Chapter 7 - The trustee
Richard Vale had administered Charles Rowan’s estate for four years.
Caleb trusted him.
Lorraine publicly hated him.
Apparently, both performances were useful.
Bank records showed Vale and Lorraine communicating through intermediaries.
Vale had helped conceal Nathan’s lineage.
Vale had access to the trust.
Vale knew Grace’s birth would trigger a mandatory accounting.
And that accounting would expose something catastrophic.
Nearly $31 million was missing.
Not market losses.
Withdrawals.
Shell companies.
Fake land-management expenses.
Loans that never existed.
For years, Vale had been draining the trust.
Lorraine knew.
She hadn't reported him.
She had joined him.
But why manufacture an affair?
Why interfere with my emergency?
Because Grace’s live birth activated the trust.
If Caleb disputed paternity, Vale could delay the transfer.
If Grace died before the succession conditions were formally satisfied, litigation could freeze everything for years.
My blood went cold.
“Are you saying Lorraine tried to kill my baby?”
Detective Cole answered carefully.
“We can prove interference with medical communications. We cannot yet prove intent to cause the complication.”
Yet.
The mysterious medication in my blood became critical.
Vale had purchased the same medication using a shell medical account.
But Lorraine insisted she never put anything in my tea.
Then who did?
Dr. Morgan suddenly remembered something.
When he reached the townhouse, a glass sat beside my bed.
Lorraine took it when she left.
Security footage showed her carrying something beneath her coat.
Police searched her property.
They found the glass.
My DNA.
Medication residue.
Lorraine was arrested.
Caleb watched silently as officers placed his mother in the car.
She stared at him through the window.
No apology.
Then she said something that made him approach.
“You think I was trying to kill Hannah?”
“What else am I supposed to think?”
Lorraine laughed bitterly.
“You still don't understand.”
“Understand what?”
“I took the glass because I knew what Richard had done.”
Caleb froze.
She claimed Vale had visited our house the previous evening while I was asleep.
He had brought supplements supposedly sent by Lorraine.
I remembered taking one.
If true, Lorraine had not drugged me.
She had discovered the evidence and removed it.
But then why cancel my hospital callback?
Why stage the photograph?
Why lie?
Lorraine leaned toward the police-car window.
“Because Richard wasn't trying to kill the baby.”
She looked directly at Caleb.
“He was trying to make Hannah deliver early.”
“Why?”
Lorraine’s expression changed.
May you like
“Because Grace wasn't supposed to be the first Rowan child born that week.”
And somewhere else in South Carolina, another woman connected to the Rowan family had also been pregnant.
