Chapter 5 - The Forged Will
Vanessa didn’t run.
Grant did.
He made it six steps.
Detective Chen’s partner stopped him at the door.
The room erupted.
People whispered.
Phones appeared.
Someone began recording.
Dad remained beside the photograph announcing his own death.
I wished I could say I felt triumphant.
I didn’t.
I felt sick.
Vanessa was still my sister.
The woman standing there shaking was the same girl who had once slept beside me during thunderstorms.
But somewhere between childhood and that Sunday afternoon, we had lost each other.
Detective Chen asked everyone to remain calm.
Then she requested that Vanessa and Grant accompany her outside.
Vanessa looked at Dad.
“Please.”
Dad’s face softened for half a second.
Then he looked at the forged will.
“No.”
That single word ended something between them.
The memorial gathering dissolved into chaos.
By evening, the story was everywhere in town.
But the forged will created a larger problem.
Who made it?
Grant blamed Vanessa.
Vanessa blamed Grant.
Both blamed an online document service.
The witnesses listed on the will didn’t exist at the addresses provided.
Dad’s signature had been copied from an old vehicle title.
Margaret confirmed it.
Then the notary seal created the first major break.
The seal belonged to a notary who had retired two years earlier.
Her stamp had been reported stolen.
The person suspected of stealing it?
Grant’s former business partner.
Dad sat in my kitchen when Detective Chen explained everything.
“So this wasn’t spontaneous,” he said.
“No.”
“How long?”
“Potentially months.”
I watched him absorb that.
The anger disappeared.
What replaced it was worse.
Grief.
Not grief for money.
Grief for Vanessa.
“She’s my daughter.”
Detective Chen nodded.
“I understand.”
“No,” Dad said quietly. “I don’t think I do.”
That night he stayed at my house again.
Around midnight, I found him sitting alone in the kitchen.
The lights were off.
“Can’t sleep?”
He shook his head.
I sat across from him.
For several minutes, neither of us spoke.
Then Dad said, “Your mother would have known what to do.”
“No, she wouldn’t.”
He looked at me.
“Mom would have yelled at everybody for three hours and then made soup.”
Dad laughed.
It was the first genuine laugh I had heard from him in days.
Then his expression changed.
“I failed Vanessa somewhere.”
“No.”
“She didn’t become this person overnight.”
“That doesn’t mean you created her.”
Dad stared at his hands.
“I spent years thinking money could solve problems.”
I understood what he meant.
After Mom died, Dad became generous to the point of carelessness.
Vanessa asked for help with a mortgage payment.
Dad paid it.
Grant’s business struggled.
Dad loaned them money.
Their car broke.
Dad replaced it.
Every emergency ended with Dad writing a check.
“Maybe they stopped seeing you as Dad,” I said.
He looked at me.
“And started seeing me as an account.”
I hated saying it.
But yes.
The next morning, Detective Chen called.
They had found something on the hidden camera.
Not footage.
Login records.
The device had uploaded video to a cloud account.
The account had been accessed repeatedly from one IP address.
Grant and Vanessa’s house.
Dad closed his eyes.
But Detective Chen wasn’t finished.
“There’s something else.”
“What?”
“The camera recorded audio.”
My stomach tightened.
“How much?”
“Three weeks.”
Dad sat down.
“And?”
“We found a conversation from Thursday.”
The night someone entered Dad’s house.
Detective Chen hesitated.
“Mr. Cole, you need to hear it yourself.”
Two hours later, we sat inside an interview room.
Detective Chen placed headphones on the table.
Dad put them on.
I watched his face.
At first, nothing happened.
Then his eyes widened.
His jaw tightened.
After ninety seconds, he removed the headphones.
“What did they say?” I asked.
Dad stared at the table.
He couldn’t answer.
Detective Chen looked at me.
“The recording appears to capture Vanessa and Grant inside Robert’s office.”
“And?”
She paused.
“Grant asks whether the new will has been completed.”
My heart pounded.
“What does Vanessa say?”
Detective Chen looked at Dad.
Then back at me.
“She says it doesn’t matter.”
“Why?”
“Because according to her…”
Detective Chen pushed a transcript toward me.
I read the sentence.
And suddenly the fake death announcement made terrifying sense.
Vanessa’s recorded voice said:
May you like
By the time anyone sees the real will, Dad won’t be around to argue about it.
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