The gravel crunched beneath the heavy black tires of the county investigator’s SUV.
Tessa’s grip on Brandon’s arm was so tight her knuckles turned a stark, bloodless white. She looked at me, then at the investigators, and finally at the man in the cheap navy suit, who was now actively trying to slide his leather folder under his arm and edge toward his sedan.
“Stay right where you are, sir,” Detective Miller called out, stepping out of the SUV. He didn’t look like he was in a hurry, but there was a quiet, practiced authority in his stride that made the “buyer’s agent” freeze mid-step.
My phone buzzed against my palm. I pressed it to my ear, my eyes locked on Brandon, whose proud, defiant posture was rapidly collapsing into a look of sheer, unadulterated panic.
“Arthur,” I said into the receiver. “I’m at the gate. The investigators are here. Who helped him?”
“Clara, do not sign anything, and do not let anyone leave,” my attorney, Arthur Vance, said, his voice crackling with a mix of urgency and disbelief. “We just pulled the notary digital footprint and the filing metadata from the county portal. Brandon didn’t just walk into a random currency exchange to forge your name. He had help from the very firm we hired to manage the estate’s local tax filings.”
My chest tightened. “Who?”
“Marcus Davis,” Arthur said. “The junior partner at Davis & Associates. He’s the one who had access to your expired personal deed copies, your signature templates, and the old corporate seal before we transitioned the property into the charitable trust. He’s also, according to a quick search of public records, Tessa’s first cousin.”
I closed my eyes for a brief second, letting the final piece of the puzzle fall into place.
It hadn’t been a random act of desperate stupidity by my brother. It was a calculated, coordinated raid. They had targeted the farmhouse because they knew it sat empty while I was preparing for my trip to Europe, believing they could slip the transaction through the cracks of a busy estate-management firm, pocket the three million, and tie me up in civil litigation for years while Tessa’s “business”—which was likely nothing more than a shell company—liquidated the cash.
I lowered my phone and looked at Brandon.
“Did you really think Marcus could protect you?” I asked quietly.
Tessa’s head snapped up. Her sunglasses slid down the bridge of her nose, her eyes wide with a sudden, venomous shock. “Who… who is Marcus?” she stammered, her voice high and defensive.
“Your cousin, Tessa,” I said, taking a step toward the iron gate. “The one who just got arrested at his office in downtown Lake Geneva twenty minutes ago for grand larceny and notary fraud.”
As the detective stepped between Brandon and the terrified man in the navy suit, Brandon slowly turned his head to look at the woman he had sacrificed my heritage for—only to find her already backing away from him…
