Chapter 7 - Trent’s Voice
Trent denied it for exactly forty seconds.
Then Eli played the recording.
His brother sat behind the wheel of his truck outside a closed diner.
Snow collected on the windshield.
Trent stared straight ahead.
“I can explain.”
“Please do.”
“It wasn’t supposed to become this.”
“That sentence has never improved anything.”
Trent rubbed both hands across his face.
“Vanessa asked me to set up the voicemail.”
“For North Ridge?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“2020.”
“Grandpa died in 2017.”
“I know.”
“So this wasn’t his company.”
“No.”
Eli felt anger rise.
“You lied to June.”
“I panicked.”
“You’ve been lying for six years.”
Trent hit the steering wheel.
“You think I don’t know that?”
“Then tell me.”
Trent looked at his brother.
“I lost eighty thousand dollars.”
“The brewery.”
“Yes.”
“Grandma offered to help you.”
“She offered twenty thousand.”
“And you needed eighty.”
“I needed one hundred thirty.”
Eli stared.
Trent continued.
“I owed people. Credit cards. Partners. I had payroll.”
“So you stole.”
“I moved money.”
“Stop changing the word.”
Trent’s eyes filled with humiliation.
“Vanessa knew.”
Eli said nothing.
“She told me North Ridge could invoice Harper Properties for deferred work and we’d replace the money after the development sale.”
“Did Paul know?”
Trent looked away.
“Yes.”
The confirmation felt inevitable and still devastating.
“How much did you take?”
“Two hundred seventy-two thousand.”
“Only?”
Trent flinched.
“I know how that sounds.”
“It sounds like you’re distinguishing your theft from everybody else’s.”
“I’m trying to tell you the truth.”
“Start doing it.”
Trent swallowed.
“Vanessa moved more.”
“How much?”
“I don’t know.”
“You processed payments.”
“She gave me invoices approved by Paul.”
“And you never asked?”
“At first I did.”
“What happened?”
“She showed me Dad’s old records.”
Eli’s chest tightened.
“She told me Grandma and Grandpa had hidden money from us. That Dad had earned part of Harper Properties and Grandma erased it after he died.”
“That wasn’t true.”
“I know that now.”
“You believed it because it let you take money.”
Trent stared at him.
“Yes.”
The admission silenced them.
Eli looked toward the empty diner.
“Who owns North Ridge?”
“Technically?”
“Trent.”
“A holding company.”
“Whose?”
“Paul’s.”
Eli turned.
“Paul owns it?”
“Not directly.”
“Who?”
Trent hesitated.
“His wife.”
That was enough.
Eli got out of the truck.
Trent grabbed his sleeve.
“Wait.”
Eli looked down.
“There’s something else.”
“There always is.”
“The three-million-dollar loan wasn’t Vanessa’s idea.”
“Paul?”
“Partly.”
“Why?”
Trent’s grip tightened.
“He said the orchard had to be leveraged before Grandma changed the trust.”
Eli stared.
“How did he know she planned to?”
“He didn’t say.”
“When did this happen?”
“February.”
Months before Evelyn said she became suspicious.
Trent’s voice lowered.
“Paul knew Grandma was changing her estate plan before Grandma told any of us.”
Eli felt a deeper fear.
“Who else knew?”
“One person.”
“Who?”
“June.”
Eli went still.
Their accountant.
The woman currently helping them trace the theft.
Trent let go of his sleeve.
“I’m not saying June is involved.”
“But?”
“But Paul knew things only she and Grandma should have known.”
Eli drove back to the farmhouse without music.
Evelyn listened while he told her everything.
When he mentioned June, she remained silent.
Finally, she said, “Samuel trusted June.”
“Do you?”
“I did yesterday.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Evelyn looked toward the desk where Samuel’s USB drive rested.
“I don’t know.”
Then the house alarm sounded.
A window sensor.
Library.
Eli ran.
The French doors stood open.
Cold air rushed into the room.
The desk drawer had been pulled out.
Samuel’s USB drive was gone.
Evelyn appeared behind him.
Eli stared at the empty space.
Then he noticed something lying on the floor.
A torn piece of black fabric.
Caught on the brass latch.
And beneath it, wet footprints led toward the rear door.
One print had a distinctive pattern.
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Eli had seen that sole that morning.
On June Mercer’s boots.
