Chapter 6 - THE MAN LAUREN HATED
His name was Mason Reed.
He had been engaged to Lauren for nine months.
Then, without explanation, their wedding disappeared from everyone’s calendar.
Lauren told us Mason cheated.
Mason told a different story.
He contacted Margaret after seeing news about Lauren’s arrest.
“I have documents Hannah needs.”
I didn’t trust him.
Margaret didn’t either.
That was probably why she agreed to meet him.
We sat inside a private conference room at the hospital.
Mason entered carrying a flash drive.
He looked exhausted.
“Lauren didn’t leave me because I cheated.”
“Then why?”
“Because I found out what your parents were doing.”
He had worked in commercial lending.
Two years earlier, my father asked him to help restructure several company loans.
While reviewing the accounts, Mason found repeated transfers from trust-controlled assets into private companies.
Companies connected to my parents.
“How much?”
“About one point eight million that I could trace.”
I stared at him.
Mason slid the flash drive across the table.
“I copied everything.”
Ethan didn’t touch it.
“Why wait until now?”
Mason laughed without humor.
“Because Robert threatened to destroy me.”
There it was.
The part that made him dangerous.
Mason wasn’t helping because he cared about me.
He wanted protection.
“What do you want?”
“Immunity if investigators discover I signed anything connected to those transactions.”
Margaret’s expression sharpened.
“What did you sign?”
Mason swallowed.
“Two notarized acknowledgments.”
“Were you present when they were signed?”
“No.”
My stomach dropped.
He had helped them.
Maybe indirectly.
Maybe knowingly.
But he had helped.
Mason pointed toward the flash drive.
“That proves the transfers started before Eleanor died.”
Margaret inserted it into her laptop.
The files were real.
Statements.
Corporate registrations.
Loan documents.
Then we found something else.
A scanned letter.
It was written by my grandmother.
The date was November 22, 2019.
Three weeks before her stroke.
May you like
The first line made my blood run cold.
“If anything happens to me before Hannah has a child, Robert and Diane must not be allowed to control the trust.”
