Chapter 16 - The Woman Behind the Company
I drove to Samuel's office before dawn.
"Dad owned Harbor House," I said, putting the old photograph on his desk. "But look at the sign."
ATLANTIC REACH PROPERTY SERVICES.
Samuel read it twice.
"That's an old business your mother ran before Frank created the trust."
"Derek's new company uses the same name."
Nadia pulled records from the state corporate registry.
The original business had gone inactive years earlier.
Six months before Dad's death, someone had revived the name through a newly formed LLC.
The registered manager was Patricia Barker.
"Why didn't this appear in the initial search?" I asked.
"Different entity, same trade name," Nadia said. "They counted on us treating it as a coincidence."
Samuel studied the new company's filings.
"This alone doesn't prove fraud. But it gives us a direct connection between your mother and the buyer. We can ask the court for records the lender relied on."
I opened another of Dad's letters.
"Your mother did not begin as a cruel woman," he'd written. "We lost something after the war, and instead of asking for help, we learned to blame each other. That explains part of it. It does not excuse the way she treated you."
I read that line three times.
For most of my adult life, I'd wished Dad would leave me a simple verdict: you were right, they were wrong.
He had left something harder.
He'd told the truth about his own failures.
Samuel's assistant interrupted with a call from Faye.
Her attorney had arranged a formal statement with investigators.
Faye had preserved the entire care log, including medication administration records and notes from the disputed signing date.
"She says there's a signature on the back page that hasn't been shown to anyone," Samuel told me.
May you like
"Whose?"
"The notary who refused to certify Frank's deed."
