Chapter 4 - THE TEST RUN
The notebook was Michael's.
His handwriting matched old birthday cards.
That destroyed the last part of me still hoping he had signed papers without understanding them.
The page listed dates.
School fundraiser.
Church picnic.
Luncheon rehearsal.
Beside each date were notes.
Grandma has access.
Backup injector location.
Rachel said:
"They were studying you."
"No."
"They were studying Lily."
Collins asked whether Lily had experienced any unexplained allergy scares recently.
Two weeks earlier, she complained her lips tingled after a cookie at school.
The nurse found no peanuts in the ingredient list.
Small exposure did not create enough documentation.
They needed a medical emergency dramatic enough to support a custody petition.
They did not need Lily dead.
That distinction did not comfort me.
Then the hospital lab called.
Lily's bloodwork confirmed significant peanut exposure.
The dessert had contained crushed peanuts.
Collins interviewed the luncheon server.
He insisted he delivered a peanut-free dish to Lily.
A second server remembered Evelyn stopping him near the service station.
"Mrs. Hart said the plates were wrong."
Security video from the ballroom showed Evelyn switching two desserts.
Then Collins found something else.
The coat check camera showed Michael entering the building through a side door thirty minutes before the event.
He had told me he was working that day.
He appeared for less than six minutes.
Long enough to walk behind my chair.
Long enough to touch my jacket.
He left before dessert.
"My brother was there."
Collins nodded.
"Looks like it."
Money explained some of it.
Michael had been living rent-free in my house.
But he was not desperate enough to gamble with Lily's life for eighty-six thousand dollars.
Then Rachel found another transfer.
Two hundred fifty thousand dollars.
From Lily's trust.
Hart Family Holdings.
Evelyn's private company.
The transfer had been disguised as a loan.
Collins asked:
"Who owns Hart Family Holdings?"
"Evelyn."
"Anyone else?"
I checked old corporate records.
Michael.
My brother had been stealing from Lily with the woman who spent years trying to take her away.
Then Rachel looked up.
"There is still one problem."
"What?"
"Who created the false amendment?"
The signature looked like Anna's.
If it was forged, someone had access to her original estate documents.
Michael did not.
Evelyn did not.
Only three people had full access.
Me.
Anna's attorney.
And Anna's father.
May you like
My late father-in-law, Charles Hart.
Except Charles was supposed to have been dead for six years.
