Chapter 7 - The Attorney Who Removed a PageRebecca admitted removing Schedule C from the estate packet.
She claimed Clarissa’s mother instructed her to do it.
“Why?”
“Your mother feared Alana would return.”
“She did.”
“She feared the property would become trapped in litigation and leave you homeless.”
“So she buried Rose’s legal claim.”
“She believed Rose was dead.”
“Did she ask?”
Rebecca looked down.
No.
Clarissa’s mother chose certainty over truth.
Rebecca later discovered Rose might be alive but still kept the page hidden because reopening the title could destroy her law firm’s reputation.
Then Parker learned the omission.
He blackmailed her.
If Rebecca refused to cooperate with the refinance, he would report that she concealed material title information.
“What did you do for him?” Clarissa asked.
“I prepared the first holding-company application.”
“You helped him forge the deed?”
“No. I refused before that stage.”
“You recorded yourself saying I must not find Schedule C.”
“I was trying to delay him while I contacted Rose.”
Rose shook her head.
“You contacted Alana.”
Rebecca claimed she believed Alana could help locate her mother.
Instead, Alana told Parker that Rose survived.
Parker sent Dr. Ward to evaluate the elderly woman’s capacity.
Rose escaped back into the hidden rooms before the doctor arrived.
Clarissa saw the same pattern repeat.
A property dispute.
A psychiatric evaluation.
A declaration that the inconvenient person could not understand her own rights.
Parker had not invented the method.
He inherited it from the house’s history.
Police placed Rebecca’s phone in evidence but did not show any final charge.
Clarissa asked whether Rose wanted the house returned.
The elderly woman studied the dining room from the hidden doorway.
“I wanted my name returned.”
“That is not the same question.”
“No.”
“If you challenge the title, I may lose the property.”
“Yes.”
Clarissa expected fear.
Instead, she felt clarity.
“Then file the honest claim.”
Rose looked surprised.
“This is Dustin’s home.”
“It cannot remain his safe home if it rests on a buried woman’s silence.”
They agreed to place the property in temporary court supervision until ownership could be determined.
No one would sell, mortgage, or remove anyone through forged authority.
Parker’s financial deadline would expire without access to the house.
The police supervisor received an urgent call.
Parker had left the hospital before officers completed the document review. Because no arrest warrant had yet been issued, staff could not legally detain him.
Alana and Ellie remained under questioning.
Dr. Ward’s medical license was placed under emergency review.
Caleb was with Dustin at the hospital, supervised by a child advocate.
Clarissa called.
Dustin answered through the advocate’s phone.
“Mom, Dad came.”
“Parker?”
“Yes. He said he was sorry.”
“Is he still there?”
“No. The nurse made him leave.”
“What did he do?”
“He gave me my backpack.”
Clarissa told the advocate to inspect it immediately.
Inside were clean clothes, a stuffed bear, and Dustin’s original adoption certificate.
Parker had taken the document from Clarissa’s locked desk.
A handwritten note was taped beneath it.
Ask Rose what happened to Anna Wells.
Dustin’s biological mother.
Rose became still when Clarissa read the name.
“You knew Anna?”
“She found me before Caleb did.”
Anna discovered Alana’s hidden letters while cleaning out an old storage unit. She traced Rose to a protected senior residence and promised to reunite her with Caleb.
Then Anna died suddenly.
The official cause was infection.
Rose believed she had been poisoned.
“By whom?”
“I never knew.”
A second note inside Dustin’s backpack contained a laboratory report.
Anna’s preserved blood sample showed traces of an uncommon industrial solvent.
The manufacturer was Gray Heritage Development.
Parker had uncovered evidence linking Howard Gray Jr. to Anna’s death.
He was not only blackmailing Rebecca.
He was blackmailing the buyer.
The country-house sale had become part of a struggle over murder evidence.
Then the front security camera beeped.
Parker stood outside.
His face was bruised. Blood marked his collar.
He held up a flash drive.
“Clarissa, Gray knows Rose is alive.”
A black SUV stopped at the end of the driveway.
Parker looked over his shoulder.
May you like
“He’s coming for the house—and everyone inside it.”
👉 Parker returned carrying evidence about Anna’s death, but the buyer he had blackmailed was already approaching the property.
