Chapter 4: The Name in Her Mother's Handwriting
Gerald's car was parked in the hotel's private underground bay — a privilege that still belonged, technically, to the owner of the building.
Charlotte sat in the back seat with a manila folder open across her knees.
Her hands had stopped shaking somewhere between the lobby and the elevator.
Now they were very still.
"You need to tell me what you found," Gerald said from the front.
He hadn't started the engine.
"I will."
"Charlotte."
She looked up.
"I have been your family's attorney for twenty-two years," he said.
"I was there when your father built the first Solmere property.
I was there when your mother expanded it into what it is now.
I was there at her funeral when Vivienne Holt stood at the graveside and told me the estate was in good hands." He paused.
"I believed her.
I should not have.
That is something I will carry for the rest of my life.
But I need you to trust me with whatever is in that folder."
Charlotte looked at the papers in her lap.
She pulled out a single handwritten page and held it toward him.
Gerald took it.
Read it.
His expression didn't change dramatically — he was too practiced for that — but his hand lowered slowly to his knee.
"This is your mother's handwriting," he said.
"Yes."
"And this name—"
"Was on the original board when my father founded Solmere.
He was my mother's oldest friend.
She trusted him completely." Charlotte's voice was flat.
Even.
"His name is on the amended probate filing too.
On the page Vivienne's firm submitted.
He co-signed it."
"Daniel Ashworth," Gerald said quietly.
"He came to the funeral," Charlotte said.
"He held my hand at the graveside.
He told me my mother would have been proud of me." She stopped.
"He knew what they had already done to her estate.
He knew what they were going to do to me.
And he held my hand."
Gerald set the page down carefully on the seat beside him.
"He's still on the Solmere board," he said.
"He's the chairman."
The silence in the car was complete.
"If Ashworth is involved," Gerald said slowly, "this is not just Vivienne acting alone.
This is a coordinated effort by the people who built Solmere alongside your family.
People who knew every account, every asset, every legal structure."
"People who knew exactly how to make me disappear," Charlotte said.
"Charlotte — if we move against Vivienne and Ashworth finds out before we're ready—"
"He already knows I'm here." She closed the folder.
"Vivienne will call him the moment she reaches her office.
We have maybe two hours before he starts moving assets."
Gerald reached for his phone.
"Then we don't wait two hours."
He dialed.
Charlotte listened to it ring.
Then a voice answered — a woman, young, sharp.
"It's Gerald Marsh," he said.
"I need the financial injunction filed today.
Within the hour if possible." A pause.
"Yes, I understand it's a holiday weekend.
File it anyway."
He ended the call and looked at Charlotte in the rearview mirror.
"The accounts will be frozen before close of business," he said.
Charlotte nodded.
She should have felt relief.
She didn't — not yet.
There was something else.
Something she hadn't shown Gerald.
Still folded inside the back of the manila envelope, in her mother's handwriting, was a second page.
It began: *Charlotte, if you are reading this, then they found a way to keep you from me before I could explain.*
May you like
She hadn't been able to finish reading it yet.
She wasn't sure she was ready to.
