Chapter 7: The Letter
The letter existed.
Holt called three days later to confirm it.
A handwritten note, two pages, signed by their father, Robert Morgan, dated eight months before his death.
In it, Robert asked Claire to manage a portion of his estate privately, outside of probate, citing a debt he owed to a man he did not name and a desire to keep the matter from Lauren for reasons he described only as *her protection*.
"It's real," Holt said.
"The handwriting has been verified.
The signature matches."
Ethan was standing in the hallway.
Lauren was in the kitchen.
He could see her through the open door, sitting at the table with a mug she wasn't drinking from.
"Does it change anything?" he asked.
"It complicates the fraud charge," Holt said.
"Her solicitor will argue she was acting on instruction.
That she had authority.
The amount she took beyond what the letter specifies — and there is a significant amount beyond what the letter specifies — that remains clearly criminal.
But the letter gives her a partial defense on the initial transfer."
"What about everything else?"
"The imprisonment charge is unaffected.
The recording is unaffected.
The Portugal property is unaffected.
The Forsythe connection is unaffected." A pause.
"The letter helps her on one count.
It doesn't help her on the rest."
Ethan thanked him and ended the call.
He stood in the hallway for a moment.
Then he went into the kitchen and sat across from Lauren and told her everything Holt had said.
She listened without moving.
When he finished, she looked at her mug.
"He owed someone money," she said.
"That's what the letter says."
"And he didn't tell me."
"No."
She was quiet for a long time.
"I keep trying to decide," she said finally, "whether that hurts more or less than what Claire did." She looked up.
"And I can't.
I can't decide."
Ethan reached across the table.
She took his hand.
"She used it," Lauren said.
"Whatever Dad's reasons were, she used that letter as permission to take everything she wanted.
And when I found out, she used it as a reason to lock me away." Her grip tightened slightly.
"The letter doesn't explain her.
It just explains where she started."
"The solicitor will use it in court."
"I know."
"It might reduce what she's charged with on the fraud."
"I know." She looked at him steadily.
"It won't reduce what I know she did."
Two days later, Claire's solicitor filed a formal application to have the fraud charges partially dismissed on the basis of the letter.
The application was denied.
The judge ruled that the letter, even if genuine, did not authorize the full extent of the transfers, did not authorize the concealment, and did not authorize any of the subsequent actions taken against Lauren.
Claire was remanded into custody pending trial.
Her solicitor issued a statement calling the decision disproportionate.
Lauren read the statement on her phone at the kitchen table.
She set the phone face-down.
"She'll plead," Ethan said.
"Probably."
"Does that bother you?"
Lauren thought about it.
"No," she said.
"A plea means she says what she did out loud.
In a room.
On record." She picked up her mug.
"That's enough."
It was not quite enough.
Not yet.
Because two days after the remand decision, a name surfaced that none of them had expected.
Holt called in the evening.
"Daniel Forsythe," he said.
"The man in the documents," Ethan said.
"He came forward this morning.
Voluntarily.
He says he wants to cooperate." A pause.
"He says Claire Morgan approached him in 2018 with a proposal.
He says the Portugal property was not the only asset she moved offshore.
He says there are three additional accounts we haven't found yet."
Ethan looked at Lauren across the room.
"He says," Holt continued, "that he has records going back seven years."
Seven years.
May you like
Lauren had been looking for fourteen months.
Claire had been doing this for seven years.
