Chapter 7 - Edward’s Choice
My goal was no longer to rescue Edward from consequences.
It was to see whether he would act.
Gabriella explained the emergency executor provision.
Edward could sign a freeze order covering my house, Helen’s proceeds, and the warehouse trust pending fraud review.
Linda told him not to.
Quietly.
Not angrily.
She touched his arm.
“Think about Dylan.”
Edward looked at her.
“What does Dylan have to do with this?”
“Everything you do affects him.”
There it was.
Her favorite method.
Turn obedience into parenting.
Edward looked at me.
Then at Sarah.
Then at the forged deed.
He signed the freeze.
Linda’s face changed.
Not rage.
Disappointment.
“You have no idea what you just did.”
Edward answered, “For once, I do.”
That was the first time he chose against her.
Minutes later, Linda asked for her attorney.
Not Peter Sloan.
A woman named Catherine Mercer.
That surprised Gabriella.
Catherine specialized in criminal financial defense.
Linda had retained her three months earlier.
Before Helen died.
Before my deed was filed.
That proved premeditation.
Then Catherine requested a private meeting with prosecutors.
Linda wanted immunity.
In exchange for what?
Information on Peter Sloan.
She claimed Peter had escalated the fraud into violence.
She said Mark drugged Helen under Peter’s instruction.
She said she only wanted property transfers.
Convenient.
But the evidence partially supported it.
Peter had searched zolpidem dosage two days before Helen’s death.
Mark had called Peter twice that evening.
Linda might have ordered pressure without specifically ordering poisoning.
Still guilty.
But maybe not of the worst act.
Then Catherine produced a recording.
Peter told Linda:
“If Margaret resists, we make Edward the problem. If Helen talks, we make age the explanation.”
Linda had recorded him secretly.
Why?
Insurance.
She never trusted Peter.
Smart.
Cold.
Prepared.
Then Peter was arrested.
His office yielded files on fifteen elderly homeowners.
The operation was larger than ours.
Linda was a participant.
Peter was an organizer.
But neither was the final layer.
One spreadsheet listed payments to someone marked G.B.
Gabriella stared at the initials.
I saw something in her face.
“What?”
She sat down slowly.
“My brother.”
Gabriel Ruiz.
A retired county recording supervisor.
He had access to deed filing systems for thirty-two years.
Gabriella had not spoken to him in six years.
The conspiracy suddenly reached into the office we trusted most.
Then investigators found Gabriel’s old employee credentials had been used to override fraud flags on Helen’s deed.
I thought Gabriella was the person I called to save us—but her own family credentials had helped Linda’s scheme work.
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**The override log proved someone using Gabriel Ruiz’s access had manually approved Helen’s forged transfer after the county system rejected it twice.**
*The identity of the person who still possessed Gabriel’s credentials would decide whether Gabriella had been protecting us—or whether someone had been hiding inside her office all along.*
