Chapter 4 - THE WET PAPER
Mara opened the coat seam in front of me the next morning.
Evidence technician.
Photographs.
Gloves.
No cinematic envelope.
A folded freezer bag had been sewn into the lining.
Inside:
Two sheets of paper.
A key.
A small memory card.
The first page was handwritten.
Nathan,
If Lily reaches you, something has gone wrong enough that I cannot protect them myself.
Please believe her before you believe anything Marcus says about me.
I never sent the letter in 2018.
I never returned the bracelet.
I never told you to stop looking.
I tried to call you eleven times.
Marcus said you changed your number.
Sarah.
I stopped reading.
Mara took over because my hands were shaking.
The second sheet contained instructions.
Names.
A domestic-violence advocate.
A lawyer.
Safe-deposit-box number.
Bellmere Trust & Fiduciary, Seattle.
One line underlined twice:
Do not contact Warren Voss.
I knew Warren.
He had been our family trust attorney for eighteen years.
He sat across from me at board meetings every quarter.
“What does this mean?”
Mara did not speculate.
The memory card would be imaged.
The key would be traced.
I stared at the warning.
Do not contact Warren Voss.
“Warren handled Sarah’s estate settlement.”
“What estate?”
“Our mother’s trust.”
Mara looked at me.
“Start from the beginning.”
I did.
Our mother Eleanor Carter Pierce died nine years earlier.
She left separate assets to Sarah and me.
My share went through the Pierce Medical Foundation structure.
Sarah inherited a trust primarily funded by property from her father James Carter.
Approximately ten million then.
More now.
I had no control over it.
Warren administered legal aspects.
After Sarah married Marcus, she supposedly withdrew from family governance.
Two years later, Warren presented me with Sarah’s signed waiver giving up her voting position in Eleanor’s charitable foundation.
She retained economic rights elsewhere.
“Did you verify with Sarah?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because she wouldn’t speak to me.”
Mara’s expression did not change.
The shame did.
I had accepted documents about my sister from people who told me she hated me.
Because those documents made avoiding rejection easier.
Mara asked:
“Did Marcus gain financially?”
“I don’t know.”
May you like
She wrote something.
“Find out.”
