Chapter 7 - Forty-Two Million Dollars
The trust attorney's name was buried in my father's papers.
Arthur Bell.
When I called, he asked me three questions before saying anything important.
"Are you safe?"
"Yes."
"Is your mother with you?"
"No."
"Do you have a child?"
"Yes."
"Then this conversation is twelve years late."
He emailed me the trust documents.
He left most of his estate in a generation-skipping trust.
I was the primary beneficiary.
But my father had designed restrictions after Emily's death.
The principal could transfer to me at thirty-five or immediately upon the birth of my first child, once paternity and maternity records were verified.
"Immediately?" I asked.
"It should have happened months ago."
"Why didn't it?"
Arthur went quiet.
"Because someone sent us a death certificate."
"For who?"
"You."
Noah stood up so fast his chair hit the wall.
Arthur continued.
"It was filed seven months ago. It said you died during childbirth."
"If the certificate had been accepted permanently, control would have passed to the contingent trustee."
"My mother."
"Yes."
"How much money?"
"Current value is approximately forty-two million dollars."
It was the sound a person makes when reality becomes too ugly to process.
"She filed a fake death certificate."
"It appears so."
"And when that failed?"
"I suspect she needed another way to challenge the transfer."
Noah looked toward Sofia.
"If the baby was injured, she could claim Claire was an unfit mother."
Arthur's silence answered for him.
Then he added, "There's something else."
"The trust contains a sealed amendment your father signed two days before he died."
"What amendment?"
"I was instructed not to open it unless Marlene attempted to gain control through fraud."
My hands turned cold.
"Open it."
Then he said, "Claire, your father changed the successor beneficiary."
"To who?"
Arthur inhaled.
"To Emily Harper."
I stared at the phone.
"My sister is dead."
May you like
Arthur's voice dropped.
"According to this amendment, your father didn't believe that."
