Chapter 17 - The Missing Page
My father's estate documents were careful and orderly.
He had used a local estate attorney, maintained copies, and recorded the distribution that left me the house outright.
Still, Ruth had received a new exhibit from Eric's counsel claiming that a later trust amendment gave Eric certain management powers.
The amendment was a photocopy.
It lacked a complete execution page.
It was also dated after my father's final hospitalization.
Diane claimed he'd signed it during a lucid afternoon.
Caroline's eyes filled with disbelief when I told her.
"I was with him almost every day," she said.
"He could barely hold his glasses."
Ruth told us the court would need records and testimony, not outrage.
We gathered hospice charts, visitor notes, and the drafting attorney's file.
The attorney remembered no amendment and had not prepared the disputed language.
A certified copy of the operative trust showed the same ownership history we'd relied on from the beginning.
The alleged later page had no established chain of custody.
Yet its existence disturbed me.
Someone had been willing to borrow a dying man's name to give their lie another layer.
I spent an afternoon in my father's workshop, running my fingers across the desk he'd made.
The last time I'd sat there with him, he'd told me the house wasn't a reward for being obedient.
It was a refuge for becoming my own person.
I had forgotten that while trying to be a good wife.
Emma made a soft sound in her carrier beside me.
I reached down and held her hand.
"You won't have to be grateful for things that already belong to you," I promised.
Later Ruth called with a development.
Investigators had identified the source of the questionable amendment scan.
It had been uploaded from a computer registered to Diane's business.
The file metadata showed it had been created recently, not during my father's life.
That alone did not answer every question about the original, but it seriously undermined Diane's account.
Before bedtime, Eric called from a number I didn't recognize.
His voice sounded broken.
"Mom told me the amendment was real."
"What do you believe now?"
He was silent.
Then he said, "I think she made it."
For a moment I almost felt sorry for him.
May you like
Then he added, "You have to help me stop her."
