Chapter 6 - SIX YEARS AGO
Memory is cruel because it keeps useless details.
I remembered the lemon smell of the hospital soap. The green blanket over my knees. Patricia brushing my hair back and telling me to rest.
I did not remember signing anything.
Because I hadn’t.
Rachel requested the original power of attorney from the bank.
At 8:00 the next morning, she called.
“They have it.”
We met at a downtown branch with a fraud investigator.
The document looked official.
My name. My old address. My driver’s-license number. A notary seal.
And a signature written while I was supposedly recovering from anesthesia.
The witness line made my skin crawl.
Michael Bennett.
I stared at it.
He had stood next to my hospital bed while I mourned our baby and used that moment to build a weapon against me.
The fraud investigator asked, “Did you know your husband accessed the safe-deposit box linked to this account last month?”
“No.”
“What was in it?”
“My father’s original will. Property records. Some family jewelry.”
The investigator checked his screen.
“The box is empty.”
I gripped the edge of the desk.
Rachel said quietly, “Emma, what property records?”
“My father left me forty percent of Hale Manufacturing.”
Rachel blinked.
Michael had always told people my inheritance was modest. He liked that story because it made him look like the provider.
But my shares were worth millions.
The investigator printed the access log.
Michael had entered the box twice.
Patricia had entered once.
The third name stopped me.
Robert Bennett.
My father-in-law.
The man who had defended me at dinner.
The man who had told police he saw Michael throw the glass.
Rachel looked at me.
“Either Robert is helping them…”
May you like
She let the sentence hang.
“Or he knows exactly what they were looking for.”
