Chapter 6: The Signature
Alexander looked at the door.
Then back at Thomas.
"Who let them in?" he said.
Thomas pressed his lips together.
"Thomas." Alexander's voice was quiet.
Final.
"Who is in this house right now that shouldn't be?"
Thomas said nothing.
Alexander crossed to the door and opened it.
Daniel was in the hallway, already moving toward him.
"Sir." Daniel's voice was low.
"One of the kitchen staff let someone in through the service entrance twenty minutes ago.
We didn't flag it immediately because she's been here before.
She has a visitor record."
"Who?"
Daniel handed him a printed still from the entrance camera.
Alexander looked at the image.
A woman.
Late sixties.
Silver hair pulled back.
A coat he recognized because he had given it to her as a birthday gift four years ago.
Margaret Reeve.
Thomas and Claire's grandmother.
The woman who had raised Thomas.
The woman who had sat in the front row at Claire's funeral and wept into a white handkerchief.
The woman Alexander had continued to invite to the house every Christmas because Claire would have wanted it.
He looked at Thomas.
Thomas finally spoke.
"She's not part of this."
"Her signature is on the paper."
"She didn't understand what she was signing.
I told her it was a family trust amendment.
She's seventy-three years old, Alexander.
She trusted me."
"Did she."
"She doesn't know about Vanessa.
She doesn't know about any of it.
She thought she was protecting the family legacy."
Alexander looked at the photograph again.
Then he handed it back to Daniel.
"Where is she?"
"The sitting room off the kitchen.
Maria's with her."
He walked.
The sitting room was small — a place for staff breaks, with a round table and four chairs and a window that looked out over the rear garden.
Margaret Reeve sat at the table with both hands wrapped around a cup of tea she hadn't touched.
Maria stood near the door.
Margaret looked up when Alexander entered.
She had always had steady eyes.
Even now they were steady, though something behind them had shifted since the last time he'd seen her.
"Alexander," she said.
"Margaret."
He sat across from her.
She looked at his face and seemed to read something in it, because she set down the cup and folded her hands on the table.
"Thomas called me last night," she said.
"He said there had been trouble.
He said you might try to remove him from any connection to the company." She paused.
"He said I should come."
"Why did he need you here?"
She was quiet for a moment.
"He said there was a document.
That my being present would matter." Her voice was careful.
Measured.
"I signed something for him last month.
He said it was a family trust.
A protection for Claire's memory.
I didn't read it carefully enough." She looked at her hands.
"I should have read it."
"It wasn't a trust amendment," Alexander said.
"No." She said it without surprise.
"I don't think it was."
"It was a co-authorization for a petition to the probate court.
Arguing that Claire's estate — specifically her shares in Bennett Holdings, which passed to me — should be reviewed for improper transfer." He watched her face.
"With your signature as a family elder, it would have had legal standing."
Margaret closed her eyes.
"He told me you had manipulated Claire," she said.
"That she hadn't understood what she was signing when she updated her will after the diagnosis." She opened her eyes.
"I wanted to believe him.
I think I needed to believe him."
"Why?"
"Because the alternative was that my grandson had done something I couldn't forgive." Her voice was steady but thin.
"And I have spent seventy-three years forgiving Thomas."
The garden outside the window was very still.
"Did Claire ever tell you why she updated her will?" Alexander asked.
"She said she trusted you."
"She updated it six weeks before she died.
Her solicitor was present.
Two independent witnesses.
She was fully lucid." He leaned forward slightly.
"She also left a letter.
For exactly this situation.
I've had it in my safe for four years because I hoped I would never need it."
Margaret looked at him.
"She knew Thomas might do something like this," Alexander said.
"She didn't know what.
But she knew him well enough to prepare."
The old woman's breath left her slowly.
"She was always smarter than both of us," she said.
"Yes."
Margaret looked toward the window.
Her hands on the table were very still.
"What happens now?" she said.
"Thomas will face legal consequences.
So will Vanessa and Hale."
"And me?"
Alexander looked at her for a long moment.
"You were deceived," he said.
"By someone you trusted.
That's not a crjme."
She nodded once.
Then she said: "There's something else.
Something Thomas told me that I don't think he meant to." She looked at Alexander directly.
"He said the board vote on Thursday already has the numbers.
That two members committed to him in writing."
"I know about the two members."
"There's a third." She held his gaze.
"Someone on your executive team.
Thomas said this person has been feeding him information about your schedule, your medical appointments, your state of mind.
For over a year."
Alexander went still.
"Did he give you a name?"
Margaret reached into her coat pocket.
She placed a folded note on the table.
"He wrote it down when he called me last night," she said.
"He wanted me to pass it along as proof of how serious this was.
That even the people closest to you had turned." She pushed it toward him.
"I don't think he realized I would end up sitting across from you when I read it."
Alexander picked up the note.
He unfolded it.
He read the name.
May you like
And for the first time since the night before, something moved across his face that wasn't control.
It was grief.
