Chapter 3 - THE HOUSE HAD ALREADY BEEN SEARCHED
We should have gone to the police.
Helen told us that.
Samuel told us that.
Even the bank manager quietly suggested it.
Grandma refused.
“Not yet.”
“Why?”
“Because your father thinks the deed is the problem.”
“It is a problem.”
“No.”
She looked at me.
“It’s the smoke.”
I knew that expression.
Grandma knew something else.
We drove to Hawthorne Lane with Dad following until he suddenly turned away two miles before the house.
That worried me more than if he had stayed.
The front door was locked.
But the deadbolt had fresh scratches around it.
Grandma saw them immediately.
“He used the emergency key.”
“Dad has one?”
“Had.”
Inside, the house looked normal.
Almost.
Then Grandma walked into Grandpa’s study.
Drawers open.
Cabinet doors unlocked.
Books moved.
The small wall safe exposed behind a painting.
Empty.
“They searched it,” she whispered.
“For the deed?”
“Yes.”
“But you have the deed.”
“Exactly.”
She held up the envelope Grandpa had labeled HOUSE DEED.
I finally asked the obvious question.
“If the recorded deed already transferred the house, why would they need the original?”
Grandma smiled sadly.
“Because the house deed isn’t the important paper in that envelope.”
She opened it.
Inside the old deed was another document folded behind it.
A trust certificate.
STERLING LEGACY TRUST.
I had never heard of it.
Grandpa created it twenty-eight years ago.
Grandma handed me the summary page.
The trust owned commercial property.
Investment accounts.
Shares in several private companies.
Then I saw one asset I recognized.
Sterling Ridge Developments.
My father’s company.
I looked up.
“Grandma…”
“Yes.”
“You own Dad’s company?”
“Not exactly.”
The trust owned sixty-two percent of its voting shares.
My father had spent twenty years presenting himself as founder, chairman, and controlling owner.
He wasn’t.
Grandpa and Grandma had funded the company when Dad was thirty-four.
Dad gradually bought economic shares.
But Grandpa had retained voting control inside the trust.
“When Grandpa died, control passed to you?”
“Yes.”
“Does Dad know?”
“He knows the trust exists.”
“But does he know you still control sixty-two percent?”
“He should.”
The answer was too careful.
“What does that mean?”
Grandma sat at Grandpa’s desk.
“Three years ago, Arthur asked me to sign what he called a tax restructuring.”
“Did you?”
“I refused.”
“Why?”
“Because the document transferred voting control to him.”
My stomach tightened.
“Then what happened?”
“He stopped asking.”
Apparently not.
A sound came from upstairs.
Both of us froze.
I grabbed my phone.
Another sound.
A drawer closing.
Someone was inside the house.
I called 911 and told Grandma to stay downstairs.
Naturally, she ignored me.
We moved toward the staircase.
A man suddenly appeared at the top.
Dark jacket.
Gloves.
Baseball cap.
He saw us.
Then ran.
He disappeared through the rear bedroom and out onto the roof of the porch.
By the time I reached the backyard, he was already crossing the neighbor’s fence.
Police arrived five minutes later.
Nothing obvious had been stolen.
Until Grandma checked her bedroom.
The jewelry remained.
Cash remained.
Grandpa’s watch remained.
But one drawer was empty.
“What was there?” I asked.
Grandma looked at the space.
“My medical records.”
I stared.
“Why would someone steal those?”
She didn’t answer.
A police officer found something near the back door.
A torn pharmacy receipt.
Grandma picked it up.
The prescription name wasn’t hers.
It was for a medication used to treat moderate-to-severe dementia.
Grandma had never been diagnosed with dementia.
But the patient name printed on the receipt was:
May you like
ELEANOR M. STERLING.
And the prescribing doctor was someone Grandma had never met.
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