Chapter 6 - The Box Beneath the Floorboards
Gerald Pike was alive.
That was the first thing we confirmed.
The second was that he had been admitted to Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital after crashing his car into a guardrail.
No one knew whether the collision had anything to do with Evelyn.
I refused to assume.
Courtrooms punish assumptions.
Evidence mattered.
But the timing was terrible.
Thomas contacted the police about the threatening message.
I turned over the photograph and voicemail.
Then we returned to the black box.
Frank had not left us a puzzle for entertainment.
He had expected resistance.
That meant every folder mattered.
The ANNA folder contained financial statements.
I opened it with her beside me.
The first account was a 529 education plan.
Healthy balance.
Nothing strange.
The second was a trust established by Frank's father for future grandchildren.
Anna's name appeared as beneficiary.
Original principal: $1.4 million.
Current balance: $312,000.
Anna stared.
“Where did the rest go?”
I kept reading.
Transfers.
Dozens.
Some were listed as authorized distributions.
Others went into an entity called Blue Ridge Family Holdings.
“Who owns that?”
Thomas searched Virginia corporate records.
His face tightened.
“Evelyn.”
The transfers began two years before Frank became ill.
The largest occurred eight months before his diagnosis.
Total moved from the trust: $1,087,000.
There was more.
A second trust belonged to Frank.
More transfers.
Then an account created by Frank's father for property maintenance.
More transfers.
Combined questionable movement approached $2.8 million.
The anonymous message made sense now.
Whoever sent it knew exactly what was missing.
Anna whispered, “Grandma took my money?”
“We don't know yet.”
The evidence looked bad.
But the trustee authorization pages carried Frank's father's signature.
If genuine, the transfers might have been legal.
Thomas studied them.
“When did Frank's father die?”
“Eight years ago.”
He pointed to one authorization.
“This transfer occurred six years ago.”
My stomach tightened.
The signature of a dead man appeared on a document dated two years after his death.
Anna stood so abruptly the chair scraped backward.
“No.”
I kept staring.
Something about the form looked familiar.
The same clean imitation.
The same hesitation on the long downward stroke.
The same false confidence.
Frank's journal had said someone was practicing his signature.
Maybe Gerald had been practicing more than one.
Or maybe someone else had.
We scanned every document.
Then Thomas did something I hadn't expected.
He called Martin Cole.
“Why are you telling their lawyer?” Anna asked.
“Because if Martin is innocent, he needs to know his client may have handed him fabricated evidence.”
“And if he's not?”
Thomas looked at me.
“Then we learn something.”
Martin arrived at Thomas's office at 7:30 that evening.
Without Evelyn.
Without the other attorneys.
He looked ten years older than he had at our first hearing.
Thomas placed a copy of the post-death trust authorization in front of him.
Martin read it.
His face emptied.
“Where did you get this?”
“Answer the obvious question first,” I said.
He looked at the date.
Then at Frank's father's recorded date of death.
“Jesus.”
“Did Evelyn give you trust records?”
“Yes.”
“Did she give you this?”
“No.”
“Did you draft the March 14 authorization?”
“No.”
That mattered.
“Who did?”
“She said it had been prepared by Frank's financial adviser.”
“Name?”
“She wouldn't say.”
Thomas and I exchanged a glance.
Martin noticed.
“You have a name.”
“Gerald Pike,” I said.
His reaction was immediate.
He knew it.
“How do you know Gerald?”
Martin sat back.
“He contacted our office three months ago.”
“Before the lawsuit?”
“Yes.”
“What did he want?”
“To discuss potential testimony concerning Frank's mental state.”
My pulse sharpened.
“What did he say?”
“That Frank was confused during his final months.”
“Did you hire him?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because he wanted money.”
“How much?”
“One hundred thousand dollars.”
Anna muttered, “Of course.”
Martin looked at her.
“I refused.”
“Did Evelyn know?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“She told me Gerald was unreliable.”
I almost laughed at the irony.
“Yet someone used documents connected to him.”
“I don't know that.”
“Neither do I.”
Martin rubbed his forehead.
“There is something you should understand. I took this case because Mrs. Carter presented what appeared to be a legitimate dispute regarding a terminally ill man's last-minute property transfer.”
“And now?”
His eyes went to the impossible signature.
“Now I have concerns.”
For the first time, Evelyn's legal wall had cracked.
But not collapsed.
Martin wasn't withdrawing.
Not yet.
He requested forty-eight hours to review his file.
I agreed.
After he left, Thomas said, “That was smart.”
“What?”
“Not attacking him.”
“Lawyers hate being lied to almost as much as judges do.”
Anna looked at me.
“You really miss this, don't you?”
“No.”
She smiled.
“You do a little.”
I didn't answer.
At midnight, I finally opened the notarized envelope Frank had addressed to me.
Rebecca,
If you are reading this, Mother chose the house over peace.
I am sorry.
You will think I should have told you everything. You will be right.
I wanted your last months with me to be about us, not this.
The lake house is important, but not because of the property.
Dad discovered something before he died.
I did not believe him then.
I believe him now.
Mother has been moving family assets through shell companies for years.
Gerald helped her.
Then he became frightened.
I tried to document enough for Anna to recover what was hers.
But there is one thing I could not find.
Dad made a ledger.
A handwritten ledger.
He said he hid it somewhere in the lake house where Mother would never look because she hated getting dirty.
If you find it, you will understand everything.
Love you beyond all of this.
Frank
I read the final paragraph twice.
Then I remembered something.
Frank's father loved fishing.
Evelyn hated the boathouse.
She complained it smelled of gasoline, mud, and dead worms.
Anna must have remembered too.
We looked at each other.
“The boathouse,” she said.
At 1:00 a.m., carrying flashlights, we crossed the dark lawn.
The water slapped softly against the dock.
Inside the boathouse, cobwebs hung between old rafters.
Frank's father's workbench remained against the wall.
Underneath it sat a rusted tackle chest.
Anna pulled it out.
Locked.
The brass key did not fit.
But taped beneath the bench was another key.
Inside the tackle chest were fishing lures.
Old photographs.
A bottle opener.
And beneath a false wooden bottom, wrapped in plastic, lay a red leather ledger.
I opened the first page.
Written in Frank's father's hand were names, dates, account numbers, and amounts.
At the top:
EVELYN — PRIVATE TRANSFERS.
The first entry went back nineteen years.
But the final page was worse.
A notation read:
If anything happens to me, ask Frank why Evelyn needed Gerald to duplicate my signature.
Three weeks after writing that sentence, Frank's father died.
Not violently.
Not suspiciously.
A heart attack.
Still, I felt a chill.
Then Anna pointed to the last line.
“Mom.”
Under the final entry was another name.
Not Evelyn.
Not Gerald.
MARTIN COLE.
May you like
And suddenly the lawyer who claimed he had only recently learned about the missing money looked a lot less innocent.
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