Chapter 6 - My Trust
I had one trust fund.
At least, that was what I believed.
Dad created it when I was a child. It paid for college, then rolled into investments I barely touched.
Mom shook her head.
“There was another account.”
“What account?”
“A family protection trust.”
I laughed because the name was absurd now.
Dad had created it after a business partner sued the company when I was twelve. The fund was supposed to protect a portion of family assets from corporate risk.
When I turned thirty, control should have transferred to me.
I was thirty-four.
“Why didn’t it?”
Mom stared at the floor.
Noah answered from the recovered scan.
“Because somebody filed an amendment saying Claire voluntarily postponed control until forty.”
“I never did that.”
Mom said, “You were getting married.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“I was afraid Noah would get access.”
Noah’s face went hard.
“You didn’t even know me.”
“I knew men.”
I stepped between them.
“Did you sign my name?”
Mom began to cry again.
I hated how much the tears still worked on me.
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
The word was almost silent.
The trust held $3.8 million when control should have become mine.
It now held $2.1 million.
Noah searched the audit backup.
Payments from that trust had flowed through Westbridge.
My mother had not only moved company money.
She had used my name to keep control of money that already belonged to me.
“I was going to put it back.”
“When?”
“When the Florida property sold.”
“You bought the condo with my trust?”
“It was an investment.”
“In your name.”
She had no answer.
Noah sat across from me.
I could feel him wanting to touch my hand.
I was angry with him too.
Then his phone buzzed.
Noah put it on speaker.
Grant sounded terrified.
“I didn’t break the window.”
Mom leaned toward the phone.
“Grant, stop talking.”
“I went in through the side door. The office was already torn apart.”
“Then who took the laptop?”
Grant breathed hard.
“I don’t know.”
A car horn sounded behind him.
Then he said:
“But Diane isn’t the only person who needed that audit gone.”
I looked at Mom.
She looked just as confused as I was.
May you like
Grant whispered a name.
“My brother?”
