Chapter 18 - THE TRUSTED INSIDER
The insider was Martin Vale, an administrator who had worked with Wade for twenty years.
He knew where the trust kept records and which signatures were rarely questioned.
He had also helped grant a third-party agent limited access to archival materials.
Investigators were examining whether he knowingly aided the false deed or had been misled.
Wade took the news harder than the revelations about Grant.
"I trusted Martin with everything," he said.
Eliza sat in the hospital bed with Nora asleep against her arm.
"Then ask for the truth and let the evidence decide," she answered.
Wade recognized his own lesson in her voice.
Martin agreed to be interviewed through counsel.
He admitted giving Grant's mother copies of old trust documents after she claimed they were needed for a family reconciliation.
He denied knowingly authorizing a fabricated deed.
A review of his messages suggested he had ignored obvious warning signs.
The committee suspended his access while the inquiry continued.
At the property hearing, the authenticated land records and notarial evidence undermined Grant's claim to outright ownership.
The court addressed the immediate issues before it, while other questions remained pending.
Grant was required to comply with a lawful timetable for vacating the property after the applicable proceedings.
He walked out of court with no mansion and no waiting reporters asking what he would do next.
His mother had stopped answering his calls.
His corporate title existed only on archived web pages.
The children were growing in a house where his voice did not control the temperature of every room.
Eliza did not celebrate the loss of his home.
She celebrated the fact that she could choose hers.
She selected a modest place near good schools and a park, and asked Wade to help with the practical move without purchasing it in secret.
"You can give me advice," she told him. "You cannot hide a deed in a drawer and call it love."
He promised.
One afternoon Grant sent a handwritten letter through the permitted legal channel.
It did not ask for forgiveness.
It began with four words Eliza had never seen him write before.
I hit you, Eliza.
She read the first page and set it aside.
Then she read the second.
It included admissions about bank access and the way he had treated Owen.
Her lawyer advised retaining it as possible evidence.
Eliza wondered whether the letter marked genuine accountability or another attempt to control the story.
At the bottom Grant had written one final sentence.
May you like
There is one person you still haven't questioned.
