Chapter 6: The Cousin Who Wasn't Supposed to Know
Thomas Aldrich looked like our grandfather.
I hadn't seen him in six years, but when he walked into the hotel lobby the next morning — tall, quiet, the same careful way of holding himself — I recognized him immediately.
He saw me and stopped.
Neither of us moved for a moment.
Then he crossed the lobby and sat down across from me without a word.
Grace was already at the table.
She had brought a colleague from the U.S.
Attorney's office — a woman named Patricia Holt, mid-forties, dark blazer, a legal pad already open in front of her.
She had the manner of someone who had heard many difficult things and remained steady through all of them.
"Thomas," I said.
"I'm sorry.
About Grandfather.
About all of it."
He nodded once.
His hands were flat on the table.
"When did he pass?"
"Eight days ago."
He absorbed that.
"My mother called your father when Grandfather went into the hospital the second time.
She was told it wasn't serious."
Patricia Holt wrote something on her pad without looking up.
"It was serious," I said.
"I know that now." He looked at me directly.
"Grace told me about the will.
About the amendment." He paused.
"He left the house to all four of us?"
"Equally.
The amendment was filed fourteen months after his second stroke.
Raymond Vance suppressed it and replaced it with the earlier version.
The one that left everything to my father's immediate family."
Thomas was quiet.
Then: "Why are you telling me this?
You could have said nothing.
You still would have inherited under the suppressed will.
You got the music box."
"I got the music box because Grandfather knew I would open it," I said.
"He left me the evidence, not the assets.
He wanted someone to finish what he started."
Thomas looked at the cedar box on the table between us.
"Can I hear the recordings?"
Grace slid a tablet across.
He put on the headphones she offered.
I watched his face while he listened.
The first recording lasted four minutes.
When it ended, he didn't remove the headphones immediately.
He sat with them on, looking at the table.
Then he took them off and set them down carefully.
"That's his voice," he said.
"That's exactly how he talked."
"Yes."
He turned to Patricia Holt.
"What happens now?"
"We've already opened a preliminary inquiry," she said.
"The recordings, the documents, and the letter from Vance to your father constitute sufficient basis to proceed.
We'll be issuing a subpoena for Vance's firm records today.
His client files, billing records, correspondence — everything."
"Will he know it's coming?"
"Not until it's served."
Thomas nodded.
"And my father's sister — Genevieve's father — "
"Also under inquiry.
The forged transfers are the cleaner charge.
Eleven years of documented activity.
The forgery itself is visible to any handwriting expert."
"He'll say Grandfather authorized them verbally," Thomas said.
"That's what he'll say.
That Grandfather told him to sign on his behalf."
I looked at him.
"You've thought about this."
"I've been on a plane for four hours." He looked back at me.
"He'll also say Grandfather was confused.
That the amendment was the product of a confused old man being manipulated, and the earlier will was the real one."
"He already said that to me," I said.
"Yesterday.
At my door."
Patricia Holt looked up from her pad.
"He came to your apartment?"
"Yes.
He held my door open and told me that any documents I found were written by a man who wasn't in his right mind."
She wrote that down.
"What time?"
"Just after two."
"And you reported it to Grace immediately?"
"Within the hour."
She nodded.
"That visit is going to be a problem for him.
Approaching a material witness after an inquiry has been initiated — even informally — is not a position you want to be in."
My phone buzzed.
The burner.
Grace glanced at it.
"It's from my office contact," she said, reading.
"Vance's paralegal just called in sick.
His senior associate has requested a three-day continuance on two active estate matters." She set the phone down.
"He knows something is moving."
Thomas leaned forward.
"Can he destroy anything?"
"He's already destroyed one document that we know of," I said.
"The original amendment.
The letter confirms it."
"Then he might try again."
Patricia closed her legal pad.
"That's why the subpoena goes out today.
Not tomorrow." She looked at both of us.
"I need you both to understand something.
Once this is served, your family will know within hours.
Whatever calm exists right now ends."
Thomas and I looked at each other across the table.
"There's one more thing," I said.
I had been holding it back, deciding whether to say it here.
"My father came to my apartment the same afternoon I met with Grace — before I had told anyone in my family anything.
He knew I had made a phone call that morning."
Patricia's expression didn't change, but her pen stopped.
"He said he knew I had called someone," I continued.
"I used my personal cell.
Grace has it in evidence.
The only way he could have known I made a call that quickly is if someone was watching me, or if someone inside the process told him."
The table was quiet.
"I'm not accusing anyone," I said.
"I'm reporting what happened."
Patricia looked at Grace.
Something passed between them.
"I'll handle that separately," Patricia said.
She stood, gathered her pad, and shook both our hands.
When she reached the lobby door, she paused and turned back.
"Mr.
Aldrich," she said to Thomas.
"Your grandfather filed a complaint with the state bar against Raymond Vance fourteen months before he passed.
It was dismissed for insufficient evidence." She let that sit for a moment.
"We found it this morning.
He tried to stop this himself."
Thomas didn't say anything.
She left.
He sat back in his chair and looked at the cedar music box still on the table.
"He tried," Thomas said quietly.
"He kept trying," I said.
"Until he couldn't.
And then he found another way."
Thomas reached out and touched the edge of the box.
Just the edge.
He didn't open it.
"What do we do now?" he said.
My burner buzzed again.
I looked at the screen.
It was a number I didn't recognize.
The message was four words:
*I know what happened.*
No name.
No context.
Sent from a number with a local area code.
I showed it to Grace.
She looked at it for a long moment.
Then she looked at me.
"Do you know anyone else who might have been watching your grandfather?" she said.
I thought about the house.
The neighbors.
The woman next door who had always waved when I carried groceries in during those six months.
Her name came to me slowly.
May you like
"There was a neighbor," I said.
"She used to bring him soup."
