Chapter 9 - GrantLaura Bennett advised Daniel not to pursue Grant.
So Daniel didn’t.
He gave investigators the truck description.
Owen provided an old photograph.
Rebecca reluctantly provided a phone number Grant had used.
Within hours, deputies confirmed Grant had rented a cabin fifteen miles away.
The strange observer outside Cedar Ridge had not been Owen every time.
Grant had been watching too.
That frightened Daniel differently.
Owen sat alone on Tom’s porch.
Daniel joined him.
“You okay?”
“No.”
“Fair.”
Owen rubbed his hands together.
“I spent eighteen years making sure I never lived within five hundred miles of him.”
“Where were you?”
“Oregon.”
“What do you do?”
“Commercial building inspections.”
Daniel nodded.
“Explains the cameras.”
“Explains why I don’t trust walls.”
Daniel looked at him.
Owen gave a faint smile.
Then it disappeared.
“My mother died last year.”
“I’m sorry.”
“She left me everything she kept from Cedar Ridge.”
“The trust papers?”
“Copies.”
“Why did you come back now?”
“Because one letter mentioned the agreement might be void if the original was never recorded.”
Daniel frowned.
“Was it supposed to be?”
“No. Trust agreements generally aren’t recorded. Deeds into trusts are.”
“So the land trust is valid.”
“Probably. But the internal beneficiary terms depend on documents nobody seems willing to show.”
Daniel stared toward his farmhouse.
“Rebecca has them.”
“Maybe.”
“She admitted being trustee.”
“That doesn’t mean she has the original.”
Daniel thought of the footage.
Find the original agreement.
“What if Grant has it?”
Owen shook his head.
“He wouldn’t be searching.”
“Claire might be searching for him.”
Owen looked at Daniel.
“Or Rebecca.”
Daniel didn’t want to believe that.
Yet belief had become dangerous.
That afternoon, June came to Cedar Ridge with accounting records.
The missing money had grown.
$214,700.
Most transfers were authorized using Claire’s credentials.
But three had a second approval.
Daniel’s.
Except Daniel had been traveling on all three dates.
“How?”
June pointed to the authorization device.
“Your old security token.”
“I lost that last year.”
“When?”
Daniel remembered.
“After Christmas.”
Claire had told him it probably fell behind a hotel dresser.
June said, “Someone found it.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
Fraud.
Not carelessness.
Not household theft.
Planning.
June handed him another document.
“I found this in archived email.”
A message from Claire to Prairie Shield:
D will be traveling March 7–11. That is the cleanest window. R says the manager default must be documented before summer.
Daniel read it twice.
“Who is R?”
June looked uneasy.
“I think you know.”
Rebecca.
But maybe Grant.
Both names started with different letters.
Grant could use something else.
Daniel searched attachments.
A spreadsheet titled TRANSITION.
Rows listed:
Operational debt.
Animal welfare violations.
Child welfare complaint.
Trustee intervention.
Temporary management transfer.
Northstar lease.
Daniel stared.
Someone had planned to create a crisis.
Not merely exploit one.
Claire’s treatment of Ethan suddenly looked even darker.
“Was she trying to get caught?”
Owen asked.
Daniel looked at the spreadsheet.
“Maybe eventually.”
June frowned.
“What do you mean?”
“If the trust allows intervention when a child is endangered on the property…”
Owen understood.
“They wanted evidence Cedar Ridge was unsafe under Daniel.”
Daniel’s stomach turned.
“Claire could blame me.”
“She already is.”
Laura arrived twenty minutes later.
Daniel showed her the spreadsheet.
She read carefully.
“This may expand the financial investigation.”
“Claire abused Ethan as part of this?”
“I can’t say that yet.”
“But if she did—”
“Then the evidence needs to prove it.”
Daniel nodded.
Laura pointed at the initials.
“Who is R?”
“We think Rebecca.”
Rebecca was questioned that evening.
She denied knowing anything about the spreadsheet.
She admitted speaking to Northstar once.
Only once.
She said Grant arranged the meeting.
Daniel didn’t believe her.
At 9:00 p.m., Laura called.
Deputies had found Grant’s cabin empty.
His truck remained there.
His phone had been abandoned.
Inside the cabin were photographs of Cedar Ridge.
Dozens.
Some showed Daniel.
Some Claire.
Some Rebecca.
Some Ethan.
One photograph had been taken through the barn window.
Ethan was inside.
Laura’s voice remained professional.
“There’s something else.”
“What?”
“We found copies of bank statements.”
“Mine?”
“The trust’s.”
Daniel looked toward Owen.
“How?”
“We don’t know.”
“And?”
“There were payments from Northstar to an account associated with Grant.”
“How much?”
“Three hundred thousand dollars.”
Daniel felt cold.
Grant wasn’t trying to stop the sale.
He was being paid by the buyer.
Then Laura added one more detail.
“The payments were approved by a trust officer.”
Daniel already knew the answer.
“Rebecca?”
“No.”
Daniel frowned.
“There’s another trustee.”
The world seemed to pause.
Laura continued.
“According to the documents we recovered, Rebecca has never been the sole trustee.”
Daniel gripped the phone.
“Who is?”
Laura read the name.
Daniel stopped breathing.
Because the second trustee was someone he had trusted his entire life.
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Someone who had been inside Cedar Ridge almost every week.
And someone who had never once mentioned owning any authority over the farm.
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