Chapter 13 - DANIEL
Daniel Price had been my lawyer for fifteen years.
He handled Isabella's estate.
Ruby's trust.
My acquisition deals.
He knew where every legal pressure point lived.
Now he had vanished with the originals.
Marco found his car at a train station.
His phone sat under the driver's seat.
One unsent message remained on the screen.
SALVATORE, I WAS TRYING TO FIX IT.
Trying to fix what?
Police traced his company card to a motel in Kenosha.
We found him there alone.
He did not run.
He looked relieved.
"I never helped them hurt Ruby."
"You helped them reach her."
Daniel started crying.
Years earlier, his gambling debts put him in Raymond's hands.
Raymond paid them.
Then used the debt as leverage.
Daniel gave him trust summaries, internal signatures, and document access.
"Did you forge my name?"
"No. Lucinda did."
"Did you know?"
"Eventually."
"And you stayed quiet."
He nodded.
I wanted to hit him.
Instead I asked, "Where is Lucinda?"
Daniel said she called him after fleeing.
She wanted the original trust papers because she believed they contained a hidden codicil.
"What codicil?"
"Isabella changed Ruby's inheritance three months before she died."
I stared.
"Changed it how?"
Daniel swallowed.
"If anyone connected to the Vale family became Ruby's guardian, all voting rights would transfer to an independent trustee."
Lucinda's entire plan was already dead if the codicil existed.
She needed the original destroyed.
"Where is it?"
Daniel looked at me.
"I never had it."
"Who did?"
"Isabella's sister, Francesca."
I had not spoken to Francesca in six years.
I called.
A man answered.
May you like
Then Lucinda's voice came on the line.
"Come alone if you want Francesca alive."
