“I finally got around to looking at all of the documents late yesterday afternoon. I got through what Callie would need to file her mom’s return and then started looking at the trust documents.”
I handed Gabe the catalog envelope I was holding. His brow furrowed curiously as he opened it and pulled out the papers from inside. I watched as he sifted through the pages, reading over the legal jargon of the trust listed in Lori Bennett’s name, but when he got to the financial records portion, his eyes widened, then snapped to me.
“Nearly ten million dollars is sitting in this trust.”
“Yeah,” I breathed.
“What did her parents do that they?—”
“Her mom was a school teacher,” I cut him off. “Her dad was a mechanic.”
More confusion filled Gabe’s expression as he flipped through more pages. “There is no way a teacher and a mechanicwould have qualified forthisamount of coverage for life insurance.”
“Yeah, I know. When I saw that amount, red flags immediately rose. I know you and I haven’t known Callie that long, but I’m pretty certain she would have mentionedthatamount of fucking money.”
“You don’t think she knows?” he asked.
“I’m gonna assume she has no idea. And if I’m right, once she’s made aware of it, she’s probably going to be wondering the same damn thing I did when I saw it: where the hell did it come from? But I didn’t want to go to her with this with no answers or, at the least, without being able to say I looked into it. I knew there had to have been a lawyer who helped her mom set everything up, and if I could find them or the firm, I could reach out to start asking some questions…”
“That’s a good plan. Were you able to find anything?”
I stared at Gabe, staying silent for a heartbeat. “Let’s just say we picked a good day to go through old office files…” His brow knitted deeper at my response. “The lawyer who helped Lori Bennett set up that trust…it was my dad.”
He stared at me for a moment before looking down at the papers and thumbing through them until he landed on the page where Robert Callahan’s name was listed. He remained silent, and I could practically see the wheels churning in his head before he finally looked at me and spoke again. “Okay, I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation.”
“I know we were supposed to be cleaning this place out today, but?—”
“You want to look for anything pertaining to Lori Bennett and this trust,” he finished for me.
“Yeah.”
“Okay.” He nodded without hesitation. “We got a lot of boxes to go through, so let’s get looking.”
We spent the next couple of hours sifting through box after box of files, starting from the bottom shelves and working our way up. If I learned anything, it was that whoever the hell our dads had in charge of filing back in the day was absoluteshitat their job, and when we actuallydidclean this place out, it was going to takedaysto go through the mess they created and left behind. There were mixed records and boxes that didn’t even contain any matters but old office bills and receipts that had no business being there. Poor Gabe looked like he might implode—he wasextremelyorganized and tidy, and I was sure this place had become his new kryptonite.
I tossed another useless box to the side after going through it and turned, stepping onto the stepladder and pulling another from the third shelf.
After another hour, I was more than frustrated. I’d just tossed another useless box and was on the stepladder reaching for one on the top shelf when Gabe’s voice cut through the air. “Wes…”
I turned. “You find something?” I hopped off the stepladder and walked over to where he was standing in front of a box on the table, a manila envelope in one hand and a paper in the other.
“Look at this…”
I took the paper and read it over. It was an accident report from a fatal MVA, which wasn’t unusual for them to keep on record if there was a client they were representing for that purpose. What I found unusual was thevictimof that MVA.
Matthew Bennett.
Callie’s dad.
I looked over the report, reading the details of the accident that claimed her dad’s life eighteen years ago—he’d been driving with Callie’s mom in the passenger seat, hydroplaned and lost control on a rain-soaked road, and hit a tree, taking all of the impact on his side. “You found that in there?” I gestured to the manila envelope.
Gabe nodded. “Yeah, it was buried under all of this useless shit,” he said, lifting a stack of papers.
I grabbed the envelope and pulled out the rest of the contents from inside; I took the first paper, dropping the others onto the table as I looked it over, and my brow furrowed. “What the fuck…?”
“What?” Gabe questioned.
“It’s another accident report from that same night.” It was another report with the same date listed at the top, the same victim, the same passenger, but none of the other details were the same. And when I got to the details of the accident, I swore my heart stopped. “Holy shit,” I whispered.
