Chapter 12 - Rebecca Reed
Rebecca Reed was fifty-six.
Serving the final year of a federal sentence in West Virginia.
Not her first conviction.
She agreed to a monitored call.
I expected a villain.
Instead, she looked tired.
“You have Lydia's eyes.”
Apparently everyone had opinions about my eyes.
I asked directly:
“Did you help Eleanor forge documents?”
“Yes.”
No denial.
“When?”
“Years ago.”
Rebecca had worked as a paralegal.
Brilliant with property records.
Addicted to gambling.
Eleanor paid her to create altered versions of old Hale agreements.
At first Rebecca told herself they were negotiation drafts.
Then she knew better.
She continued.
Money.
Then got caught on unrelated trust fraud.
During prosecution, she could have exposed Eleanor.
She didn't.
Why?
Eleanor promised to support Rebecca's daughter.
Thomas stiffened.
“What daughter?”
Rebecca looked at him.
“You didn't know?”
Of course.
Name:
Angela Morales.
My attorney.
I almost dropped the phone.
Angela was Rebecca's daughter.
My cousin.
Angela had never told me.
I looked at her.
She looked sick.
“Emily…”
“You knew?”
“That she was my mother? Yes.”
“That she worked with Eleanor?”
“Not until five years ago.”
“Why didn't you tell me we were related?”
Angela answered quietly:
“Because Lydia asked me not to.”
I laughed.
Actually laughed.
It hurt my leg.
I didn't care.
Every single person apparently had received instructions from a dead woman except me.
Angela explained.
Rebecca lost custody when Angela was six.
Angela was raised by her father's family in New Mexico.
She changed her surname.
Years later she became an attorney.
Lydia found her.
Hired her.
Then realized she was Rebecca's daughter.
Lydia asked Angela to watch over my business legally without disclosing the family connection until Rebecca's criminal matters ended.
Angela agreed.
Why?
“She thought knowing would make you distrust me.”
I stared.
“It does now.”
Angela nodded.
“I understand.”
I fired her.
Not dramatically.
Not permanently.
But immediately.
I needed independent counsel.
Angela accepted.
That mattered.
Before leaving, she gave my new attorney everything.
No missing files.
No sabotage.
Then Rebecca told me why Eleanor feared I would learn about her.
Rebecca possessed one original document.
A signed confession from William Hale.
Mark's father.
He admitted altering the revival clause.
Admitted paying Samuel.
Admitted using Rebecca.
And named Eleanor as the person who continued the scheme after his death.
Where was it?
Rebecca had mailed it years earlier to Angela.
Angela never received it.
Who intercepted it?
Prison mail records showed delivery.
Signed by:
M. Hale.
No such employee worked at Angela's office.
Then Rebecca smiled bitterly.
“Ask Mark what his middle name is.”
I already knew.
Mark Hale Bennett.
M. Hale.
My husband had intercepted the confession five years ago.
Before his business problems.
Before Jonathan.
May you like
Before the garage.
Mark had known what his family did long before he claimed ignorance.
