Daniel Price lived in a quiet town nearly two hours away. He was seventy-three now, retired, and initially refused to speak about Elaine.
“I've had people ask me about her before,” he said through the partly opened door. “Most wanted something.”
Mr. Bennett handed him a copy of Elaine's note.
Daniel read it once.
Then he opened the door.
“She knew,” he said.
Candace stepped inside.
The house smelled faintly of coffee and old paper. Daniel led them into a study where shelves covered every wall. On one desk sat a stack of property surveys tied with string.
“You were the surveyor,” Candace said.
“I was.”
“My mother hired you.”
Daniel looked at her for a long moment.
“You're Elaine's daughter.”
Candace nodded.
“I wondered if you would ever come.”
“Why didn't you tell anyone?”
His expression hardened.
“Because after Elaine died, someone came to my office and made sure I understood what would happen if I talked.”
“Martin Cole?”
Daniel didn't answer immediately.
Then he said, “Yes.”
He pulled an old folder from a cabinet.
Elaine had commissioned him to determine the actual value of Harper Ridge. Daniel explained that the land contained resources and access rights that dramatically increased its potential value. A planned transportation corridor had also made the surrounding acreage more valuable.
“Your mother realized the development company wasn't trying to buy the land,” he said. “They were trying to buy it before everyone else knew what it was worth.”
Candace looked at the survey.
“How much?”
Daniel gave her a number.
She stared at him.
“That can't be right.”
“It was the projected value then. Today, it would be considerably higher.”
Mr. Bennett leaned forward.
“Did Elaine know?”
“She knew enough to become frightened.”
Daniel opened another folder.
Inside was a letter Elaine had written to him.
She believed someone was altering company records to make her ownership appear smaller than it really was. She had also discovered that money was moving through several accounts connected to the development company.
“I told her to take everything to an attorney,” Daniel said.
“She did,” Candace replied.
“Apparently not quickly enough.”
Daniel reached into a drawer and removed a small cassette tape.
Candace looked at it.
“What is that?”
“Elaine gave it to me two days before she died. She told me to keep it unless something happened to her.”
Mr. Bennett exchanged a glance with Candace.
“Do you have a player?”
Daniel nodded.
The recording began with Elaine's voice, strained but unmistakable.
“I don't know who I can trust anymore.”
A man's voice followed.
Martin Cole.
“You are making this more complicated than it needs to be.”
Elaine answered, “You want me to sign away something I don't understand.”
“You don't need to understand every detail.”
“I understand enough.”
There was silence.
Then Martin said, “If you force this into the open, everyone loses.”
Elaine replied, “No. You lose.”
The recording ended abruptly.
Candace sat motionless.
“Why didn't you give this to the police?” she asked.
Daniel looked down.
“Because I was afraid.”
Mr. Bennett didn't judge him.
“Fear keeps people quiet,” he said. “That's exactly why these things survive.”
Daniel then revealed that Elaine had told him she planned to confront William about what she had discovered. She believed William had unknowingly allowed Vivian and Thomas access to certain accounts and documents.
“She wasn't accusing your father of being part of it,” Daniel said. “She was trying to protect him.”
Candace swallowed.
That explained something she had never understood.
Her father had always spoken of Elaine with a sadness that seemed deeper than grief.
“She said something else,” Daniel continued.
“What?”
“She told me if anything happened to her, I should look beneath the family story.”
Candace frowned.
“What family story?”
“The story that she simply died.”
The room seemed to grow smaller.
Daniel handed over the original tape and survey.
“There is one more thing.”
He opened a second drawer.
Inside was a copy of a property transfer.
The transfer had been prepared before Elaine died.
But the signature was not hers.
Mr. Bennett studied it.
“This is forged.”
Daniel nodded.
“And there is a date.”
Candace looked.
The document had been prepared three days before Elaine's death.
The same day the first payment to Harbor Medical Consulting had been made.
Mr. Bennett stood.
“We need the original.”
Daniel hesitated.
“I know where it is.”
The original was stored in an abandoned law office where Elaine's attorney had kept archived client records. The attorney had died years earlier, but his family had preserved the contents of the office in storage.
They found the box that afternoon.
Inside were letters, property maps, canceled checks, and a sealed envelope marked E.H.
Candace opened it carefully.
Elaine's final handwritten page was inside.
I was wrong about one thing. Vivian isn't the person holding the highest position in this. She is being used, and she is too angry to realize it.
Below that was another sentence.
Martin knows about the land. Thomas knows about the papers. Someone else knows about both.
Candace looked at Mr. Bennett.
“Who is someone else?”
He didn't answer.
Because at that moment, his phone rang.
It was a prosecutor's investigator.
They had found a financial connection between Martin Cole and Dr. Samuel Reed.
And it dated back to the week Elaine died.
Click here to continue reading: PART 15: THE MAN BEHIND THE PAPERS
My Sister Demanded Proof I Was Dad’s Daughter, But the Lawyer Had Already Prepared Something She Never Expected
Part 14 of 20
