Chapter 6 - THE NIGHT MY FATHER DIEDEleanor answered on the third ring.
She had sat beside me during divorce mediation.
She had reviewed custody documents.
She had advised me not to fight Julian publicly.
She had been in the hospital waiting area during labor.
She knew where I lived.
What I owned.
What I feared.
And my dead father had written her name in a letter years before I ever hired her.
Do not trust Rebecca Sloan.
I folded the letter.
My face remained neutral.
That was the hardest thing I did all morning.
Rebecca leaned toward me.
“What did Harrison say?”
I looked at her.
“He said he wished he'd had more time.”
Samuel watched me carefully.
Something in my expression must have warned him.
I slid the letter into my purse.
Eleanor's eyebrows moved almost imperceptibly.
She understood.
“Is that all?” Rebecca asked.
“For now.”
She smiled.
“Then we should concentrate on Julian.”
“Yes.”
We finished the meeting.
I agreed to temporary governance rules.
Samuel was granted access to the financial systems.
Eleanor volunteered to remain available.
Rebecca offered to drive me home.
“No,” I said. “Hospital discharge transport is handling it.”
“I can come with you.”
“I need sleep.”
She touched my shoulder.
“You've been through a lot.”
The gesture nearly made me sick.
“I'll call you.”
I didn't.
The minute I was alone with Samuel in the elevator, I handed him the letter.
His expression changed as he read.
“Rebecca?”
“You know anything?”
“Only that Harrison knew her father.”
“Her father?”
“Thomas Sloan worked for Bennett Logistics twenty years ago.”
I stared at him.
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“Because I didn't know she was his daughter until now.”
“What happened?”
Samuel hesitated.
“Thomas Sloan was fired.”
“For?”
“Embezzlement.”
My stomach dropped.
“How much?”
“About six hundred thousand.”
“And Rebecca became my divorce lawyer by coincidence?”
Samuel's face said what I was thinking.
Probably not.
We contacted Detective Alvarez.
Quietly.
He told us not to confront her.
Then we waited.
Waiting is unbearable when you have a newborn.
Every minute feels divided between terror and wonder.
I went back to the hospital for one more night of observation.
I fed Ivy.
Counted her fingers.
Watched her sleep.
And tried not to think about how many people had built plans around money she didn't even understand existed.
At 9:16 that evening, Rebecca texted.
I NEED YOU TO SIGN ONE ROUTINE FILING BEFORE MIDNIGHT.
I stared at the message.
Samuel, sitting near the window, shook his head.
“Don't reply yet.”
Another message came.
IT PROTECTS IVY'S INTERESTS.
The irony almost made me laugh.
Alvarez arrived twenty minutes later.
“What filing?” he asked.
I showed him.
“Ask her to email it.”
I did.
Rebecca sent the attachment.
Samuel opened it on a secure laptop.
For ten minutes, he said nothing.
Then he leaned back.
“Oh, she's good.”
My blood went cold.
“What?”
“This document doesn't protect Ivy's shares.”
“What does it do?”
“It authorizes your counsel to negotiate a temporary proxy.”
“For who?”
Samuel pointed at the language.
“An affiliated management entity.”
Alvarez frowned.
“Meaning?”
“Meaning Rebecca could transfer voting authority away from Mara.”
“To Julian?”
Samuel shook his head.
“Possibly someone else.”
We searched corporate registrations.
Twenty-three minutes later, Samuel found it.
Sloan Advisory Partners.
The company had been formed five months earlier.
Its registered agent?
Lawrence Pritchard.
I felt physically ill.
Rebecca wasn't secretly working for Julian.
She was working with the man who had helped Julian access my father's trust.
Maybe they had worked together before Julian even knew what was happening.
Alvarez said, “Invite her here.”
My heart pounded.
“She'll know.”
“Not if you sound scared.”
That irritated me.
“I am scared.”
“Good. Use it.”
So I called Rebecca.
When she answered, I let my voice shake.
It wasn't difficult.
“I read the filing.”
“Yes?”
“I don't understand it.”
“That's normal.”
Normal.
The favorite word of people who want you to stop asking questions.
“I don't want to sign without you here.”
A pause.
“I can come by.”
“Please.”
“I'll be there in twenty minutes.”
She arrived in nineteen.
Rebecca walked into my room wearing a gray coat and carrying a leather folder.
She smiled at Ivy.
“There's my favorite little shareholder.”
I wanted to throw something at her.
Instead, I smiled weakly.
“Explain it.”
She sat beside me.
“This simply allows me to make quick decisions if the board becomes difficult.”
“What kind of decisions?”
“Procedural ones.”
“And Sloan Advisory Partners?”
Her fingers stopped.
Only for a fraction of a second.
But Alvarez was watching through the slightly open door.
“Where did you hear that name?”
“It was in the document.”
Rebecca laughed.
“No, it wasn't.”
Silence.
She realized what she'd said.
I felt something change in the room.
Her smile vanished.
“Mara.”
I sat straighter.
“Who is Lawrence Pritchard?”
She closed the folder.
“You need rest.”
“Who is he?”
“Someone your father destroyed.”
“My father fired him for stealing.”
“He accused him.”
“There's a difference?”
“There is when a wealthy man needs someone to blame.”
Her voice had changed.
The warm attorney disappeared.
A different woman sat beside me.
“My father lost everything because of Harrison Bennett,” she said.
“So you became my lawyer?”
“I became useful.”
Ivy made a small sound.
Rebecca looked at her.
Something about that glance chilled me.
I shifted Ivy closer.
“What did you want?”
“Fairness.”
“You forged legal documents.”
“I corrected an imbalance.”
“You helped Julian steal.”
Rebecca laughed.
“Julian is an idiot.”
That surprised me.
“He thought he was moving money for himself. Lawrence let him believe that.”
Samuel stepped into the room.
“Where is Pritchard?”
Rebecca's face froze.
Then Alvarez entered.
“Rebecca Sloan, don't move.”
Her eyes widened.
She looked at the doorway.
Then the window.
There was nowhere to go.
Alvarez took the folder from her.
Inside were the proxy forms.
And something else.
A photocopy of Ivy's birth certificate.
I stared at it.
“Why do you have that?”
Rebecca said nothing.
Alvarez searched the folder.
Then he found a second document.
A petition.
Samuel read the heading and went pale.
“What?”
He turned it toward me.
Emergency Petition Regarding Trustee Incapacity.
My name appeared below it.
The filing argued that complications from childbirth had rendered me mentally unfit to manage the Bennett trust.
“They were going to have me declared incompetent?”
Rebecca's silence confirmed it.
My stomach twisted.
“And who becomes trustee if I'm removed?”
Samuel scanned the page.
Then his eyes widened.
“Not Julian.”
“Who?”
He looked at Rebecca.
“Lawrence Pritchard.”
Alvarez handcuffed her.
Rebecca didn't fight.
She only looked at me.
“You think this ends because you found me?”
I didn't answer.
She smiled.
“Lawrence has been inside your family for twenty years.”
Alvarez guided her toward the door.
She stopped.
Looked at Ivy.
Then back at me.
“Ask Eleanor where she was the night your father died.”
The room went silent.
I felt every hair on my arms rise.
My father had died at home.
Eleanor had always claimed she hadn't seen him for weeks.
I grabbed my phone.
May you like
And for the first time, I wondered whether the theft hadn't started with my father's death.
Maybe it had ended with it.
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