Chapter 4: What Gerald Knew
Gerald Moss asked Charlotte to follow him.
She did β but not before turning back to the guard who still held the ownership document.
"Make a copy of that," she said.
"Keep the original with you until I return."
The guard nodded.
He did not look at Vivienne for permission.
That small thing β that single nod β told Charlotte everything she needed to know about how quickly a room could change its mind.
Gerald led her to a small office behind the concierge desk.
He closed the door.
The noise of the lobby disappeared.
He sat down heavily in the chair across from her and pressed both hands flat on the table.
"How much do you know?" he asked.
"Enough," Charlotte said.
"Tell me what I'm missing."
"Your mother came to me eighteen months ago," Gerald said.
"She told me she was being pressured to sign over controlling interest in the Solmere Group.
She didn't tell me who was applying the pressure.
She only said that if anything happened to her, I was to file the second transfer immediately β the one naming you."
"And when she d*ed?"
"I filed it.
Three days after the funeral, exactly as instructed." He paused.
"But someone had already moved faster.
The first document β the one naming Vivienne as primary beneficiary β had been filed the morning of your mother's death.
Before she was even pronounced gone."
Charlotte's hands were still on the table.
She did not move them.
"That's not possible," she said.
"She would have had to sign it."
"Yes," Gerald said.
"She would have."
The silence between them was the kind that meant he had already thought through every version of what that implied, and none of them were clean.
"Who filed it?" Charlotte asked.
"The filing was handled by a firm I didn't recognize.
I've since traced it." He opened the folder in front of him and slid a single page across the table.
"The firm was incorporated eight months before your mother's death.
It has one named partner."
Charlotte looked at the page.
The name printed there was Dominic Hartwell.
Vivienne's husband.
"He set up the firm specifically for this," Gerald said.
"The document your mother allegedly signed β I've had it reviewed by two independent examiners.
Both believe the signature is a forgery."
Charlotte looked up.
"You've known this."
"I've suspected it for weeks.
I needed the second document on record before I could move." He met her eyes.
"I needed you to come back."
"You could have called me."
"They were watching your phone," he said simply.
"And your address.
And your closest friends." He paused.
"You were safer when they thought you had nothing."
Charlotte sat back.
She thought about the eleven days she had spent believing her mother had left her with nothing.
The grief that had felt like abandonment.
The way she had sat in her mother's empty apartment and wondered what she had done wrong.
None of it had been real.
All of it had been manufactured.
"Where is Dominic Hartwell now?" she asked.
Gerald glanced at the door, then back at her.
"That's the part you need to understand before you walk back out into that lobby."
He folded his hands.
"He's here," Gerald said.
"He's been in the building since this morning.
He came personally when the security system flagged your entry."
May you like
Charlotte stood up.
"Which floor?" she said.
