In a way, it did.
Mr. Leonard Hale had been my father’s attorney for almost forty years.
He was eighty-two now, thin as a fence post, with white hair combed carefully over a spotted scalp. He had known me since I was seven.
And that morning, when I told him what Mark had said at the abandoned lodge—
“Once Carol signs, it’s done.”
—Mr. Hale’s face changed.
Not surprise.
Fear.
He closed his office door, locked it, then returned to his desk.
“Carol,” he said quietly, “has your husband recently asked you to sign anything?”
I thought of the packet Mark had left beside my coffee two weeks earlier.
He had called them updated retirement documents.
“
I didn’t sign them.”
Mr. Hale exhaled slowly.
“Thank God.”
Daniel leaned forward.
“What were they?”
The old lawyer opened a drawer and removed a sealed envelope.
“I believe Mark intended to obtain control of land your grandfather left to your mother.”
