Chapter 7 - THE NOTE ADRIAN SHOULD HAVE HANDED ME
Police asked about the warning inside Rex.
Adrian gave them the sewing kit.
Green thread.
Needle package.
Receipt from a craft store three days before his trip.
Not because the note needed forensic proof to exist.
Because timing mattered.
Could Imogen argue I wrote it after the conflict?
Yes.
Could Adrian prove he wrote it before leaving?
Maybe.
The paper came from a notepad in his home office.
Handwriting expert preliminarily found it consistent with Adrian.
The fold carried small fibers from Rex’s stuffing.
Nothing magical.
No timestamp printed on paper.
Then one thing helped.
Adrian had sent himself a photo the night he repaired Rex.
Not of the note.
Of the dinosaur.
Caption:
Rex surgery successful.
Green seam visible.
The note was already inside?
Cannot prove.
But the seam existed before the trip.
Sawyer remembered Adrian returning Rex to him that night.
Again.
Support.
Not definitive.
Then I asked Adrian the question I had avoided.
“Why were you so afraid of Imogen before you knew about the foundation motive?”
He looked down.
“Because she said something after Mom died.”
“What?”
“She said Felix was the only child keeping the family line alive.”
I frowned.
“You told her Sawyer existed.”
“I did.”
“What did she say?”
“Not legally.”
There.
That phrase.
Not legal family.
Then:
“When we told her about adoption, she asked whether I really wanted to give ‘Marlowe status’ to somebody else’s child.”
My entire body tightened.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I told her to go to hell and thought that ended it.”
No.
Silence often looks like an ending to the person not being targeted.
Then Adrian admitted another fact.
Two months earlier, Imogen offered to pay for Sawyer’s private school application if we postponed adoption until “the family trust review was over.”
“What?”
“I said no.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I thought it was another stupid money comment.”
“That was the second warning.”
“I know.”
Then I finally understood why his secret note made sense inside his own fear.
Not good sense.
But emotional sense.
He thought he could quietly block access until he proved something.
He underestimated her.
Then Imogen’s financial records arrived through foundation review.
Her stipend:
$78,400 last year.
Documented administrative work.
Legitimate.
No theft.
Expense reimbursements:
$22,000.
Mostly legitimate travel and meeting costs.
No giant fraud.
If a second family advisory line activated, her stipend would not necessarily vanish.
Foundation staff expected total family-advisory budget to be split:
Approximately $42,000 to $48,000 each depending workload.
So she might lose around thirty thousand annually.
Significant.
Not enough by itself to explain everything.
Then status.
She chaired every family-grant meeting.
She decided which requests reached trustees first.
She spoke for “the family.”
She had done so since Beatrice died.
Adrian rarely attended.
He hated foundation meetings.
Convenient for Imogen.
Then one email.
IMOGEN:
If Adrian’s line activates through Sawyer, I want written confirmation that I remain senior family adviser.
FOUNDATION:
The instrument does not create seniority between branches.
IMOGEN:
I have done the work for years.
FOUNDATION:
That does not alter governance rights.
There.
Resentment.
Then another:
IMOGEN:
Felix should not lose standing because Adrian adopts someone with no Marlowe blood.
FOUNDATION:
Felix’s eligibility is unaffected.
She had been told.
Then:
IMOGEN:
You’re missing the point.
Exactly.
Money was not the whole point.
Rank was.
Blood.
Identity.
Control.
We were close.
But not yet at the full secret.
Then Imogen counterattacked.
Her lawyer submitted my original email to the adoption evaluator.
The one where I declared she was doing this “for family money” before proof.
And photographs of her bruised hip after I dumped the box.
Argument:
Rosalind was unstable, financially fixated and escalating conflict around Sawyer.
I had handed her evidence.
May you like
Not enough to make her right.
Enough to complicate me.
