Chapter 4 - THE MONEY RACHEL NEVER KNEW SHE HAD
Rachel's maternal grandmother died when Rachel was sixteen.
Diane always said there was no inheritance beyond jewelry and furniture.
That had been a lie.
Attorney Samuel Price confirmed it two days later.
There had been a trust.
Nearly half a million dollars.
Rachel was beneficiary.
Diane and Thomas served as trustees until Rachel turned twenty-five.
At twenty-five, the remaining balance should have transferred to Rachel.
It never did.
“What happened to it?” Rachel asked.
Samuel looked uncomfortable.
“I don't know yet.”
“You handled the estate.”
“Not the trust administration.”
“Who did?”
“A separate accountant.”
“Name?”
“Gerald Pierce.”
Rachel wrote it down.
Then Samuel added:
“He died four years ago.”
Of course.
The old statements showed withdrawals.
Tuition payments.
Reasonable.
Then larger transfers.
House renovation.
Business investment.
Private-school expenses for Megan.
Rachel stared.
“My money paid for Megan's school?”
Megan began crying.
“I didn't know.”
Rachel believed her.
One transfer was stranger.
$110,000 to a company called Shoreline Development LLC.
Thomas recognized the name immediately.
His face went white.
Rachel had demanded he join the meeting.
“What is Shoreline?”
Thomas looked at Diane's empty chair.
“Your mother's project.”
“What project?”
“A beach property.”
Grayhaven.
The same beach where Lily was abandoned.
The kiosk.
The dunes.
The black car.
Everything suddenly connected.
Diane had not chosen that family vacation randomly.
She had brought them back to a place tied to money stolen from Rachel's trust.
Thomas finally admitted the truth.
Thirty years earlier Diane's father promised her a coastal property deal.
It failed.
After Diane became trustee of Rachel's inheritance, she moved money into Shoreline hoping to recover the loss.
Instead the project collapsed.
Rachel stared.
“She stole from me.”
Thomas whispered:
“Yes.”
“And you let her.”
He began crying.
“Yes.”
Megan looked physically ill.
Thomas continued.
They tried to replace the money over time.
Couldn't.
By Rachel's twenty-fifth birthday, the trust was almost empty.
Diane lied.
Thomas went along.
“Why were you at the beach now?”
Thomas shook his head.
“I thought this was a family trip.”
“Stop.”
He closed his eyes.
“Diane said someone contacted her.”
“Who?”
“A man claiming he found Shoreline's old records.”
The metal box.
Diane went to recover them before Rachel learned.
But Lily saw.
Then Megan saw.
Then everything went wrong.
Rachel asked:
“Who grabbed Lily?”
Thomas whispered:
“I don't know.”
Rachel slammed both hands onto the table.
“Everybody keeps saying that!”
Thomas flinched.
Then quietly:
“I know who might.”
Rachel stopped.
“Who?”
“Your mother.”
“No.”
Thomas's voice broke.
“Not because she ordered it.”
May you like
He looked at Rachel.
“Because she knows the man in the black car.”
