Chapter 14 - Hazel'S Version Of The Truth
Hazel's video spread among people who knew our family.
In it she played a short recording of my younger voice saying, "I don't want anything from this house."
I recognized the conversation immediately.
It was the morning I left after my twenty-sixth birthday.
I'd spoken those words into a voice message to a friend while sitting in my car.
I had been talking about furniture, clothes, and the family home.
Not my mother's trust.
And the trust property had been transferred years before I recorded the message.
The recording could not prove the claim Hazel made.
But it still made me feel exposed.
How had she obtained a private message?
I contacted the friend who'd received it.
She told me her old phone had once been borrowed by Hazel during a holiday gathering.
We couldn't establish exactly how the file had been copied.
Daniel focused on what we could prove.
The clip was incomplete, dated long after the deed, and irrelevant to the alleged authorization.
But Hazel had inadvertently given us something useful.
In the video, she said, "Mom handled every document at the closing. Dad was only there to sign what she put in front of him."
Her explanation contradicted Maria's earlier statement that Dad had independently managed the entire transaction.
Daniel preserved the video.
A few days later, the notary agreed to be interviewed.
She remembered the unusual closing because the young woman presenting Zoe's identification had refused to remove oversized sunglasses at first.
The notary said she had eventually insisted on seeing the woman's face.
She acknowledged she may not have compared it carefully enough with the identification photograph.
She also remembered Maria repeatedly answering questions intended for the signer.
Her admission didn't settle the case.
But it added weight to the evidence.
Then the notary mentioned something surprising.
"The girl looked terrified," she said.
I almost laughed at the idea of Hazel being afraid.
The notary continued.
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"And afterward, I heard the older woman tell her, 'Now you can stop worrying about what happens if Carter ever leaves us.'"
