Detective Ortiz ended Sherry’s call only after confirming that another unit had reached her house.
She instructed Sherry not to leave, not to destroy anything, and not to contact Grant, Vivian, or Voss.
Sherry kept saying she understood.
I did not believe she did.
People like Sherry had spent so long treating boundaries as suggestions that even a police instruction sounded to them like something negotiable.
When the call ended, Toby stood near my back door with both hands braced on his hips.
He had not spoken since hearing that Grant forged his signature.
Paige sat at the kitchen table.
She looked hollow.
Not crying anymore.
Past crying.
Detective Ortiz turned toward her.
“I need you to tell me everything you know about Lamb Residential Holdings.”
Paige shook her head.
“Almost nothing.”
“Your brother owns it.”
“I know that now.”
“Had you heard the name?”
“Maybe once.”
“When?”
“I’m trying to remember.”
Ortiz waited.
Paige pressed her fingers against her forehead.
“Grant talked about buying distressed property after the recession. He had several companies. I never paid attention to the names.”
“Did Toby?”
“No.”
Toby looked over.
“I barely knew what Grant did.”
“He discussed investments with you?”
“Sometimes.”
“Did you ever sign anything for him?”
Toby’s eyes narrowed.
“No.”
“Co-sign loans?”
“No.”
“Guarantees?”
“No.”
“Business introductions?”
“Not that I remember.”
Ortiz caught the wording.
“Not that you remember?”
Toby sighed.
“He sent things to review occasionally. Market reports. Deals. He likes making everyone feel like they’re part of whatever he’s doing.”
Harold said, “Did you ever return documents with your signature?”
“No.”
“Electronic signature?”
Toby went still.
Paige noticed.
“What?”
He looked at her.
“Three years ago.”
My stomach tightened.
“What happened?” Ortiz asked.
“Grant wanted me to witness something.”
“What?”
“I don’t remember. A partnership document.”
“Did you sign digitally?”
“Yeah.”
“How?”
“He emailed me a link.”
Ortiz sat straighter.
“What service?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did he have access to a saved signature afterward?”
Toby stared at the table.
“I have no idea.”
Harold said, “A signature image is easy to retain.”
Paige whispered, “Grant would know that.”
Nobody answered.
Ortiz’s phone rang again.
She listened briefly.
Then looked toward me.
“Sherry’s cooperating.”
“That would be new.”
Ortiz ignored the bitterness.
“They’ve secured the house pending a search warrant. Vivian still hasn’t been located.”
“Grant?”
“Bell is working on him.”
Toby finally turned from the door.
“If Grant knows the police are looking for him, he’ll run.”
“Maybe.”
“He already left his hotel.”
“Yes.”
“Then why are we standing here?”
Ortiz’s expression did not change.
“Because angry relatives make poor investigators.”
He took a breath.
She continued.
“And because I have people who can stop him at airports, train stations, and major roads without getting into a fight in a parking lot.”
Toby looked away.
“I’m not trying to fight him.”
“I believe you.”
Her tone suggested she did not.
A second detective arrived thirty minutes later carrying a laptop and a slim cardboard box.
He introduced himself as Aaron Price from the financial-crimes unit.
He had obtained preliminary business records on North Shore Land Partners and Lamb Residential Holdings.
“Not enough for conclusions,” he warned.
But enough for questions.
We gathered around the kitchen table.
Price opened a corporate-ownership diagram.
North Shore had been created through a registered agent in Delaware.
Its sole listed manager was a company called Veridian Asset Strategies.
Veridian’s listed manager was another entity.
That company finally led to an individual.
Daniel Voss.
Harold exhaled slowly.
“So Voss controlled the buyer.”
Price nodded.
“On paper.”
Toby frowned.
“Then why did Grant’s company finance it?”
“Because North Shore needed capital.”
“How much?”
“Initial financing commitment: eight hundred thousand.”
Sherry’s expected share.
I stared at the number.
Price noticed.
“Something?”
“Sherry said she and Vivian were each supposed to receive eight hundred thousand.”
Price looked at Ortiz.
She wrote it down.
Harold leaned toward the screen.
“What was the source of Grant’s eight-hundred-thousand-dollar commitment?”
Price clicked another page.
“That is where things get interesting.”
I had begun to hate that phrase.
The funding was not cash.
It was a bridge-loan guarantee.
Lamb Residential Holdings had pledged an expected receivable tied to the future sale of property.
“What receivable?” Toby asked.
Price looked at him.
“Your beneficial interest.”
Toby stared.
“My what?”
Price turned the laptop slightly.
A document claimed that Toby Huitt had assigned a portion of any future proceeds arising from the Huitt Family Preservation Trust to Lamb Residential Holdings as collateral.
Toby’s face turned white.
“I never did that.”
“We assumed you’d say that.”
Ortiz asked, “Signature?”
Price enlarged the page.
There it was.
Toby Huitt.
Not perfect.
But close.
Closer than the 2021 letter.
“What date?” Harold asked.
“Fourteen months ago.”
Paige whispered, “Grant was at our house then.”
Toby looked at her.
“You remember?”
“He came for Emma’s school play.”
Their oldest daughter.
A normal family weekend.
Grant eating breakfast in their kitchen.
Playing cards with the children.
Apparently carrying documents that pledged Toby’s future inheritance.
Toby sat down heavily.
“How much did he assign?”
Price looked at him.
“Two million dollars.”
Nobody spoke.
My first impulse was absurdly maternal.
I wanted to tell Toby it was not his fault.
But that would have been too simple.
He had trusted.
He had avoided asking questions.
He had let Paige’s family orbit closer because challenging them was inconvenient.
Still, none of that gave Grant the right to forge his name.
Harold studied the document.
“This assignment is invalid.”
“Because Toby didn’t sign it?”
“That too. But more importantly, he cannot assign what he does not yet possess under this trust.”
Price nodded.
“North Shore’s lender may not know that.”
“Who is the lender?”
“Private capital group.”
“Name?”
Price hesitated.
“Harrowgate Financial.”
Grant’s employer, according to what Toby had once told me.
Paige looked up.
“Grant works for them.”
Price nodded.
“For now.”
Ortiz looked at him.
“What does that mean?”
“Harrowgate placed him on administrative leave this afternoon.”
“How did they know?”
“We contacted their legal department after finding the financing commitment.”
Toby rubbed his face.
“So Grant used his employer to finance a deal using my nonexistent inheritance as collateral.”
“That appears possible.”
Paige whispered, “He could lose everything.”
Toby looked at her.
“He tried to take everything from Mom.”
She closed her eyes.
“I know.”
Price continued.
“There’s another problem.”
“Of course there is,” I said.
He almost smiled.
“Harrowgate believed the collateral had already been reviewed by independent counsel.”
Harold’s expression sharpened.
“Which counsel?”
Price enlarged another document.
Benton, Pike and Rowe.
The same firm tied to the $18,500 legal retainer.
Ortiz frowned.
“So the attempted charge against Mara may have been intended to pay for the legal opinion supporting the financing.”
Harold nodded slowly.
“Not only guardianship.”
I looked between them.
“Explain.”
Harold folded his hands.
“If Voss could establish that Toby’s beneficiary interest was accessible, Grant could use it as collateral.”
“But it isn’t.”
“No.”
“So they needed you removed.”
“Yes.”
“And me declared incompetent.”
“Possibly.”
“Why both?”
“Because I would object as trustee, and your competence strengthens your rights as lifetime beneficiary.”
The whole structure became clearer.
Remove Harold.
Weaken me.
Reframe Toby’s future inheritance as something currently reachable.
Then borrow against it.
The cabin sale could close.
Grant’s financing would be repaid.
Sherry and Vivian would receive their shares.
Voss would control the buyer and whatever money disappeared between purchase prices.
Everyone got something.
Except the people who owned the property.
Toby stared at the assignment.
“Why would Grant take this risk?”
Price leaned back.
“That is usually the right question.”
“Money.”
“More than that.”
Price opened another record.
“Grant owes Harrowgate.”
Paige looked at him.
“What?”
“Internal loans.”
“How much?”
“Approximately one-point-six million.”
She covered her mouth.
Toby stared at the screen.
“For what?”
“We don’t know yet.”
Price continued.
“He also personally guaranteed losses on two failed commercial deals.”
Harold said, “So the cabin sale would rescue him.”
“Potentially.”
Grant had not seen the property only as an opportunity.
He needed it.
That need had changed the nature of everything.
Ortiz’s phone buzzed.
She looked at the message.
“Bell found him.”
Paige stood.
“Where?”
“At a storage facility near the interstate.”
“Is he okay?”
“He’s alive.”
That was not the answer she wanted.
“Is he under arrest?”
“Not yet.”
“Why is he at a storage facility?”
Ortiz looked at Price.
“Unit is rented to Lamb Residential Holdings.”
My stomach tightened.
“Documents?”
“Possibly.”
“Voss?”
“No sign.”
“Vivian?”
“No.”
Ortiz grabbed her coat.
“I need to go.”
Toby stepped forward.
“I’m coming.”
“No.”
“He forged my signature.”
“I know.”
“He pledged my father’s trust.”
“I know.”
“He’s my family.”
“That is exactly why you’re staying.”
Toby’s jaw tightened.
Ortiz softened just slightly.
“You will know what we find as soon as I can legally tell you.”
She and Price left.
The house became quiet.
Harold packed his files.
“I should go back to my office.”
I looked at him.
“Are you safe?”
He paused.
“That is a thoughtful question.”
“It wasn’t rhetorical.”
He nodded.
“I’ll have someone with me.”
“Evelyn?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Before leaving, Harold touched Leon’s letter still lying near my coffee cup.
“You found this today?”
“The one addressed to me?”
“Yes.”
I nodded.
He read only the final paragraph after I offered it.
Then he smiled.
“He still sounds like himself.”
“Unfortunately.”
Harold laughed quietly.
Then his expression softened.
“He was worried you’d keep the cabin because you thought selling it meant letting him go.”
“I did.”
“I know.”
I looked at the window.
“Maybe I don’t want it anymore.”
“You don’t have to decide today.”
“No.”
For once, nobody would force the timing.
After Harold left, Toby and Paige stayed.
The three of us sat in the kitchen with no documents between us.
That felt strange.
Paige stared at the table.
“I don’t know how to go home.”
Toby looked at her.
“What do you mean?”
“My mother might be arrested. Vivian is missing. Grant may be arrested.”
She swallowed.
“And half of what I thought was normal isn’t.”
Toby’s face softened despite himself.
“You can come home.”
She looked at him.
“That isn’t what I meant.”
He knew.
Their house no longer felt neutral.
Too many conversations had happened there.
Too many documents had moved through it.
Too many permissions had been granted without either of them paying attention.
I stood.
“You can stay here tonight.”
They both looked at me.
Paige’s eyes filled.
“Mara—”
“It’s one night.”
“I don’t deserve—”
“Don’t turn this into deserving.”
She stopped.
“You’re both exhausted.”
Toby looked at me.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
Maybe I should have been angrier.
I was angry.
But anger and cruelty were not the same thing.
Paige had failed me.
That did not require me to enjoy watching her lose everyone at once.
They went upstairs to Toby’s old room and the guest room beside it.
Neither slept with the other.
I noticed.
I said nothing.
At 9:17 that night, Detective Ortiz called.
“We searched Grant’s storage unit.”
My hand tightened around the phone.
“What did you find?”
“Boxes of financial records.”
“How many?”
“Enough.”
“Anything about the trust?”
“Yes.”
My stomach sank.
“How bad?”
“He has records going back to 2014.”
I closed my eyes.
“Leon’s time.”
“Yes.”
“Did Grant collect them?”
“Some. Some appear to have come from Voss.”
“And Vivian?”
“We found correspondence.”
“Where is she?”
“Still unknown.”
“What about Voss?”
“Unknown.”
I heard voices behind Ortiz.
Then she said, “There’s something else.”
“What?”
“We found a second purchase agreement.”
My heartbeat slowed.
“For the cabin?”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“Nine-point-two million.”
I sat down.
Higher again.
“Who is the buyer?”
“That’s what you need to hear.”
I waited.
Ortiz lowered her voice.
“The buyer is not Halcyon Ridge.”
“Then who?”
“A company formed three weeks ago.”
“Owned by Voss?”
“No.”
“Grant?”
“No.”
“Sherry?”
“No.”
“Who?”
Ortiz paused.
“We haven’t proved ownership yet.”
“But?”
“The organizing documents list one authorized representative.”
I gripped the phone.
“Who?”
“Paige Huitt.”
I looked toward the ceiling.
Upstairs, my daughter-in-law was sleeping in the room beside my son.
Or pretending to.
And according to a company filing made three weeks earlier, she was authorized to purchase my family’s cabin for $9.2 million.
Click here to continue reading: PART 14: A Company Filed in Paige’s Name Made Her Look Like the Final Buyer, Until One Detail Proved Someone Needed Her to Take the Fall
I Had Already Paid for My Son’s Birthday Dinner When He Quietly Told Me There Was No Seat Left for Me
Part 13 of 35
