Chapter 3 - The Deal Franklin Buried
Twelve years earlier, Camden Development had nearly collapsed.
Franklin told the family the recession was to blame.
He said banks had turned against honest builders.
He said Walter Briggs betrayed him by refusing to invest.
Maris believed that story for years.
Walter’s letter told a different one.
Franklin had borrowed heavily against unfinished projects.
He used customer deposits to cover payroll.
He diverted money from one development to another.
When lenders demanded repayment, Colton was still in college and Derek was barely out of high school.
Maris was twenty-one.
She had recently inherited money from her grandfather.
Franklin called it “family capital.”
Maris remembered the night he placed a stack of papers in front of her.
He said the company needed a temporary loan.
He promised her inheritance would remain protected.
Elaine stood beside him crying.
Colton told Maris she was the only one who could save them.
Maris signed.
Within six months, nearly all of her inheritance disappeared into Camden Development.
Franklin later insisted it had been an investment.
He claimed the company’s survival was repayment enough.
But Walter’s letter included copies of a separate agreement.
In exchange for Maris’s money, Franklin transferred ownership of two specific assets into a protective holding company created for her benefit.
One was a black Jaguar purchased as a business vehicle.
The other was a residential property used as collateral during the crisis.
The Camden family home.
Franklin signed every page.
Walter witnessed the agreement.
A lawyer notarized it.
The transfer was designed to become effective only after Franklin repaid Maris’s contribution.
If he failed to repay the money within ten years, Maris would gain controlling authority over both assets.
The ten-year deadline had passed two years earlier.
Maris had never received a dollar.
Why had no one told her?
Walter explained that Franklin ordered him to destroy the originals after the company recovered.
Walter refused.
He placed them in secure storage.
For years, he hoped Franklin would make things right voluntarily.
He never did.
Before Walter died, he instructed his attorney to deliver the folder to Maris.
But the agreement alone was not enough.
Franklin could claim the loan had been repaid informally.
Maris needed financial records proving otherwise.
Walter’s letter included one final clue.
Ask your mother about the blue ledger in the cedar cabinet.
May you like
Maris immediately understood why Elaine sounded frightened on the phone.
👉 Elaine had spent years pretending not to know what Franklin had done—but she had preserved the one record capable of exposing him.
