Part 6
Harold Weiss's office smelled like old paper and pipe tobacco, and it was the first place in a week I felt something close to safe.
"Your father amended his will four months before the accident," Harold said, sliding a document across the desk. "He never told your mother. He suspected Marcus Shaw was circling the company even then, through Derek, who was courting you at the time on his father's instruction."
I read the amendment twice.
If either Vivian or Julian Hale died under "circumstances inconsistent with natural causes," full control of Hale Shipyard would transfer not to a spouse, not to a sibling, but into an irrevocable trust that neither Derek nor any Shaw family member could touch — administered solely by Harold, until Vivian or Julian personally revoked it in his physical presence.
"He knew," I said. "He knew they might come for us even back then."
"He suspected. He hoped he was wrong." Harold folded his hands. "He wasn't."
Julian, silent until now, leaned forward. "Then Derek's insurance policy, the death certificate he's waiting on — none of it gets him the shares at all."
"Not one," Harold said. "The moment your deaths were reported, this trust activated automatically. Derek Shaw currently believes he's four million dollars and a controlling stake richer. He is, in fact, entitled to nothing, and he has no idea."
For the first time since the river, I laughed. It came out broken, but it was real.
"So let him celebrate," I said. "Let him marry her. Let him find out in front of everyone."
Julian smiled at me the way he used to, before the wheelchair, before any of it.
"Now you're thinking like Dad."
“My husband drove the car into the river with my brother and me trapped inside.”
