Chapter 11 - WHAT GRACE SIGNED
Grace knew exactly what Victoria meant.
Three months before Lily was born, she had received a letter from a law firm offering medical assistance and temporary housing.
She was broke, pregnant, and terrified.
The document said the Cole family would cover expenses if she agreed not to contact Nathan until after the birth.
"I signed it," Grace said. "I thought it came from you."
Nathan looked sick.
"It didn't."
Daniel pulled archived filings.
The agreement came from Mercer & Hale.
His old firm.
Marcus's name was nowhere on it.
Daniel's was.
Again.
"I drafted a template," Daniel said. "Marcus told me it was for a confidential family support arrangement. I never met Grace."
Grace laughed without humor.
"Everyone keeps saying they didn't know. Somehow I was the only person who had to live with what you didn't know."
Nobody argued.
The document had one buried clause.
If Grace accepted continuing support after Lily's birth, the Cole family could petition for guardianship under certain conditions.
Grace never accepted another payment.
But someone had created records showing she had.
Twenty-seven monthly deposits.
Into an account in her name.
An account she had never opened.
Nathan understood the plan.
They were manufacturing financial dependency and consent.
Detective Ortiz traced the account.
The opening documents contained Grace's stolen identity.
The mailing address belonged to a downtown office suite.
Tenant: Marcus Hale.
Then the toxicology results on Richard Cole arrived.
His blood contained a cardiac medication he had never been prescribed.
Enough to trigger fatal arrhythmia in a vulnerable heart.
Richard had not simply died.
May you like
Someone had helped him.
And the medication had been purchased two days earlier by Victoria Vale.
