Chapter 7 - The Woman David’s Family Called Dead
Five months after the cruise, Rebecca Davis walked into Grace’s office.
Forty-two.
Dark hair.
Thin scar near one eyebrow.
Very much alive.
David happened to be in the building with his lawyers.
He saw her through the glass wall.
Stopped.
Then said:
“She’s dead.”
Rebecca heard him.
She smiled.
“That’s what Dad’s been telling people since 2004.”
She placed an old family photograph on the conference table.
Richard.
Evelyn.
Mark.
David.
Rebecca.
Whole family.
Before the erasure.
“Why did you disappear?” I asked.
“I refused to sign.”
The sentence hit harder than she knew.
At nineteen, Rebecca discovered Richard had pledged assets belonging partly to a trust created by his mother.
Richard wanted all beneficiaries to ratify the transactions.
Mark signed.
David was too young to matter.
Rebecca refused.
Richard called her unstable.
Drug-addicted.
Manipulated.
He had her placed briefly in a private residential program after claiming she was a danger to herself.
She left with help from an aunt.
Lawyers followed.
Settlement.
Confidentiality.
Another state.
No family contact.
Over the years, Richard told people Rebecca was “gone.”
Eventually gone became dead.
Evelyn allowed it.
“That is the thing I hate her for most,” Rebecca said quietly.
“Not that she was afraid.”
“That she let him rewrite whether I existed.”
Then she opened another file.
The Davis family trust once held the six percent of Mitchell Aeronautics.
But Richard had not funded the entire investment.
Some of the underlying money belonged to older trust beneficiaries.
Rebecca believed part of the Mitchell settlement proceeds should have remained inside the family trust.
Richard moved them into an entity he controlled.
“That’s why he still talks about Mitchell like something was stolen from us.”
“Was it?”
Rebecca considered.
“Maybe.”
That answer surprised me.
“You’re helping me, but you think my family might owe yours money?”
May you like
“I think truth doesn’t change based on who I hate.”
I liked her immediately.
