Chapter 13 - I’ll Handle Grant
I read the email until the letters blurred.
I’ll handle Grant.
No context could make those words kind.
No marriage counseling phrase could soften them.
When Natalie came back from the police station, I was waiting in the hospital cafeteria.
She saw the printout in front of me and stopped.
“Sit down.”
She sat.
“What did you mean?”
She read the email.
“I meant I would talk to you.”
“You didn’t talk to me.”
“I was going to.”
“Stop saying that.”
She flinched.
I lowered my voice.
“Eight years, Natalie. Eight years. I would have given you anything. I paid your student loans. I helped your brother. I never asked where every dollar went. And the one time my father asked me for a thousand dollars, you humiliated him in our kitchen.”
Her eyes filled.
“I was angry because I knew why he needed it.”
There it was.
The ugliest truth yet.
“You knew?”
“I knew he was digging.”
“And you wanted him to stop.”
“Yes.”
“Because you were afraid I’d find out about the money.”
“Yes.”
I sat back.
The rage left me all at once.
What replaced it was worse.
Clarity.
“I want you out of the house.”
She covered her mouth.
“Grant.”
“Not forever. I don’t know what forever is yet. But you cannot stay there tonight.”
“Please don’t do this while your father is sick.”
“My father being sick is the reason I can finally see what you did.”
She cried.
I did not comfort her.
That broke something in both of us.
Natalie went to stay with her sister.
The next morning, Priya filed an emergency petition to freeze any transfer of Parcel 14C and to invalidate the disclaimer bearing my forged signature.
By noon, Ashford Renewal Partners responded with a motion claiming I had known about the settlement and was trying to extort a higher price.
They attached an affidavit.
Signed by Natalie.
My chest tightened.
Priya scanned it.
Then she looked at me.
“This is dated two months ago.”
“What does it say?”
“That you discussed the Bennett property with Natalie, approved negotiations, and authorized her to act for you.”
“I never did.”
“I know.”
“Is the signature hers?”
“Yes.”
I called Natalie.
No answer.
Again.
No answer.
Then a text came in.
I DID SIGN IT. BUT LEONARD CHANGED THE LAST PAGE AFTERWARD.
A second message arrived.
I CAN PROVE IT.
Then a third.
May you like
IF MY MOTHER HASN’T DESTROYED THE ORIGINAL.
