Chapter 6 - Silas Ran With Evelyn’s BoxSilas made it twenty yards.
A deputy tackled him near the gravel drive.
The metal box flew from his hands.
It struck the ground and opened.
Papers scattered across wet leaves.
Thaddeus started toward them.
Mara blocked him.
“Let us secure it.”
Silas shouted from the ground:
“Thaddeus!”
Thaddeus stopped.
The attorney’s expensive coat was covered in mud.
His glasses had fallen several feet away.
Without them, he looked less powerful.
Less controlled.
More afraid.
“You need to listen to me.”
Thaddeus stared.
“You forged my signature.”
“No.”
“You notarized it.”
“I can explain.”
“Did you forge my father’s signature too?”
Silas’s face changed.
That was enough.
Police handcuffed him.
He kept talking.
“Tabitha is lying to you.”
“She already admitted taking money.”
“That doesn’t mean you know why.”
Thaddeus almost laughed.
“There is no why that makes this better.”
“You think this is about greed?”
“I think stealing usually is.”
Silas looked toward the metal box.
“This is about what your father did.”
Thaddeus’s patience disappeared.
“My father is dead.”
“Yes.”
“And you spent twenty years serving him.”
Silas stopped.
Mara warned him to remain silent until counsel arrived.
Silas ignored her.
“Wallace Mercer built that trust with money that didn’t belong to him.”
Thaddeus frowned.
“What?”
Silas smiled bitterly.
“There. You really didn’t know.”
Mara stepped between them.
“Interview later.”
Silas finally stopped talking.
The metal box was photographed and bagged.
Thaddeus would not be allowed to examine it until police documented everything.
He understood.
He hated it.
They returned to the main estate after midnight.
Grayson was asleep.
Bernice sat beside his bed reading.
Thaddeus watched from the doorway.
His son looked small.
Safe for the moment.
Thaddeus went downstairs.
Mara arrived twenty minutes later.
“We can go through copies of what we found.”
The metal box had contained documents spanning fifteen years.
Wallace Mercer’s business records.
Trust paperwork.
Letters from Evelyn.
And financial statements showing something unexpected.
The money used to seed Grayson’s trust had come from the sale of a manufacturing company Wallace acquired decades earlier.
Thaddeus recognized the name.
Bellweather Components.
“My father bought that before I was born.”
Mara pointed to a document.
“According to this, he didn’t buy all of it.”
Thaddeus read.
Original ownership:
Wallace Mercer — 50%.
Jonathan Avery — 50%.
Thaddeus knew the name.
Barely.
Jonathan had been his father’s first business partner.
Died young.
“Jonathan had no children.”
Mara raised an eyebrow.
“You sure?”
Thaddeus read the next page.
A settlement agreement.
Jonathan Avery’s widow had transferred his shares to Wallace after his death.
Signature:
Margaret Avery.
Notarized.
Thaddeus frowned.
“So?”
“Look at Evelyn’s note.”
Written in the margin:
Margaret says she never signed this.
Thaddeus stared.
Another forged signature.
Older.
Much older.
The pattern did not start with Grayson.
It started with Wallace.
Or around him.
“Who is Margaret Avery?”
“Alive,” Mara said. “Eighty-one. Living in Maine.”
Thaddeus looked at her.
“You already checked?”
“Yes.”
“What did she say?”
“We haven’t interviewed her yet.”
Thaddeus turned another page.
Evelyn had apparently found Margaret through old corporate records.
A handwritten note read:
Spoke to M.A. She says Wallace promised to buy Jonathan’s half over ten years. After Jonathan died, she received one small payment and then nothing. She never signed a full transfer.
Thaddeus’s stomach turned.
If true, his father had built part of the Mercer fortune using ownership he may never have legally acquired.
“And Silas knows this?”
“Apparently.”
Mara showed him a letter from Silas to Wallace dated twelve years earlier.
Margaret Avery has resurfaced. We should resolve this quietly.
Wallace replied:
No litigation. Pay what is necessary.
Thaddeus felt relief.
Maybe his father eventually fixed it.
Then the next document destroyed that hope.
Silas:
She refused settlement and wants original ownership records.
Wallace:
Then find another solution.
No further correspondence.
“What solution?”
Mara shook her head.
“We don’t know.”
Thaddeus remembered Silas’s words.
The trust was built with money that didn’t belong to Wallace.
“So Evelyn found this while investigating Tabitha’s theft.”
“Yes.”
“And Grayson’s trust contains proceeds from Bellweather.”
“Yes.”
Thaddeus rubbed his forehead.
His son’s money might be entangled in an old ownership fraud.
Mara continued.
“There’s another connection.”
“What?”
“Jonathan Avery had one child.”
Thaddeus looked up.
“I thought—”
“A daughter born six months before he died.”
“What happened to her?”
“She was adopted by relatives after Margaret became ill.”
Thaddeus waited.
Mara placed a birth certificate copy on the desk.
Child:
Evelyn Rose Avery.
Thaddeus stared.
“No.”
Mara said nothing.
His wife.
His dead wife.
Evelyn had been Jonathan Avery’s daughter.
The woman Thaddeus married had been the daughter of the man his father may have cheated out of half a company.
And suddenly the trust made terrible sense.
Wallace had not simply created twelve million dollars for Grayson because he loved his grandson.
He may have been returning money.
Quietly.
To the grandson of the man he took it from.
Thaddeus looked at Mara.
“Did Evelyn know who she was?”
“She found out before she died.”
“How long before?”
Mara pointed toward a dated letter.
Six weeks.
The same six weeks in which she began investigating Tabitha.
The same period in which she warned Bernice.
Thaddeus felt the floor shifting beneath his entire marriage.
His wife had discovered that her father’s fortune and her husband’s family fortune were connected.
That Grayson’s trust may have been restitution disguised as inheritance.
And Tabitha—
May you like
the woman stealing from that trust—
might have known exactly whose money she was taking.
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