Chapter 6 - The Beneficiary Change
Rebecca insisted they stop treating the house like a courtroom.
Evidence needed preservation.
Records needed authentication.
Corinne needed independent counsel.
Ethan agreed.
He also told Corinne to stay somewhere else that night.
She laughed bitterly.
“You’re throwing your wife out because of a dead woman’s notes?”
“I’m asking you to leave because you hurt Maisie.”
Corinne’s face hardened.
“She exaggerates.”
Ethan looked at the bruise on his daughter’s arm.
“No.”
Corinne packed one suitcase.
Before leaving, she leaned close to Ethan.
“You think Natalie was perfect.”
“I think she’s dead.”
Corinne flinched.
“And I think you’ve been lying to me.”
She left.
The next morning Rebecca requested current trust records.
What came back was worse than expected.
Seven months earlier—two weeks before Ethan married Corinne—someone had attempted to change Maisie’s contingent trustee.
From Lauren Carter.
To Corinne Hale.
Rejected.
Why?
Because Ethan’s signature failed verification.
A second attempt was submitted after the wedding.
Approved.
Ethan stared at the screen.
“I never signed that.”
Rebecca nodded.
“We’ll get handwriting and digital authentication.”
Then she showed him something else.
The submission came from Ethan’s home internet connection.
At 2:14 a.m.
He remembered the night.
He had been asleep upstairs.
Corinne had told him she was answering emails.
Maisie crawled into his lap.
“Daddy mad?”
He forced himself to breathe.
“Daddy’s okay.”
She touched his cheek.
Then Rebecca’s phone rang.
She listened.
Her expression changed.
“What?”
She hung up.
“The insurance company responded.”
Ethan frowned.
“What insurance company?”
“Natalie apparently opened an inquiry before she died.”
Rebecca turned the laptop around.
There was a life insurance policy Ethan had never seen.
Insured:
Ethan Carter.
Benefit:
$12 million.
Beneficiary:
The Carter Family Trust.
That alone made sense.
Then Rebecca scrolled.
Three months after Natalie died, a request attempted to redirect a portion of the benefit structure if Ethan became incapacitated.
Proposed controlling trustee:
Corinne Hale.
Rejected again.
Ethan whispered:
“She was trying to control everything if something happened to me.”
Rebecca did not answer.
She didn't need to.
Then an email arrived from the forensic document examiner.
Preliminary finding:
The forged signatures had likely been created using digital copies of Ethan’s authentic signature.
Files from his personal computer.
The computer Corinne regularly used.
Ethan leaned back.
Then his phone buzzed.
Corinne.
One message.
YOU’RE MAKING THE SAME MISTAKE NATALIE MADE.
Ethan stared at it.
Rebecca saw his face.
“What?”
He showed her.
Rebecca’s expression changed immediately.
“Save that.”
Ethan did.
Because the message contained something Corinne had never admitted before.
May you like
Natalie had made a “mistake.”
And Corinne clearly knew exactly what it had been.
