Chapter 5 - THOMAS WAS NEVER DEAD
Eleanor did not sleep.
By 5:30 the next morning, she was sitting in a conference room at Hawthorne Care Group headquarters with Naomi, outside counsel, two detectives, and Marcus.
Brielle had retained an attorney.
She was no longer answering questions.
Marcus looked as though he had aged ten years overnight.
Eleanor had little sympathy.
He had still put dog food in front of his mother for entertainment.
He had still participated in preparing guardianship papers.
He had still spent her money as if she were already gone.
But greed came in levels.
Marcus may have been cruel.
Someone else appeared organized.
“Find Thomas,” Eleanor said.
Naomi hesitated.
“He has been legally dead for eleven years.”
“Find him anyway.”
They began with the death certificate.
Thomas Vale.
Age sixty-one.
Stroke.
Phoenix, Arizona.
Attending physician:
Dr. Malcolm Webb.
Eleanor stared at the name.
“Webb?”
Her doctor.
The same doctor who later wrote that Eleanor had cognitive decline.
Naomi looked equally shocked.
“He signed Thomas’s death certificate.”
“How did I never know that?”
“Because you didn’t arrange the Arizona paperwork.”
“Who did?”
Marcus whispered:
“Calvin.”
The family attorney.
Again.
Eleanor felt rage settle into clarity.
Thomas’s death certificate.
Her guardianship.
Her forged power of attorney.
The false insurance policy.
Calvin and Dr. Webb touched everything.
“Cremation records,” Eleanor said.
Naomi searched.
A funeral home in Phoenix.
Closed seven years ago.
Owner deceased.
Convenient.
Then the detective received an update.
Calvin Ross’s phone had pinged four days earlier.
Not near Lake Briar.
At O’Hare airport.
“He flew?”
“No confirmed boarding record.”
“Then someone had his phone.”
“Possibly.”
Marcus rubbed his temples.
“This makes no sense.”
Eleanor looked at him.
“It makes sense if Calvin isn’t missing.”
Marcus looked up.
“You think he ran?”
“I think someone wants us to believe he’s a victim.”
Naomi pulled Thomas’s old probate file.
There was almost nothing.
No estate proceeding.
No property inventory.
No creditor notice.
Because Thomas supposedly died with few assets.
That had always confused Eleanor.
Thomas had been reckless, but never poor.
He once owned three auto dealerships and commercial property in Nevada.
“Where did his assets go?” she asked.
Naomi searched.
One year before his death, almost everything transferred to a holding company.
Name:
Vale Meridian Partners.
Eleanor went still.
Meridian.
Same word as Brielle’s shell company.
Coincidence?
No one believed that anymore.
Beneficial owner hidden.
Registered agent:
Calvin Ross.
Marcus whispered:
“Jesus.”
The detectives requested financial records.
Then Naomi found an old family trust amendment.
Eleanor and Thomas’s father had created the Vale Family Trust forty-two years earlier.
After their parents died, Eleanor assumed it dissolved.
It had not.
One trust asset remained:
A twenty-two percent interest in Hawthorne Care Group’s original real estate company.
Eleanor stared.
“Thomas still owned part of my company?”
“Indirectly.”
“How much is that worth?”
Naomi calculated.
“Today? Possibly seventeen million.”
Marcus sat forward.
“And if Thomas died?”
“His interest should have passed according to the trust.”
“To who?”
Naomi turned the page.
Eleanor.
The room went silent.
“But it didn’t,” Eleanor said.
“No.”
“Where did it go?”
Naomi looked troubled.
“According to records, Thomas signed a transfer before death.”
“To whom?”
Vale Meridian Partners.
The holding company.
So if Thomas had not truly died—
He had concealed seventeen million dollars of ownership.
And possibly much more.
Eleanor whispered:
“He staged his death.”
Marcus looked sick.
“Why?”
Then Naomi’s computer chimed.
New banking records.
Crown Federal had responded to subpoena.
The account opened in Eleanor’s name had one recurring login location.
Not Marcus’s house.
Not Brielle’s.
A residential IP address in Scottsdale, Arizona.
Registered to a man named:
T. Vance.
The detective checked utilities.
Same person for eight years.
Driver’s license photograph loaded.
Older.
Gray hair.
Thinner face.
But Eleanor knew him immediately.
She stood so fast the chair rolled backward.
Marcus stared at the screen.
“Is that—”
“Yes.”
Eleanor could barely breathe.
Thomas Vale.
May you like
Alive.
And he had been living under another name for almost a decade.
