Chapter 7 - The Forged Trust
By sunrise, Cullen had stopped thinking of the night as a family crisis.
It was a crime scene with a dinner table.
Nora compared the suspicious trust amendment with Marisol's original estate documents.
"The language is wrong," she said. "Marisol always used Mireya's full legal name. This document doesn't."
Vale photographed everything.
"Forgery gives us leverage," he said. "But I still need probable cause for Tove's house."
"What about the necklace?"
"Your daughter's statement helps. So does the video. I'm calling the judge."
Tove.
"You are frightening Mireya," she said.
"You threw her inhaler."
"I made a mistake."
"You threatened her for eighteen months."
Silence.
Then Tove's voice changed.
"You don't know what Marisol was doing before she died."
"I know what you were doing."
"No. You know what a child thinks she saw."
Cullen walked into the hallway so Mireya wouldn't hear.
"Why did Marisol write that you were stealing from the foundation?"
Tove exhaled.
"Because your wife was sick. Paranoid. Obsessed."
"And the forged trust?"
Another silence.
"Bryce handled paperwork. Ask him."
"Where is he?"
"I don't know."
Cullen looked at the paused party video on Nora's phone.
"He was in my house last night."
Tove hung up.
Three minutes later, an alarm started screaming from the parking garage below.
Mara rushed to the window.
Smoke curled up from the lower level.
Cullen ran downstairs with security.
His SUV was burning.
The fire department contained it before the flames spread, but the front seats were destroyed.
Vale returned before the smoke cleared.
"Accelerant," he said after speaking to the fire marshal. "This wasn't electrical."
Cullen stared at the wreck.
"They know I'm looking."
Vale's phone rang.
He answered, listened, then looked at Cullen.
"The judge signed the warrant."
Cullen felt the first hard piece of hope.
Vale's expression stopped it.
"But there's a problem. Tove's house is empty."
"How empty?"
"Closets stripped. Safe open. Computers gone."
"The glass box?"
Vale shook his head.
"Gone too."
Then his radio crackled.
A patrol officer had found a black Range Rover abandoned near the marina.
May you like
Inside was Marisol's necklace.
And blood on the driver's seat.
