Chapter 4: The Family Office
Detective Hale was on his radio before Clara reached the doorway.
Two officers moved Scott and Beatrice apart immediately — one to the far end of the foyer, one to the hallway outside.
Scott's phone was taken.
He didn't resist, but his jaw tightened in a way that told Clara he had already calculated what losing the phone meant.
Beatrice looked at Clara across the foyer with an expression Clara had never seen on her before.
Not grief.
Not fury.
Something flatter.
Something that had been waiting a long time to surface.
"You heard nothing," Beatrice said.
"You don't understand what you heard."
"Then explain it to me," Clara said.
"This is not the time or the place for a family conversation."
"Ethan is missing.
There is bl00d on his shirt.
His ring was hidden in my apartment under a plant you placed yourself." Clara kept her voice level.
"This is exactly the time."
Beatrice's chin lifted.
"I want my attorney."
"That's your right," Detective Hale said from behind Clara.
"We'll arrange that at the station.
Both of you are coming in."
Scott turned to one of the officers.
"She hasn't been charged with anything.
You can't compel—"
"We're asking for voluntary cooperation," Hale said.
"You're welcome to decline.
But I'll note it."
Scott went quiet.
Beatrice straightened her coat.
It was a small, deliberate gesture — the kind a person makes when they are reminding themselves who they are.
"I'll go voluntarily.
I have nothing to hide."
She walked past Clara without looking at her.
Clara watched her go.
Then she turned to Hale.
"She said it's too late to pull it back.
What does that mean?
What was sent?"
"We don't know yet.
We're pulling Scott's phone records and looking at outgoing communications from the family office in the last seventy-two hours." Hale lowered his voice.
"Mrs.
Vance, I need to ask you something directly.
Did Ethan ever mention changing his will or his beneficiary designations?"
Clara felt the floor shift slightly beneath her.
"Three weeks ago," she said.
"He told me he was updating some documents through the family office.
He said it was routine — something about the new project requiring updated liability coverage." She pressed her fingers against the counter.
"I didn't ask questions.
I trusted him."
"Did he say who was helping him with the documents?"
"He said Beatrice was handling it.
She always handled the legal paperwork." Clara stopped.
"He said she was being unusually helpful about it."
Hale wrote for a long moment without speaking.
"The family office," Clara said.
"If Beatrice controls it — and if those beneficiary documents were changed in the last month — who would the new beneficiary be?"
Hale looked up.
"That's what we're trying to determine."
"It's Scott," Clara said.
"It has to be Scott.
Ethan and Scott have been fighting about the senior living project for two years.
Ethan wanted to bring in outside investors.
Scott wanted to keep everything inside the family.
If Ethan is gone—"
"Scott inherits his share of the firm," Hale finished.
"And if I'm also gone," Clara said, "or if I'm in prison for something I didn't do — Lily is a minor.
Beatrice would petition for guardianship." Her voice didn't break.
She wouldn't let it.
"She would control everything.
The firm.
The insurance.
Lily."
Hale set his pen down.
"Mrs.
Vance, I want you to call someone you trust.
Someone who can come and stay with your daughter tonight." He looked at her steadily.
"And I want you to not go anywhere alone until we have a clearer picture of what we're dealing with."
Clara nodded.
Her hands were steady.
But in the back of her mind, one question was louder than all the others.
May you like
If Beatrice had staged all of this — the bag, the shirt, the spreadsheet, the plant — then where was Ethan?
And was he part of the plan, or was he its first victim?
