The black sedan remained across the street until Candace and Mr. Bennett reached the corner. It did not move when they did. Its windshield reflected the pale afternoon sky, making it impossible to see who was inside. Candace kept walking, forcing herself not to look back again. Mr. Bennett noticed anyway.
“Don’t react,” he said quietly. “If someone wants you frightened, the worst thing you can do is let them know it worked.”
Candace tightened her grip around the copy of William’s note. The words were still burned into her mind: The real reason Elaine died is buried beneath the land. For years, she had thought her mother’s death was a tragedy that happened before she was old enough to understand it. Now every piece of evidence seemed to point backward toward that night.
They returned to Mr. Bennett’s office and locked the safe-deposit documents away before doing anything else. The photographs, Margaret Sloan’s statement, the bank records, and William’s handwritten notes were spread across the conference table. Mr. Bennett drew a line beneath each name.
“Vivian,” he said. “Thomas. Jonathan. Reed. Cole. Sloan.”
“Most of them were afraid,” Candace replied.
“Exactly. People who were afraid of the same person.”
“Martin Cole.”
Mr. Bennett nodded. “That is where the evidence keeps taking us.”
He pulled up an old property map on his computer. The image showed a large tract of land outside the city, stretching between a county road and a river. Candace recognized the name immediately. Harper Ridge. William had owned part of it for decades, but she had never understood why her father rarely discussed it.
“This was Elaine’s property interest,” Mr. Bennett said. “Not the whole parcel. Shares and development rights. Your father purchased some of it later, but Elaine had an original interest that was never fully transferred.”
Candace stared at the map. “Why would that be worth killing someone over?”
“Because the land underneath those rights is not what people thought it was.”
He enlarged the survey boundary. Several areas had been marked with handwritten circles and dates. One of them was dated six weeks before Elaine died.
Candace leaned closer.
“That handwriting,” she whispered.
Mr. Bennett looked at her.
“That’s my mother’s.”
The survey had been commissioned by Elaine herself. It was not a routine boundary survey. It included geological notes, water-access rights, development restrictions, and projected commercial value. The final page was missing from the copy.
Mr. Bennett found an old county filing number in the margin.
“That gives us somewhere to start.”
The next morning they went to the county records office. After several hours of searching, a clerk located a sealed development file that had never been digitized. Inside was a copy of a letter from Elaine to a land attorney dated nine days before her death.
I have discovered that the valuation is being intentionally suppressed.
Candace read the sentence twice.
The letter continued with references to “outside investors,” “unauthorized options,” and “an attempt to acquire controlling rights through family proxies.”
There was one name in the margin.
M. Cole.
Candace's stomach tightened.
The file contained an agreement between a company called Northbridge Development Holdings and a small Harper family subsidiary. The agreement granted Northbridge an option to purchase development rights at a price that, according to the newer survey, was absurdly low.
“Who signed this?” Candace asked.
Mr. Bennett pointed to the bottom.
Thomas.
But Thomas had not been authorized to sign on behalf of Elaine.
There was another signature beneath his.
Vivian.
Candace closed her eyes.
“She helped them.”
“Or believed she was helping herself,” Mr. Bennett said. “Those are not always the same thing.”
They traced Northbridge Development Holdings to a law office that had closed years earlier. The registered agent was no longer living, but the corporation had been connected to three other companies. One of those companies shared an address with a consulting firm owned by Martin Cole.
The pattern was no longer a suspicion.
It was a structure.
Mr. Bennett contacted an old colleague who specialized in corporate records. Within two days, they had copies of additional filings. The documents showed that Martin Cole had been trying to consolidate development rights around Harper Ridge for years. Elaine's interest was one of the last pieces he could not control.
Then Candace found something even worse.
A meeting had been scheduled between Elaine and a state land investigator for the morning after her death.
The appointment had been canceled from Elaine's phone.
She had never made the cancellation.
Mr. Bennett stared at the record.
“Someone had access to her phone.”
“Vivian?”
“Possibly.”
Candace looked down at the date.
“She never got the chance to tell anyone.”
“No,” Mr. Bennett said. “But she tried to.”
That evening, another envelope arrived at the office.
There was no return address.
Inside was a single photocopy of a handwritten page.
Elaine's handwriting.
The message contained only one sentence.
If they say I agreed to sell, ask who changed the numbers.
Candace felt cold despite the warm room.
Below the sentence was a name she had never seen before.
Daniel Price.
Mr. Bennett immediately picked up the phone.
“Then Daniel Price is the next person we find.”
Click here to continue reading: PART 14: THE LAST PERSON ELAINE TRUSTED
My Sister Demanded Proof I Was Dad’s Daughter, But the Lawyer Had Already Prepared Something She Never Expected
Part 13 of 20
