Chapter 15 - What Robert Refused to Sign
Daniel played the voicemail twice. "She's trying to make me think Dad was hiding something."
"Maybe he was," I said. "Let's ask someone who knew him."
Nina met us the next morning in the hospital family lounge. There were paper snowflakes taped to the windows, left over from a children's art project. Daniel sat under one and held his father's letter like it was the only stable object in the world.
"Robert refused Victor's plan," Nina said. "Victor wanted the packing house and the land along the creek. A trucking company had offered him a fortune. Robert said twenty-three families were more important than one big check."
"Then why keep Victor around?" Daniel asked.
"They had contracts together, and Robert thought he could keep an eye on him. He was wrong about that part. He wasn't wrong to say no."
Nina showed us an old email Robert had sent before his final illness. The subject was simple: NOT FOR SALE. He had written that no transfer should be considered without the consent of every owner and a plan protecting the workers.
"That's why your mother needed forged signatures," Avery said when Daniel forwarded it. "A legitimate decision would've required a conversation she didn't want to have."
I watched Daniel rub the bridge of his nose. "I spent four years thinking Dad left us a failing orchard. Mom said she carried everything alone. I felt guilty whenever I disagreed with her."
"She used that," I said. "And she almost made our daughter pay for it."
At noon Avery sent us a preliminary accounting. The proposed loan wasn't the only danger. Money missing from the workers' trust had been routed through a series of shell companies. Some of those payments were due to come out of the new loan, making the forged closing the last piece in a cover-up.
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Then she called, her voice sharp.
"The bank stopped the transfer," she said. "But someone has just broken into the packing-house records room. The security alarm is going off."
