Chapter 8: The Second Document
Alonzo showed the message to no one.
He walked to the garden, found Rosalind standing near the far hedge with a glass of water she hadn't touched, and stopped beside her.
Cedric was twenty feet away, seated on a low stone bench.
He was talking.
Rosalind had clearly just come from him.
Her eyes were slightly brighter than before — not from tears, from something harder to name.
"Someone sent me this," Alonzo said.
He held out his phone.
Rosalind read the message.
Her expression didn't change, but her grip on the water glass tightened slightly.
"Who sent it?" she asked.
"Unknown number," he said.
"Do you know what second document they mean?"
She handed the phone back.
She looked at the hedge.
"Yes," she said.
"Tell me."
She set the water glass down on the nearby garden wall.
"When my solicitor first investigated the forged document three years ago, we found evidence that Portia had filed a second amendment — not to the estate, but to a property deed.
A house that my grandmother owned separately from the main estate.
A cottage in the country.
Small, but it was the place my grandmother and I used to visit together when I was young." A pause.
"Portia transferred the deed to a holding company eighteen months before my grandmother passed.
The company was registered in a name we couldn't immediately trace."
"But you traced it eventually," Alonzo said.
"Last year," she said.
"The holding company's registered director is a man named Terrence Vail.
He's Portia's former business partner.
They dissolved their partnership publicly in 2019." She looked at Alonzo.
"But the company was never dissolved.
It's still active.
And the cottage deed is still inside it."
Alonzo was quiet for a moment.
"She hid a second asset," he said.
"She hid the one that mattered most to me personally," Rosalind said.
"The estate was money.
The cottage was the only place I ever felt like I was part of this family."
Alonzo looked across the garden at Cedric.
"Does he know about the cottage?" he asked.
"I don't know," she said.
"I didn't mention it today.
I wanted to deal with the estate first."
"We need to tell him," Alonzo said.
"I know."
"And we need to find out who sent that message." He looked at his phone.
"Someone inside Portia's circle is talking."
Rosalind looked at him carefully.
"Or Portia sent it herself.
To see how much we know."
Alonzo considered this.
"Why would she do that?"
"To measure us," Rosalind said.
"To find out if we have the second document in our possession or just the knowledge of it.
If we have the document, she needs to move differently than if we only have the information."
Alonzo looked at her.
"You've thought about this a great deal."
"Eleven years," she said.
"I've had time."
He pocketed his phone.
"Do you have the deed transfer documentation?"
"My solicitor has copies," she said.
"The originals are in a safety deposit box."
"Good," he said.
"Don't move them." He paused.
"Monday morning, your solicitor files the application for independent forensic examination of the estate document.
At the same time, we file a separate application regarding the property deed and the holding company."
Rosalind nodded slowly.
"Portia will respond," she said.
"Yes," he said.
"And when she does, we'll know exactly how worried she is."
Across the garden, Cedric had stopped talking.
He was sitting quietly, the letter from his late wife held loosely in both hands, looking at nothing in particular.
Maisie appeared from behind a hedge, running toward Alonzo with a piece of wedding cake on a small plate, slightly tilted.
"I saved you some," she said.
"Flora said you didn't eat anything."
He took the plate.
"Thank you, Maisie."
She looked at Rosalind with the frank assessment of a child who has decided to form her own opinion.
"Are you staying?" Maisie asked her.
Rosalind looked down at her.
"For a little while."
"Good," Maisie said.
Then she ran back toward the cake table.
Alonzo looked at the cake on the plate.
Then at Rosalind.
"One more thing," he said.
"The message said she has more.
Not had.
Has." He looked at her steadily.
"Is there anything else?
Anything you haven't told me yet?"
Rosalind was quiet for three full seconds.
"There's one more thing," she said.
"Tell me."
She looked at the garden wall, at the old stone, at the light going slowly out of the afternoon sky.
"Portia didn't act alone," she said.
"The solicitor who filed the original amended document — he was supposed to flag the irregularities.
He didn't.
He was paid not to."
"You have proof of that?"
"I have a bank transfer record," she said.
"And a signed statement from his former assistant, who left the firm two years ago."
Alonzo set the cake plate down on the garden wall.
"Then we don't just have a forgery case," he said.
"No," Rosalind said.
"We have a conspiracy."
In the house behind them, a phone began to ring.
It rang four times.
May you like
Then stopped.
Then started again.
