Chapter 9 - The Lawyer Who RememberedSamuel Price had retired to Savannah three years earlier.
At seventy-six, he still answered his own phone.
Marcus remembered him as the attorney who had sat beside Elijah Carter through chemotherapy appointments, signing documents between IV changes because Elijah refused to waste a weekday.
Samuel agreed to meet Marcus and Naomi at a quiet hotel overlooking the river.
He hugged Marcus.
Then he slapped him lightly on the shoulder.
“You look tired.”
“I am.”
“Good. Tired men sometimes stop pretending they’re invincible.”
Naomi liked him immediately.
Marcus did not.
They sat.
Marcus placed the property file on the table.
Samuel barely looked at it.
“You want Annex A.”
Marcus’s chest tightened.
“You remember it.”
“I drafted it.”
“Was it binding?”
Samuel leaned back.
“Maybe.”
Naomi said, “That’s a lawyer’s favorite answer.”
“It’s often the correct one.”
Samuel looked at Marcus.
“Your father wanted flexibility. The deed transferred title outright. The annex expressed a family obligation and included consideration tied to Simone’s earlier contributions to the property taxes.”
Marcus frowned.
“Contributions?”
Samuel opened an old notebook.
“She paid eleven thousand six hundred dollars in delinquent taxes when Elijah’s business was failing.”
Marcus stared.
“I never knew that.”
“She asked me not to tell you.”
“Why?”
“Pride runs in your family like high blood pressure.”
Naomi asked, “Would the annex create an enforceable contractual interest?”
“Possibly. Especially with payment records and Elijah’s signed acknowledgment.”
Marcus’s stomach sank.
“Do you have a copy?”
Samuel looked toward him for several seconds.
“I did.”
“Did?”
“My archive was digitized before retirement. One paper box disappeared during transfer.”
Naomi asked, “Which box?”
“Carter family estate.”
Marcus leaned forward.
“When?”
“Eight years ago.”
Around the time Marcus had told Simone the annex could not be located.
Samuel looked at him.
“You knew I had another copy.”
Marcus said nothing.
Naomi turned sharply.
Samuel continued.
“I told Marcus the archive copy might still exist.”
Marcus looked at his hands.
“I never followed up.”
Samuel’s eyes hardened.
“You didn’t want to.”
“No.”
The old lawyer nodded.
“At least you’re telling the truth now.”
Naomi asked, “Who handled the archive transfer?”
“Storage company. My paralegal. One outside consultant because several client files involved business holdings.”
“What consultant?”
Samuel thought.
“Mercer Records Management.”
Marcus stared.
“Mercer?”
“Different company, I assumed.”
Naomi pulled out her tablet.
Within minutes she had corporate records.
Mercer Records Management had dissolved six years earlier.
Its registered parent company had been controlled by Grant Mercer’s older brother.
Marcus felt the room narrowing.
Samuel whispered, “That’s not coincidence.”
Naomi replied, “We’ll determine that.”
Samuel looked disturbed.
“Grant Mercer was nowhere near Carter Prestige back then.”
Marcus remembered.
“Actually, he was.”
Eight years earlier, Grant had first approached Marcus about investing.
Marcus had declined.
Three months later, Grant bought a small block of shares from an early employee.
The relationship had begun politely.
Maybe the pressure campaign had not.
Naomi asked Samuel whether the annex contained anything else.
Samuel hesitated.
“One provision.”
Marcus looked up.
“What?”
“If Marcus failed to establish Simone’s trust within twelve months after the qualifying debts were cleared, Elijah authorized Simone to demand forty percent of accumulated net property income from that date.”
Marcus’s heart sank.
“When were the debts cleared?”
Samuel looked at him.
“You know.”
Marcus did.
Six years earlier.
Naomi calculated silently.
Marcus said, “She could claim years of unpaid income.”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“That requires accounting.”
Samuel leaned forward.
“But money is not the part you should fear.”
Marcus looked at him.
“What is?”
Samuel’s expression softened.
“Your father wrote a letter to both of you.”
Marcus stopped.
“What letter?”
“Not legal. Personal.”
“I never saw it.”
“I placed it behind the annex.”
Naomi asked, “Content?”
Samuel shook his head.
“I didn’t read it.”
Marcus leaned back.
Somewhere, perhaps in Grant Mercer’s files, existed a letter his father had written to him and Simone.
A letter meant to explain why the property was divided the way it was.
A letter Marcus had never bothered to find because the legal result already favored him.
His phone vibrated.
Naomi looked at the screen before Marcus picked it up.
Unknown number.
Marcus answered.
A distorted voice said, “If you want your father’s letter, stop the Mercer investigation.”
Marcus stood.
“Who is this?”
The caller hung up.
Naomi was already writing down the number.
Samuel looked alarmed.
Marcus stared at the dark phone.
For the first time, the conflict felt less like a corporate takeover and more like someone had been studying his family for years.
Then a text appeared.
A photograph.
The missing Annex A.
Beside it sat an envelope in Elijah Carter’s handwriting.
FOR MARCUS AND SIMONE—TOGETHER.
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Under the photograph, one sentence:
Your father knew exactly what you would become if money came between you.
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