Chapter 6: What Marcus Knew
I called my lawyer from the anteroom while my mother sat with Emily.
His name was Patrick Osei.
He had handled my wife's estate and everything that came after.
He picked up on the second ring.
"I need you," I said.
"Today."
"Where are you?"
"St.
Clement's Chapel on Harrow Road."
A pause.
"Isn't that where—"
"Yes."
"I'll be there in twenty minutes," he said.
He arrived in eighteen.
By then the last guests had gone, the priest had retreated to his office, and Carol Marsh was sitting in the front pew going through her folder with Agent Doyle.
The man who hadn't given his name was still near the door.
Patrick shook my hand, looked around the empty chapel, and said nothing about the scattered flower petals or the bouquet still on the floor near the altar.
"Tell me everything," he said.
I told him.
All of it — the note, the contract, Carol Marsh, the investigators, what Rebecca had said about Marcus Webb and the charitable trust.
Patrick listened without interrupting.
When I finished, he was quiet for a moment.
"The trust filing comment," he said.
"That's a threat."
"I know."
"Do you have any exposure there?"
"I don't think so.
But I don't know what she thinks she has."
"All right." He opened his briefcase.
"We'll need to get ahead of it.
I'll contact the trust's accountant today and do a full review before anything surfaces." He looked up.
"And the placement contract — Carol Marsh has the original?"
"And copies."
"Good.
That's the more immediate issue.
Forged parental consent on a residential placement is serious.
The investigators being here already suggests this goes beyond just you and Emily."
"Doyle said they've been looking at Hillcroft for four months."
Patrick nodded slowly.
"Then Rebecca may have walked into something much larger than a custody arrangement." He paused.
"Which means she may try to make a deal.
And if she does, she'll use whatever leverage she has."
"The trust."
"Or Emily," he said quietly.
I looked at him.
"If she claims the placement was in the child's best interest," Patrick said, "and finds a professional willing to support that — a therapist, a counselor, someone with credentials — she can reframe the forged signature as a procedural error made in good faith." He kept his voice even.
"It's not a strong argument.
But it's an argument."
"She said Emily was — she used the phrase 'not what I think she is.'"
Patrick set his pen down.
"In front of witnesses?"
"In front of a chapel full of them."
He picked the pen back up.
"All right.
That helps us."
Carol Marsh appeared at the end of the pew.
"Mr.
Osei?
Agent Doyle would like a word when you have a moment."
Patrick stood.
"Give me five minutes with my client."
Carol nodded and returned to the front.
Patrick looked at me.
"Is Emily all right?"
"She's with my mother."
"Good.
Keep her away from any further conversation today.
Nothing Rebecca said, nothing the investigators said — none of it goes near Emily until we know what shape this takes."
"Understood."
"And Daniel." He paused.
"The trust comment.
Did Rebecca say it in front of the investigators?"
I thought back.
Agent Doyle had been standing four feet away.
"Yes," I said.
Patrick almost smiled.
"Then she just threatened you in front of two officers of the state oversight board." He closed his briefcase.
"That was not a clever thing to do."
He walked toward the front of the chapel.
I sat for a moment in the empty pew.
The light through the stained glass had shifted — the morning angle was gone, replaced by something flatter and quieter.
The flowers on the floor near the altar had begun to wilt at the edges.
My phone buzzed.
A text from a number I didn't recognize: *She told me to send this if anything went wrong today.
I'm sorry.
I didn't know what she was doing.
— Marcus.*
Attached was a photograph.
It was a document.
A second placement contract.
This one had a different child's name at the top.
May you like
And a different father's signature — also forged.
Emily was not the first.
