He paused.
“Did your grandmother leave you money?”
The question surprised me.
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“I don’t know exactly. Six hundred something.”
“Where is it?”
“In a trust.”
“Who manages it?”
“My parents.”
Clifford did not react.
That made me more nervous.
“My grandmother died when I was nineteen. The trust was supposed to stay invested until I turned twenty-four.”
“When do you turn twenty-four?”
“Four months.”
Bradley looked at me.
I looked at Clifford.
He said nothing.
Then I understood.
“At twenty-four, I get control.”
“Yes.”
“My father knows that.”
“Yes.”
I felt cold despite the blanket over my legs.
“That doesn’t mean anything.”
“No.”
“But you think it might.”
“I think after what happened tonight, you should understand your own finances before assuming they are fine.”
Bradley stood.
“We need a lawyer.”
Clifford nodded.
“An estate lawyer. Independent. Not connected to the family.”
I stared at the ceiling.
The trust had always been vague to me.
Grandma Evelyn had been my mother’s mother.
She owned several rental properties and lived more modestly than anyone in the family understood.
Before she died, she told me:
“I left you enough to start without asking permission.”
At nineteen, I thought she meant college.
Mom later explained there was a trust.
“You’ll get access later,” she said.
“Your grandmother didn’t want you wasting it young.”
I never questioned that.
My parents handled taxes.
Statements.
Everything.
I had been taught that financial curiosity was vulgar.
Dad called it “counting money before it arrives.”
Three days after the basement incident, an attorney named Caroline Reed visited me at Bradley’s apartment.
I had been discharged from the hospital and refused to return to my parents’ house.
Bradley made scrambled eggs while Caroline spread documents across the dining table.
She was in her forties, wore tortoiseshell glasses, and spoke with the precise calm of someone who charged by the hour because precision saved everyone money later.
“I obtained the trust instrument from the drafting firm,” she said.
“Your grandmother created it eleven years ago and amended it shortly before her death.”
She slid the document toward me.
My name appeared in the first paragraph.
SHELBY EVELYN HALE.
“There should have been approximately six hundred seventy thousand dollars in principal and invested assets when administration transferred after your grandmother’s death.”
I looked up.
“Should have been?”
Caroline opened another folder.
A forensic accountant named Noah Kaplan sat beside her.
He placed a bank summary on the table.
CURRENT BALANCE: $18,427.63.
I stared.
“What?”
Noah spoke carefully.
“The exact amount is still being reconciled because investments moved between institutions.”
I looked at Caroline.
“Where is the rest?”
“That is what we are investigating.”
I laughed once.
It came out wrong.
“No. My parents wouldn’t.”
Caroline did not answer.
Noah turned a page.
“There were distributions.”
“For what?”
“Some were labeled education.”
“My tuition had scholarships.”
“We know.”
“Some were labeled housing support.”
“I paid Bradley rent for the last year.”
“We know.”
My hands became cold.
Noah slid another page forward.
Several transfer forms.
I recognized my name.
More disturbing, I recognized handwriting that resembled mine.
“That’s not my signature.”
Caroline leaned forward.
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
I pointed.
“I don’t make my S like that.”
Noah nodded.
“We suspected that.”
“There are notarizations.”
“Yes.”
“So someone signed for me.”
“We are not drawing conclusions yet.”
I stared at the documents.
“Where did the money go?”
Noah opened a chart.
The transactions ran through several accounts.
A family holding company.
A temporary business account.
Then an LLC.
BRIDGET HALE PROPERTY CONSULTING.
I looked up.
“My sister?”
“We need to determine what she knew.”
My stomach twisted.
Noah continued.
“From that LLC, funds appear to have paid several family expenses.”
He showed me dates.
A vehicle purchase.
A business loan payment.
Credit-card balances.
A renovation.
Travel expenses.
I stopped at one.
Maui resort deposit.
Two months earlier.
My parents’ vacation.
The vacation they had just taken.
Paid partially through an account connected to my trust.
I pushed the papers away.
Bradley sat beside me.
“Shelby.”