Chapter 2 - 2
“Your mother wasn't trying to punish me.”
“She wanted me to sign something.”
Hannah told me Mason had placed a folder on the dining table before I arrived.
Inside was a property transfer agreement.
Our house had belonged to my grandfather.
What I had never known was that he placed it inside a family trust before his death.
The beneficiary wasn't me.
It was our unborn daughter.
The trust activated thirty days before her expected birth.
My mother had discovered that before we did.
“She wanted me to sign away the baby's interest.”
I felt sick.
The house was only part of it.
My attorney arrived at the hospital ninety minutes later.
The trust also held shares in my grandfather's manufacturing company worth nearly $14 million.
If Hannah signed the document, control transferred temporarily to my mother and Mason.
I opened my photographs again.
One showed the corner of the folder beneath Mason's elbow.
Another captured my mother's handbag.
A notary stamp was sticking from the side pocket.
“They brought a notary?”
Hannah nodded.
Then the hospital security desk called.
My mother was downstairs demanding access to her “unstable daughter-in-law.”
She had brought police.
I told security to keep her out.
But Hannah suddenly grabbed my wrist.
“There's something else.”
Six weeks earlier, after the shove, my mother had taken Hannah to a private clinic.
She told me Hannah had gone to a routine prenatal appointment.
Instead, a physician evaluated her for supposed psychiatric instability.
Hannah had refused to sign anything.
My attorney went silent.
“Which physician?”
“Dr. Samuel Bennett.”
The color left his face.
Samuel was one of the trustees.
Then Hannah's phone was returned by police.
Mason hadn't only taken it.
He had accidentally left his own phone inside her purse.
A message appeared on the screen.
MOM: DID SHE SIGN BEFORE DANIEL CAME HOME?
Then another.
SAMUEL: IF SHE REFUSES AGAIN, WE USE THE MEDICAL DECLARATION.
My name is Daniel.
I stared at Hannah.
“This was planned.”
She nodded.
Then a third message arrived.
UNKNOWN: THEY STILL THINK THE TRUST BELONGS TO THE BABY.
My attorney looked at me.
“What does that mean?”
Hannah began crying.
Because she already knew.
She reached beneath her hospital blanket and handed me an old letter from my grandfather.
May you like
The final line read:
DANIEL MUST NEVER LEARN WHO HANNAH REALLY IS UNTIL HIS MOTHER MAKES HER MOVE.
