Chapter 21 - The fifty-million-dollar meeting
I eventually told Denise and Lauren the trust value.
Not to humiliate them.
At least that was what I told myself.
Martin required the meeting because estate mediation had reached a point where disclosure prevented further false claims about incapacity and “missing assets.”
Both daughters sat across from me.
Their lawyers present.
Hawthorne representative on video.
Martin opened.
“Mrs. Price remains settlor and current trustee of the Eleanor and Henry Price Revocable Trust.”
Denise interrupted.
“We know the trust.”
Martin said:
“You know of it.”
Then the valuation.
$50.3 million on the latest reporting date.
Lauren blinked.
Denise went completely still.
“What?”
Martin repeated.
Denise looked at me.
“You said Dad’s money was gone.”
“No.”
“Yes, you did.”
“When?”
Silence.
She searched memory.
Could not find it.
“I said the venture fund money was gone.”
“You let us think—”
“Yes.”
There.
Again.
I owned it.
Lauren whispered:
“All this time?”
“Yes.”
Her face changed.
Pain.
Then anger.
Then something worse.
Calculation.
“How much do we inherit?”
Martin closed his folder.
I looked at her.
That question answered more than any test I had designed.
May you like
I said:
“That is exactly why this conversation is over for today.”
