Chapter 2 - THE TOWNHOUSE THAT MY MONEY BOUGHT
2
The morning after surgery, I woke to a police officer outside my ICU room.
That was new.
So was the security restriction attached to my chart.
No Richard Carter.
No Olivia Carter.
No information released by telephone without a password.
Daniel had recommended all three.
I had agreed.
At 8:20 a.m., Dad called the nurses' station.
At 8:37, he called again.
At 8:50, Olivia arrived.
I knew because I heard her before I saw her.
“This is insane. She's my sister.”
The nurse answered calmly.
“Ms. Carter has restricted visitors.”
“She's medicated.”
“Her attending physician confirmed she has decision-making capacity.”
“Then let me speak to the physician.”
“You cannot override the patient's instructions.”
Olivia's voice dropped.
“My father is her medical proxy.”
“Not anymore.”
Silence.
Then:
“What?”
Ten minutes later, Daniel entered.
He looked as if he had not slept.
“Morning.”
“Is she still outside?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
He sat down.
I felt guilty for enjoying that answer.
Then I remembered the townhouse.
Guilt disappeared.
Daniel had brought coffee for himself and a notebook for me.
“No estate documents today unless you ask.”
“I am asking.”
“You should recover.”
“I nearly died while my father was moving my stolen money into my sister's house.”
He sighed.
“Fair.”
He opened the forensic report.
The trust my mother created contained several investments, rental properties, and shares in Carter Residential Group, the company she had founded before marrying my father.
Mom had been a force.
She started with two duplexes at twenty-eight.
By the time I was born, she owned nineteen rental properties.
By the time Olivia was born, she had expanded into commercial development.
Dad joined later.
He was good with presentations.
Good with banks.
Good with people.
Mom was good with everything else.
When she died eleven years earlier from pancreatic cancer, I was twenty-one.
Olivia was nineteen.
Mom left each of us assets.
Mine were larger because I had been working inside the company since high school and Mom intended me eventually to take over her voting shares.
I never did.
After her death, grief swallowed me.
Dad told me there was no rush.
He would administer everything.
“Don't worry about paperwork,” he said.
“I'll protect what your mother built.”
For eleven years, I believed him.
Daniel turned the forensic report toward me.
“He made forty-seven questionable transfers.”
“Forty-seven?”
“Some may be legitimate. Some definitely aren't.”
“How much?”
“Potentially $1.6 million.”
My mouth went dry.
“The townhouse is only part of it.”
“Where did the rest go?”
“We're tracing it.”
I closed my eyes.
Every Christmas Dad told me money was tight at the company.
Every year he suggested I leave my dividends invested.
Olivia drove a new Mercedes.
Dad renovated his lake house.
I lived comfortably because of my salary, but I was careful.
I thought that was what responsible adults did.
Apparently I had been subsidizing irresponsibility while congratulating myself for being mature.
Daniel tapped another line.
“One thing bothers me.”
“Only one?”
“The pattern changed six months ago.”
Earlier transfers were smaller.
Twenty thousand.
Thirty thousand.
Occasionally fifty.
Then six months earlier, the amounts jumped.
One hundred thousand.
One hundred eighty.
Four hundred twenty.
“Why?”
“I don't know.”
“What happened six months ago?”
I thought.
Nothing obvious.
Then I remembered.
“Olivia got engaged.”
Daniel wrote it down.
“To whom?”
“Mark Ellison.”
“What does he do?”
“Commercial real estate.”
Daniel paused.
“Which firm?”
“Halberg Partners.”
His pen stopped.
“What?”
“Halberg has purchased three properties from Carter Residential Group in the last year.”
I stared.
“You think that's connected?”
“I don't know yet.”
There it was.
The phrase lawyers used before they ruined your morning.
At 9:14, the ICU doors opened.
Olivia walked in.
The officer followed.
“She is permitted five minutes because she claims she has information relevant to Ms. Carter's safety.”
I looked at Daniel.
He shrugged.
“I didn't authorize it.”
Olivia looked terrible.
Yesterday's polished photos were gone.
Her hair was pulled into a messy knot.
No makeup.
Same sweater she had worn during the move.
She stared at me.
“You banned me?”
“Yes.”
Her face tightened.
“Emily.”
“Did you know Dad bought your house with my trust?”
She stopped.
No surprise.
That answered me.
Daniel leaned back.
Olivia looked toward him.
“I want to speak to my sister alone.”
“No,” I said.
“Emily, please.”
“Did you know?”
Her eyes filled.
“Not at first.”
The words hurt more than if she had simply said yes.
“Not at first.”
“I found out later.”
“When?”
“Three weeks ago.”
“You closed on the house eleven days ago.”
“I know.”
“So you knew before closing.”
She nodded.
I felt the surgical pain sharpen because my whole body tightened.
“And you accepted it.”
“You don't understand.”
“Then explain.”
“Dad said the money was eventually going to be divided between us anyway.”
“No.”
“I know that now.”
“You knew enough to hide it.”
“I didn't hide anything.”
“You posted twelve photos of the kitchen. Somehow you forgot the caption saying Paid for with my sister's stolen inheritance.”
She flinched.
“That's not fair.”
I laughed, which hurt so badly I grabbed my abdomen.
The nurse stepped forward.
I raised a hand.
“I'm fine.”
I looked at Olivia.
“You know what's unfair? Listening to a nurse tell Dad I was going into emergency surgery and hearing him say he would come when he could.”
Her face changed.
“I told him to go.”
That stopped me.
“What?”
“When the hospital called.”
She swallowed.
“I told him to go.”
Daniel watched carefully.
“He said you were stable.”
“I wasn't.”
“I didn't know that.”
“The nurse told him.”
“I couldn't hear the whole call.”
“You saw him stay.”
“Yes.”
“And you let him?”
“He said the movers would leave if we stopped.”
I stared at her.
“You were willing to let our father miss my surgery because movers might leave?”
“No.”
“That's exactly what you just said.”
“I thought you were okay.”
“I was septic.”
“I didn't know!”
Her voice broke.
The monitor accelerated again.
The nurse moved closer.
Daniel spoke.
“Olivia, you said you had information regarding Emily's safety.”
She looked at him.
Then at me.
Her anger disappeared.
Fear replaced it.
“I found something in the boxes.”
“What boxes?”
“The ones Dad was moving.”
I frowned.
“I thought they were your belongings.”
“Most were.”
“Most?”
Olivia looked toward the door.
“Dad brought twelve boxes from the old storage unit.”
“What storage unit?”
“Mom's.”
My blood went cold.
I did not know Mom had a storage unit.
Daniel didn't either.
Olivia continued.
“Dad said it had to be emptied because the building was being sold.”
“When?”
“Yesterday.”
“While I was in surgery?”
She nodded.
“What was in the boxes?”
“Old company records. Mom's files. Tax papers. Journals. I don't know.”
Daniel leaned forward.
“Where are they?”
“At the townhouse.”
“Did Richard know what was inside?”
“He said no.”
“But?”
Olivia rubbed her arms.
“He kept checking them.”
I remembered the dust on Dad's knee.
The gloves.
The tape.
Maybe he had not spent the evening hanging curtains.
Maybe he had spent it searching boxes.
“Why are you telling me?”
Olivia's eyes filled.
“Because after he finally left for the hospital, I opened one.”
“What did you find?”
She reached inside her bag.
The officer immediately stepped closer.
Olivia slowly removed a photograph.
She handed it to Daniel.
He passed it to me.
It showed Mom sitting at the dining-room table in our childhood home.
She looked thin.
Sick.
A date was printed in the lower corner.
Three weeks before she died.
On the table sat a blue binder.
Across the front, in Mom's handwriting:
EMILY — ORIGINAL TRUST / DO NOT GIVE TO RICHARD.
I stared at those words.
“What happened to the binder?”
Olivia shook her head.
“I don't know.”
“Was it in the box?”
“No.”
“What else?”
She removed a folded sheet of paper.
A photocopy of a storage inventory.
Blue binder.
Insurance records.
Original trust.
Letters to Emily.
Medical documentation.
Safe-deposit key.
Daniel read the list twice.
“Where is the original?”
“I don't know.”
“Who has accessed the unit?”
Olivia looked at me.
“Dad.”
“Anybody else?”
“According to the facility manager, nobody since Mom died.”
I stared at the photograph.
My mother had explicitly written not to give Richard the original trust.
Yet Richard had administered my trust for eleven years.
Why?
Daniel asked the question I could not.
“Olivia, why did Richard suddenly empty this storage unit yesterday?”
She hesitated.
“He got a letter.”
“What letter?”
“From you.”
Daniel's face changed.
“I sent him a preservation notice yesterday morning.”
My heart began beating faster.
Daniel had notified Dad that financial records concerning the trust must not be altered, deleted, or destroyed because we were reviewing suspicious transfers.
Dad received the notice.
Hours later, he rushed to empty my mother's private storage unit.
Then the hospital called.
He stayed with the boxes.
It wasn't because Olivia needed help moving.
The move was cover.
Dad had been searching for something.
And my mother's handwritten warning told us exactly what.
The original trust.
Olivia whispered:
“Emily, there is something else.”
I looked up.
“When Dad left for the hospital, he forgot his iPad.”
She took a breath.
“A message came through.”
“From who?”
“I don't know. The number wasn't saved.”
“What did it say?”
Olivia began crying.
I had never seen my sister look afraid of our father before.
“It said, ‘If she dies tonight, we don't need her signature.’”
The room went silent.
Olivia wiped her face.
“And Dad replied.”
My fingers went numb.
“What did he say?”
May you like
She looked directly at me.
“‘I know. That's why I'm staying here until the hospital calls again.’”
