Chapter 11 - THE GHOSTS OF SEATTLE
While the ink was still wet on the court-ordered receivership of the Oak Ridge estate, Derek Lancaster was sitting in a fluorescent-lit, greasy-spoon diner four hundred miles away in Portland, staring at a laptop screen that was flashing red warning signals.
His bank accounts—every single one of them—had been completely frozen by federal marshals acting on the financial fraud injunction Sophie and I had secured. But that wasn’t even the worst part.
Hidden inside a encrypted folder on the cloud storage drive he shared with our late uncle’s old business accounts, Derek stumbled upon a document he was never meant to see: The Providence Ledger.
For years, Derek had believed he was the untouchable golden child, funding his lifestyle through high-risk tech ventures and investor loans. But the ledger proved a terrifying truth—every single "startup" he had launched in Seattle was actually a shell corporation designed to siphon money away from a multi-million-dollar trust fund our grandfather had established decades ago.
And the sole named beneficiary of that trust wasn't Derek.
It was me. Naomi Lancaster.
"No... no, that’s impossible," Derek muttered, his voice cracking as he slammed his hand against the sticky diner table, causing the waitress to drop a stack of napkins. "Mom said the trust was dissolved! She said everything went to my college fund!"
He pulled out his burner phone, his hands shaking so violently he dropped it twice before dialing Helen’s number.
When Helen picked up, her voice sounded hollow, broken by the trauma of the courtroom defeat and the loss of her home. "Derek? Where are you? The motel management is threatening to lock us out because our credit card was declined..."
"Mom, shut up and listen to me!" Derek hissed, his eyes wild with sudden, desperate fury. "The trust fund. Grandpa’s trust fund. Where is the physical paperwork? The original notarized copy from 1998!"
On the other end of the line, Helen went dead silent. "Why... why are you asking about that? That's ancient history, Derek. It was settled years ago..."
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"It wasn't settled!" Derek screamed, drawing the attention of every truck driver in the diner. "Naomi owns everything! She isn't just a co-signer on the house—she owns the entire estate portfolio! If she finds out about the trust before we legally contest it, we are going to prison for federal fraud, Mom! Do you hear me? Prison!"
Helen dropped her phone. The plastic casing shattered against the cheap laminate floor of their motel room, echoing a final, shattering blow to what was left of our family.
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