Chapter 10 - The Counterattack
By Friday afternoon, nobody was pretending this was just a bad Thanksgiving anymore.
Lauren had filed against Ryan.
A complaint against James had been forwarded to the military liaison because he was active duty.
The bank had frozen the trust account pending investigation.
And Uncle Mark had hired a lawyer.
He was moving faster than we were.
That was the part James hated.
“People who lie for a living win when everyone else reacts emotionally,” he said, standing at our kitchen counter with a yellow legal pad. “So we stop reacting.”
I stared at him.
“My sister hit our daughter, my mother lied to police, my aunt notarized a forged signature, and my uncle may have tried to steal three million dollars in property.”
He nodded.
“Correct.”
“And you want me calm?”
“No.”
He slid a mug of coffee toward me.
“I want you accurate.”
That was James.
He never asked me not to feel.
He asked me not to let other people use my feelings as a steering wheel.
Our attorney, Maya Chen, arrived at three.
She read everything twice.
Then she asked one question.
“Who benefits if Claire looks unstable?”
I frowned.
“Unstable?”
Maya tapped Lauren’s police statement.
“She says you screamed, threatened her, and encouraged your husband to attack her.”
“That didn’t happen.”
“I know. But look at the pattern. Ryan is supposedly coaching Caleb. James is supposedly violent. You’re supposedly hysterical. Everyone who opposes Lauren becomes unreliable.”
Dad whispered, “Mark.”
Maya looked at him.
“What about him?”
“He did that to my mother.”
I stared at Dad.
“What?”
He rubbed his hands together.
“When your grandmother started refusing his development proposals, Mark told everyone she was getting confused. He convinced her doctor she was forgetting things.”
“Was she?”
“Sometimes. She was eighty-one.”
“That isn’t the same as incompetent.”
“I know that now.”
Maya leaned forward.
“Did he ever seek guardianship?”
Dad nodded.
My pulse picked up.
“Did he get it?”
“No. Your grandmother changed lawyers first.”
“Who was the new lawyer?”
Dad looked at me.
“Evelyn Price.”
I knew the name.
She had handled Grandma’s estate.
She had retired years ago.
Maya said, “Call her.”
Dad did.
No answer.
He tried again.
Voicemail.
Then my phone rang from an unfamiliar local number.
I answered.
“Claire Walker?”
“Yes.”
An older woman spoke.
“This is Evelyn Price.”
Everyone in the kitchen went still.
“I was told you’ve been asking questions about your grandmother’s trust.”
“Yes.”
There was a long pause.
“Then you need to know why she wrote the trust the way she did.”
I gripped the phone.
“Why?”
“Because she was afraid of Mark.”
James looked at Maya.
Evelyn continued.
“And she left me a sealed letter to give you if he ever tried to take that property again.”
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