Chapter 6
Cecily returned the silver necklace herself.
She appeared at the Carrow estate with a driver and a small velvet box.
Benedict met her in the sitting room.
Margaux had not come.
“Mom says I can’t talk to you.”
“Then why are you here?”
Cecily looked nervous.
“Because this is Posy’s.”
She placed the necklace on the table.
Benedict recognized it.
The birthday keepsake.
Posy’s initials were engraved on the back.
Margaux had somehow missed that.
“Did your mother give this to you?”
“She said Grandpa’s stuff should go to me.”
“Why?”
Cecily looked down.
“Because Dad was the real heir.”
Julian.
Benedict’s younger brother.
Dead three years.
“Who told you that?”
“Mom.”
Benedict sat across from her.
“Did she say Posy wasn’t family?”
Cecily nodded.
Benedict stopped questioning.
Cecily was a child being used too.
Instead, he asked:
“How do you feel about all this?”
“I hate it.”
“Why?”
“Because Posy thinks I took her birthday.”
That mattered.
Cecily reached into her bag and removed another item.
A folder from Margaux’s home office.
“I wasn’t supposed to see this.”
Benedict did not take it immediately.
“Does your mother know you brought it?”
“No.”
“Then I need your dad’s side of the family lawyer involved before I read anything private that may belong to her.”
Cecily looked frustrated.
“She wrote my name over Posy’s.”
Benedict looked at the folder.
On the tab:
Beneficiary Consolidation Proposal.
Grant arrived forty minutes later.
Because the document was physically carried by Cecily and apparently related to family trusts, he arranged to preserve it without rummaging through unrelated personal files.
The proposal was not signed.
It suggested combining administrative expenses for the two grandchild branches.
The stated reason:
Efficiency.
The projected effect:
More discretion concentrated in the family distribution office Margaux controlled.
Grant frowned.
“This wouldn’t automatically merge ownership.”
“Then why bother?”
“It would make expenses easier to pool.”
Benedict understood.
If expenses became pooled, distinguishing Posy’s money from Cecily’s would become harder.
Another clue.
May you like
Margaux had not only been misusing the current system.
She had been trying to make the misuse more difficult to detect.
