Chapter 4 - THE DEAD NOTARY
The notary’s name was Franklin Webb.
A quick search confirmed he had died the previous winter.
Yet his seal appeared on a document dated only three weeks earlier.
Penelope needed someone outside the family.
She remembered Grace Monroe, an attorney who had helped Donna update her will after Samuel’s death.
Penelope could not safely call from her phone.
Hattie reviewed the household phone records.
Michael checked Penelope’s messages each night.
So Penelope waited until a company charity luncheon at the mansion.
While guests filled the ballroom, she borrowed a caterer’s phone and called Grace from a pantry.
“I think my husband forged my signature.”
Grace’s tone changed immediately.
“Are you safe?”
“No.”
“Has he physically hurt you?”
Penelope looked at the fading marks on her wrist from the night Michael had taken her phone.
“Not enough for anyone to believe me.”
“I believe you.”
The words nearly made Penelope cry.
Grace told her not to confront Michael again.
She needed copies of every document she could obtain.
She also needed an escape plan.
“Can you go to your mother?”
“They are watching my car.”
“Then we create a reason for you to leave.”
Before Penelope could answer, the pantry door opened.
Hattie stood there.
Her smile remained polite because guests were nearby.
“Who are you speaking to?”
“The caterer.”
“I can see the caterer standing behind you.”
Penelope slowly ended the call.
Hattie took the phone from her.
Then she thanked the caterer and waited until the woman left.
The moment they were alone, Hattie’s smile vanished.
“You have been causing unnecessary tension.”
“Michael forged my name.”
“Michael protected his family.”
“By stealing my mother’s farm?”
“Your mother is sitting on land she does not deserve.”
“It belongs to her.”
“Ownership is only paper. Power decides who keeps it.”
Hattie stepped closer.
“You were welcomed into this family because Michael believed you could be useful. Do not force him to admit he was wrong.”
That sentence stayed with Penelope.
Not loved.
Useful.
Later that evening, Penelope found Michael in the library.
She asked him how he had first learned about Donna’s farm.
Michael claimed Penelope had told him.
She had not.
When she pressed him, he became angry and left the room.
Penelope searched the library desk.
Inside a locked drawer, she found an old Rosegate file dated six months before she had met Michael.
The file contained a photograph of Donna’s farmhouse.
A map of Willow Creek.
And a background report on Penelope.
Michael’s family had investigated her before their first date.
At the bottom of the report, Hattie had written one sentence by hand:
May you like
The daughter may be the easiest path to the land.
👉 Penelope’s marriage had not accidentally become part of Hattie’s scheme—the scheme may have been the reason Michael entered her life at all.
