Chapter 12 - The Other Nathan Carter
The Canadian account had my name.
My date of birth.
An old passport number.
But not my signature.
Transactions began two years earlier.
Money from Joseph’s medical reserve entered.
Then left through payments to several companies.
One company caught my eye.
Northern Precision Maintenance.
The contractor investigated after my shop accident.
I stopped breathing.
My lawyer warned me immediately:
“This does not prove someone caused the accident.”
Correct.
But it did prove money tied to my stolen family funds reached a company associated with my workplace.
Why?
The investigation eventually uncovered a less cinematic but still disturbing answer.
Stephen had invested through a private lending network.
Northern Precision owed money to one of his entities.
My stolen funds had been mixed into the network.
The workplace connection was financial, not necessarily an assassination attempt.
Brianna’s overheard “Canadian accident” comment likely meant Stephen planned to use any accident as an opportunity—not that he engineered it.
That distinction mattered.
But the fake Nathan Carter account mattered enormously.
Who opened it?
Identity verification included an in-person video check.
A man appeared.
Similar age.
Dark hair.
He used my documents.
Not Stephen.
I watched the grainy still image.
Then recognized him.
My cousin Eric.
Theresa’s nephew.
A man I had not spoken to in six years.
Eric lived in Winnipeg.
Or so I thought.
My mother closed her eyes when I showed her.
“You knew.”
“He needed work.”
“You gave him my identity?”
“No.”
“Then how did he get my documents?”
Theresa whispered:
“Stephen.”
Eric had been employed by North Ridge as a courier and “international representative.”
Stephen used him to create an alternate version of me in Canada.
Why?
So documents could appear to originate from me while I was physically abroad.
Loan approvals.
Beneficiary changes.
Trust acknowledgments.
Even supposed messages to Lucy.
There were effectively two Nathan Carters.
Me.
And the paperwork version Stephen controlled.
My father’s handwritten warning suddenly seemed prophetic.
Nathan loves foolishly when he is away.
Dad understood distance created vulnerability.
Then Lucy remembered something.
Three months earlier, Theresa put her on a video call with “Nathan’s Canadian financial adviser.”
Camera remained off.
The man asked Lucy to verbally confirm she agreed to certain property arrangements.
She refused.
He became angry.
Called her selfish.
Then Stephen came to the house the next day.
That was when her food restrictions became worse.
They needed her consent.
She wouldn’t give it.
So they began building evidence that she was medically incompetent.
Doctor-shopping?
No.
They had created private “care notes.”
Theresa documented confusion.
Brianna documented aggression.
Stephen documented financial instability.
A manufactured incapacity file.
The goal was not simply waiting for Lucy to die.
If she survived, they planned to make her legally irrelevant.
Then my attorney found the draft petition.
Petitioner:
Nathan Carter.
My forged signature again.
Request:
Temporary financial guardianship over Lucy.
Proposed guardian:
Theresa Carter.
My mother had been preparing to take legal control of my living wife.
The filing date was blank.
But one handwritten note appeared in Stephen’s margin:
May you like
Submit after settlement announcement.
The million-dollar bait had triggered exactly the event they were waiting for.
