Chapter 7 - The Heir They Tried to Erase
By morning, Charlotte was headline news.
Not because anyone reported the conspiracy.
Because someone leaked her medical records.
VALE HEIRESS SUFFERED PSYCHIATRIC BREAKDOWN AFTER MOTHER’S DEATH.
SOLMERE FAMILY FEARS FOR CHARLOTTE’S SAFETY.
CHARLOTTE VALE RETURNS AFTER MONTHS OF INSTABILITY.
Every article used the same hospital photograph.
The same phrases.
The same anonymous sources.
Richard had begun the second stage of his plan.
Destroy her before she could speak.
Charlotte watched one television commentator call her “emotionally fragile.”
Grant turned off the television.
“You cannot fight gossip.”
“I’m not going to.”
Charlotte opened her laptop.
“I’m going to fight documents.”
Her mother’s estate attorney was Lydia Hart.
Lydia had represented Eleanor for nineteen years.
Charlotte had avoided contacting her because Richard claimed Lydia approved the trust.
Now Charlotte called directly.
Lydia answered on the first ring.
“Charlotte.”
Her voice shook.
“Thank God.”
Charlotte stiffened.
“You knew I was back?”
“Everyone knows.”
“Did my mother create the Vale Protection Trust?”
Silence.
Then Lydia said one word.
“No.”
Charlotte closed her eyes.
“Then the documents are forged.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Because the original files disappeared three days after Eleanor died.”
Charlotte stared at Grant.
Lydia continued.
“My office was burglarized.”
“Did you report it?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“The detective assigned to the case resigned two weeks later.”
Charlotte almost laughed.
The entire system around her mother had been compromised.
Lydia lowered her voice.
“Your mother knew they might come after the estate.”
“What did she do?”
“She created a second succession document.”
Charlotte’s pulse quickened.
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“That doesn’t help me.”
“She never told me.”
Lydia paused.
“But she told me one sentence.”
“What?”
“When Charlotte understands what Solmere means, she’ll know where to look.”
Charlotte frowned.
Solmere.
She had always assumed the name was invented.
Grant suddenly looked thoughtful.
“Your parents named the company.”
“Yes.”
“Do you know why?”
Charlotte shook her head.
Grant walked toward a bookshelf and removed an old coffee-table book about the first hotel.
He opened it to a photograph from 1998.
Eleanor and Samuel stood beneath the original Solmere sign.
Under the image was a caption.
SOLMERE.
SOL FOR SAMUEL.
MERE FOR ELEANOR’S MIDDLE NAME, MEREDITH.
Charlotte stared at it.
The name did not belong to Eleanor alone.
It belonged to her parents together.
Samuel.
Meredith.
Solmere.
Then Charlotte remembered something from childhood.
Her father had once carved their initials into the oak tree behind the first Solmere Hotel.
S.
M.
C.
The original hotel still existed.
And beneath that tree was a stone bench her mother had refused to remove for twenty-seven years.
May you like
Charlotte looked at Grant.
“I know where she hid it.”
