Chapter 2 - Helen’s House
My goal became simple: find out how Edward ended up owning Helen’s house without knowing it.
Gabriella pulled the county records.
Helen’s property had transferred into Edward’s name for one dollar.
Two weeks later, it was sold to a shell company for $640,000.
The money never reached Edward.
It moved into an account called Lakefront Family Holdings.
Linda claimed she had never heard of it.
Gabriella checked the corporation registry.
Organizer: Linda Carter.
Edward stared at her.
“You told me that company was for tax planning.”
“It was.”
“With my aunt’s house?”
Linda kept her voice controlled.
“Helen wanted to sell.”
I said, “Helen hated moving.”
“She changed her mind.”
“Then why didn’t she tell me?”
Linda shrugged.
“Maybe she didn’t trust you.”
That was calculated.
She wanted me angry enough to stop thinking.
I refused.
Sarah took Dylan home, but not before he told Gabriella something else.
The day before Helen died, Linda had driven him past her house.
Linda said she needed to “pick up Grandma’s mail.”
Dylan remembered seeing Helen at the window.
Alive.
Watching.
That mattered because Linda had claimed she had not seen Helen for months.
Gabriella requested Helen’s closing file from the title company.
The signature page showed Helen had signed in person.
Witness: Edward Brooks.
Edward went pale.
“I wasn’t there.”
Then Gabriella compared the witness signature to Edward’s passport.
It was convincing.
But the middle initial was wrong.
Edward always signed Edward J. Brooks.
The witness line read Edward T. Brooks.
A small mistake.
A useful one.
The title company also had a security still from closing day.
A man resembling Edward entered wearing a baseball cap.
His face was partly obscured.
Linda recognized him before anyone else did.
I saw it.
Her breath stopped.
Edward noticed too.
“Who is that?”
Linda said, “I don’t know.”
Gabriella enlarged the image.
A tattoo showed on the man’s wrist.
A black compass.
Sarah had seen that tattoo before.
She called from home after Gabriella texted her the image.
“That’s Mark Duvall.”
Mark was Linda’s cousin.
He worked in real estate document processing.
Linda had introduced him to Edward once at a barbecue.
Linda said Mark had moved to Arizona.
Gabriella checked.
He still lived in Chicago.
The title company records showed the payment for the closing courier went to Mark.
Now we had a forged deed.
A shell company.
A fake Edward.
And Linda’s cousin at the center.
But no proof of what happened to Helen.
Then Gabriella obtained Helen’s last bank statement.
Three days before her death, Helen withdrew $25,000 cash.
The memo line was handwritten:
For Margaret if anything happens.
The money was gone.
I thought Linda’s scheme was about property—but Helen had already suspected danger and tried to leave me evidence.
May you like
**The withdrawal proved Helen knew she might die, and she intended the money for me—not for Linda, not for Edward, and not for any sale.**
*What we found in Helen’s safe-deposit record showed exactly what she had been afraid someone would steal.*
