Chapter 10 - THE FORTY-TWO-MILLION-DOLLAR LIE
Dad moved fast once he realized Daniel had surfaced.
The next morning, Mr. Ellis received notice that Richard was petitioning the court to remove me as executor.
His claim?
I was emotionally unstable, vindictive, and incapable of administering the estate objectively.
Twenty-two years later, he was still using the same story.
This time, I had paperwork.
At the emergency hearing, Dad arrived with three attorneys.
I arrived with Mr. Ellis, the forensic accountant, Blake, Melissa, and Daniel.
When Dad saw his brother enter the courtroom, he looked as if someone had punched him.
Daniel sat directly behind me.
Dad’s attorney argued that I had initiated a “personal revenge campaign.”
Mr. Ellis responded with bank records, forged documents, false rental reports, and Grandma’s competency evaluations.
Then Dad’s lawyer made his mistake.
He claimed Richard had acted as sole owner of Mercer Lumber for decades.
Mr. Ellis smiled.
“Then perhaps Mr. Richard Mercer can explain this.”
Daniel’s original partnership agreement was admitted.
Dad leaned toward his attorney, whispering furiously.
The judge ordered that no company sale, transfer, estate distribution, or property disposition occur pending investigation.
For the first time, Dad’s empire was frozen.
Outside the courtroom, he cornered me.
“You have no idea what you’ve done.”
“I stopped the sale.”
“You stopped nothing.”
His calmness bothered me.
Then he smiled.
That old familiar smirk.
“The company doesn’t own what you think it owns.”
He walked away.
That afternoon, the forensic accountant called.
Dad had been telling the truth about one thing.
Several valuable company properties had been transferred out of Mercer Lumber during the previous eighteen months.
Warehouses.
Commercial lots.
Equipment.
Almost eleven million dollars in assets.
Transferred to shell companies.
“Can we trace the owners?” I asked.
“We already did.”
I expected Dad.
Instead, the accountant emailed me the registration records.
The shell companies were not owned by Richard Mercer.
They were owned by someone named Sophie Bennett.
My blood went cold.
Bennett was my married name.
Sophie was my nineteen-year-old daughter.
She had never met my father more than three times in her entire life.
I called her immediately.
“Mom?” she answered cheerfully.
“Sophie, has Grandpa Richard ever asked you to sign anything?”
Silence.
Then she said, “Actually… yes.”
My knees weakened.
“When?”
“Last Christmas. He said Grandma Evelyn had left me a college investment account.”
“What did you sign?”
“I don’t know. Some forms.”
May you like
Then she added the sentence that turned my fear into fury.
“He told me not to bother you because you’d try to take the money.”
