Chapter 4 - The Payments
Raymond traced Arthur Brennan within forty-eight hours.
The retired attorney lived outside Burlington, Vermont.
Daniel drove there himself.
Arthur refused to open the door at first.
Then Daniel said one sentence through the wood.
“They hurt Lily.”
The lock turned.
Arthur looked ten years older than Daniel remembered.
He invited them inside.
Daniel placed the photograph on the table.
“I need the truth.”
Arthur stared at Thomas holding Lily.
“You should have received it after your father died.”
“Received what?”
Arthur closed his eyes.
“A codicil.”
Daniel felt his heartbeat rise.
Thomas had amended his will.
Arthur continued carefully.
“Your father became concerned about certain financial decisions Margaret was making. Large transfers. Loans to Vanessa’s family. He also believed Margaret resented Lily.”
“Why Lily?”
Arthur looked directly at him.
“Because Thomas changed the Carter Family Trust.”
Daniel said nothing.
“Before the amendment, Margaret held lifetime voting control over Carter Development if anything happened to you before she died. Thomas removed that power.”
Daniel’s stomach tightened.
“And gave it to whom?”
“Not Lily directly. You remained controlling trustee. But Thomas created a protected succession interest for Lily. Once the amendment was executed, Margaret could no longer sell, pledge, or redirect key family assets without your approval. If you died, control would go into trust for Lily—not Margaret.”
Everything clicked.
Margaret hadn’t hated Lily because she was inconvenient.
Lily represented the end of Margaret’s control.
“What about Vanessa?”
Arthur looked uncomfortable.
“Thomas discovered she had been giving Margaret internal financial information.”
Daniel stood.
“My wife?”
“Thomas suspected Vanessa married you partly because Margaret promised her access to the family holdings.”
The room seemed to tilt.
Daniel remembered how quickly Margaret had embraced Vanessa.
How she pushed the marriage.
How Vanessa constantly asked about trust structures while pretending to dislike business.
Arthur opened a cabinet and removed a bank statement.
“After Thomas died, someone threatened my daughter. I panicked. Then payments began arriving from a consulting company. Five thousand dollars a month.”
“To keep you quiet?”
“Yes.”
“Who owns it?”
Arthur slid over the corporate registration.
Carter Heritage Consulting.
Manager: Margaret Carter.
Daniel felt physically sick.
“Where’s the codicil?”
Arthur shook his head.
“I sent the signed original to Thomas’s private vault the morning he died. When I went to retrieve it afterward, it was gone.”
“Copies?”
“One certified copy existed.”
“Where?”
Arthur looked at the photograph again.
“Thomas gave it to someone he trusted more than anyone in the family.”
Daniel leaned forward.
“Who?”
Arthur’s answer shocked him.
“Lily’s mother.”
Daniel stopped breathing.
May you like
Lily’s biological mother, Rachel, had been dead for nearly two years.
At least that was what Daniel had been told.
