Chapter 4 - THE PAPERS IN THE BLUE FOLDEREverett did not sleep.
At 2:13 in the morning, he sat alone in the study reading everything he could find about temporary guardianship petitions.
At 2:47, he called Preston again.
No answer.
At 3:05, he called the attorney’s office line.
Voicemail.
At 3:18, he stopped calling.
If Preston had helped Margaret prepare a petition to have Everett declared incapable of managing his own affairs, there would be records.
Everett just had to find them before they disappeared.
At breakfast, Margaret entered as if nothing had happened.
Her hair was perfectly arranged.
Her clothes were immaculate.
She looked at Daniel’s cheek once and quickly looked away.
“Good morning.”
No one answered.
Noah moved closer to his father.
Margaret poured coffee.
“You cannot freeze me out forever.”
Everett looked at her.
“Why are you trying to have me placed under guardianship?”
The coffee stopped halfway to her lips.
Daniel looked between them.
Margaret slowly lowered the cup.
“Excuse me?”
“Temporary guardianship.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Preston does.”
Something passed through her eyes.
Then she smiled.
“Did he explain why?”
“No.”
“Then perhaps you should let him.”
“Perhaps you should.”
Margaret glanced at the boys.
“This is inappropriate in front of children.”
“So was hitting one.”
Her mouth tightened.
Everett stood.
“Daniel, take Noah to the library.”
Daniel did not move immediately.
“Dad?”
“I’m not sending either of you anywhere.”
Only then did he obey.
When they were gone, Margaret leaned forward.
“You want the truth?”
“Yes.”
“You’ve been exhausted for months.”
Everett said nothing.
“You forget meetings. You call me from airports and ask questions we discussed the day before. You wake up confused.”
Everett stared at her.
“I travel constantly.”
“You nearly fainted in Chicago.”
“I had the flu.”
“You forgot Daniel’s dentist appointment.”
“I was in Denver.”
“You signed papers and later asked me what they were.”
“What papers?”
Margaret looked at him carefully.
“Exactly.”
The implication settled into the room.
“You’ve been documenting me.”
“I’ve been worried about you.”
“You prepared a guardianship petition.”
“I asked Preston what our options would be if your condition became worse.”
“What condition?”
Margaret hesitated.
“Your memory.”
Everett almost laughed.
“My memory?”
“You’ve been seeing Dr. Keene.”
“For insomnia.”
“And anxiety.”
“After my wife died.”
Margaret lowered her voice.
“I am not your enemy.”
Everett thought of Daniel’s red cheek.
“No?”
“I made a terrible mistake yesterday. I admit that. But Daniel has been manipulating your grief for months.”
Everett rose so abruptly the chair moved backward.
“Don’t.”
Margaret stopped.
“You may defend yourself,” he said. “You will not make an eleven-year-old responsible for your behavior.”
For the first time, her calm broke.
“Do you know what it’s been like here while you’re gone? Noah screams for Isabel. Daniel watches me like he wants me dead. I have carried this house while you flew around building another hotel.”
“Then you could have told me.”
“I tried.”
“No. You told me everything was fine.”
Margaret’s eyes filled with tears.
Everett could not tell whether they were real.
“I was protecting you.”
“From my children?”
“From collapse.”
She walked toward him.
“You need to slow down.”
Everett stepped back.
“You need to leave my study.”
Margaret stared at him for several seconds.
Then she said something that made his skin turn cold.
“You’re proving my point.”
She walked out.
Everett immediately called his company’s general counsel—not Preston.
A woman named Lena Brooks answered.
Everett explained only that he needed a private review of his personal legal documents.
“Do not contact Preston Vale,” he said.
“Understood.”
“And I need copies of everything bearing my signature from the last six months.”
“Everything?”
“Everything.”
By noon, the first set arrived electronically.
Insurance changes.
Investment approvals.
Medical authorizations.
A revised power of attorney.
Everett opened it.
His signature appeared on the final page.
He stared at it.
It looked perfect.
Except Everett knew he had never signed it.
The new power of attorney named Margaret as his primary agent.
And if Margaret could not serve, the secondary agent was Everett’s younger brother.
Malcolm Whitmore.
Everett leaned back.
That made no sense.
He and Malcolm had barely spoken in a year.
They loved each other in the complicated way brothers from an old, wealthy family sometimes did, but they had not been close since a dispute over the company.
Why would Everett suddenly grant Malcolm authority over his personal finances?
His phone rang.
Lena.
“I found something else.”
“What?”
“The guardianship draft.”
Everett stood.
“You have it?”
“Not the filed petition. A document version saved to a shared legal server.”
“Whose account?”
There was a pause.
“Preston Vale’s.”
“Send it.”
Seconds later, the file appeared.
Everett opened page one.
IN THE MATTER OF EVERETT JAMES WHITMORE
The petition described him as increasingly confused, emotionally unstable, and incapable of protecting the welfare of his minor children.
Margaret was proposed as temporary guardian.
Preston had attached supporting statements.
One from Dr. Simon Keene.
One from Margaret.
One supposedly from Daniel.
And one more.
Everett stared at the name.
May you like
Malcolm Whitmore.
His own brother had signed a sworn statement saying Everett could no longer be trusted with his children.
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