequences.
It was strange to see what reality had done in a few weeks.
“Walter made the decisions,” Trent began.
“That's not the same as you having no choices,” I replied.
He swallowed.
“I know.”
He admitted that Gloria introduced him to me after reviewing information about my business and finances.
He said he had been told our relationship could benefit the family if he persuaded me to trust him.
At first he enjoyed the attention and the luxury.
Later he treated the scheme as something he could never escape without losing everyone who had raised him.
“What about Camille?” I asked.
He closed his eyes.
“And Natalie?”
He did not answer.
“Were we people to you or just balance sheets?”
“Both,” he whispered.
The word hurt more than another lie would have.
He admitted knowing that at least some of the money intended for his parents' care funded investments.
He denied directing the forged insurance documents or knowing about the passports.
Rebecca asked for corroboration, not promises.
Trent offered passwords to an old encrypted archive and identified a safe deposit box used by Walter.
He claimed the box held original documents and a handwritten distribution ledger.
An investigator verified the lead through lawful procedures.
Inside were records, cash, and notes mapping payments to a network of entities.
One page bore the heading EXIT STRATEGY.
Beside my name was a date ten days after Trent had planned to move Brooke into the mansion.
The notation read final authorization or pressure phase.
I felt sick.
Trent insisted he had believed the pressure meant destroying my reputation and forcing a settlement.
Rebecca replied that we would not interpret a cryptic note without other evidence.
But the entry was impossible to ignore.
That night a detective called to confirm investigators had located Natalie Brooks.
She was safe.
She had agreed to give a statement, but she wanted to speak to me first.
When I answered the call, Natalie's first words were not a greeting.
“Harper, there's one thing Gloria will do before she lets Walter go down alone.”
“What?”
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“She'll make sure the people who can testify look like criminals.”
