Chapter 11 - THE TRUSTED MAN
I had handed Daniel Price bank statements, keys, medical records, and letters from my grandparents.
He had always been gentle, almost invisible, offering coffee when I cried and finding signatures when I felt overwhelmed.
Seeing his face on the security still felt like discovering a stranger in a family photograph.
Caldwell stared at the image for a long time.
"I hired him twenty years ago," he said.
His voice sounded hollow.
Miller reminded him not to confront Daniel and arranged to interview office personnel.
We learned Daniel had called in sick that morning and emptied his desk overnight.
His personal number was disconnected.
Caldwell began auditing the estate file.
Several scanned documents had been accessed outside office hours.
A copy of the trust schedule had been downloaded three days before Julia announced the transfer.
Daniel had also accessed letters between Grandpa and Rebecca.
He knew precisely which secrets could be weaponized and which dates could be altered.
"Was he helping my father all along?"
I asked.
Caldwell wouldn't guess.
"He might have been paid.
He might have been threatened.
He may have thought he could cover his tracks.
We won't know until somebody finds him."
His refusal to invent an explanation made me trust him more, even as I wondered what else his office had missed.
My mother issued a second statement through her lawyer, distancing herself from Richard and Julia and claiming ignorance of the paperwork.
It was a stunning reversal.
Two days earlier she had told me I didn't deserve nice things.
Now she wanted viewers to believe she had been misled by everyone around her.
Rebecca read the statement, folded it, and placed it in the recycling bin.
"She has spent her entire life finding someone else to blame," she said.
A court order required preservation of the law firm's electronic records.
Caldwell complied immediately.
Daniel's last office message had been sent to an external address under the subject line WINTERHOUSE.
Attached was a spreadsheet listing estate properties and estimated values, including a small parcel of land Grandpa owned beyond the city.
I had never heard of it.
Caldwell retrieved the deed.
The parcel contained an abandoned farmhouse, acquired decades earlier and never transferred to my parents.
Grandpa had paid property taxes on it each year.
In the margin of his ledger, beside the parcel number, he had drawn a small blue bird.
I thought of the birdhouse and the negative.
Perhaps he had hidden another record there.
Perhaps it was merely his habit.
Still, I asked Rebecca to come with me.
We drove out at sunset.
The farmhouse was weather-beaten, its porch sagging, windows covered with plywood.
A fresh tire track cut through the tall weeds.
Someone had been there recently.
Before we could approach, a light appeared upstairs.
May you like
Then a man shouted from behind the boards, "If you came for the box, you're too late!"
