Dad read the message over my shoulder. He didn't look surprised so much as exhausted, as though each new revelation required him to reconsider another part of his life.
“Do you think the sender is watching the house?” I asked.
“Perhaps. Or perhaps they know what happened because they were involved.”
He placed my phone on the table.
“We need Martin before we speak to Diane.”
The attorney returned our call that evening and asked us to send the relevant footage through a secure method. He reminded us that the woman's identity remained uncertain until we could verify it, and that the message claiming Diane had given Grant the original document was an allegation, not proof.
Dad agreed.
We spent the rest of the evening trying to establish what the camera could actually show. Grant had taken the envelope. A woman who appeared to be Diane had entered the study afterward. The envelope was no longer visible when she left.
That sequence was suspicious, but it didn't tell us whether she had taken the original, returned a different paper, or simply moved something Dad had already placed there.
By morning, Martin had reviewed the recordings. He agreed that the woman's appearance was consistent with Diane, although he recommended confirming her identity directly rather than relying on our impressions.
Dad called his sister at nine.
She answered cheerfully, asking whether he wanted her to bring over the soup she had made the previous evening. The normality of her voice made the coming conversation feel almost cruel.
“Diane, I need to ask you about Friday,” Dad said.
There was a short pause.
“What happened Friday?”
“Did you come to my house?”
“I might have. I don't remember exactly.”
Dad looked at me.
“The security camera recorded you entering my study at 5:06.”
Silence.
Then Diane said, “You have cameras in your house now?”
“Answer the question.”
“I stopped by for a few minutes. I wanted to check on you.”
“You didn't see me.”
“I thought you were upstairs.”
Dad closed his eyes briefly.
“Why did you go into my office?”
“I didn't go through your things.”
“I didn't ask whether you went through my things. I asked why you entered the study.”
Diane sighed.
“I was looking for something Vanessa said she'd left there.”
“What was it?”
“I don't remember.”
Dad's expression hardened.
“Diane, someone has been trying to use my estate documents to gain access to my finances. Vanessa told Natalie I was dead. Grant contacted the bank. And the camera shows you entering my study carrying an envelope.”
His sister said nothing.
Finally, she replied, “I didn't know about the bank.”
“Did you know about the false death announcement?”
“No.”
“Did you give Grant an original document?”
The silence lasted so long that Dad checked whether the call had disconnected.
Then Diane said, “Frank, I think we should discuss this in person.”
Dad agreed to meet her at his house that afternoon, with Martin present.
When she arrived, she looked smaller than I remembered. Her hair was pinned neatly beneath a blue scarf, and she carried the same handbag visible in the recording. She greeted Dad with a quick kiss on the cheek, then looked at me as though she expected me to step aside and let the adults handle the conversation.
I didn't move.
Martin introduced himself, although Diane already knew who he was. She sat in the living room, placed her handbag beside her chair, and folded her hands in her lap.
Dad began without preamble.
“Why did you come into my study on Friday?”
Diane looked toward the window.
“I told you. I was looking for something Vanessa had left.”
“What?”
“A document.”
“Which document?”
She pressed her lips together.
“I don't remember the title.”
Martin asked whether she had removed any papers from the study. Diane shook her head.
“No. I only looked around.”
Dad watched her for several seconds.
“The camera shows you entering with an envelope and leaving without it.”
She glanced at Martin.
“Are you accusing me of stealing?”
“No,” Dad replied. “I'm asking what happened.”
Diane took a deep breath.
“Grant asked me to help him understand some old paperwork. He said you had changed your estate plan and that Vanessa was worried she would be left with nothing.”
Dad's face tightened.
“So you came here to help Grant?”
“I was trying to help the family.”
“By taking documents from my office?”
“I didn't take anything.”
Martin asked her to explain the envelope visible in the footage.
Diane looked down at her handbag.
“I brought it with me because Grant had asked me to return something.”
“What was inside it?”
“An old document.”
“Whose document?”
“Yours.”
Dad sat back.
“What happened to it?”
Diane's hands began to tremble.
“I gave it to Grant.”
The admission seemed to change the room's temperature.
Dad spoke carefully.
“Which document did you give him?”
“I thought it was a copy of your old will.”
“Where did you get it?”
Diane hesitated, then explained that she had kept a copy of an earlier estate document from several years before. Dad had once asked her to help organize family paperwork after our mother died. She had retained a copy, believing it might be useful if the family ever needed to understand his wishes.
She said Grant had contacted her the previous week and asked whether she still had it. He told her that Vanessa was concerned about Dad's health and wanted to make sure the property would remain in the family.
Diane had brought the document to Dad's house, where Grant told her he needed to compare it with the papers in the study.
“Did you know he planned to contact the bank?” Martin asked.
“No.”
“Did you know Vanessa intended to tell Natalie that Frank was dead?”
“Absolutely not.”
Dad's expression remained unreadable.
“Why didn't you call me and ask what I wanted?”
Diane looked at him with tears gathering in her eyes.
“Because I thought you would be angry. You have always been protective of your decisions, and I thought I could help everyone avoid an argument.”
“You helped Grant obtain an old document without telling me.”
“I thought it was only a copy.”
“That doesn't make it yours to distribute.”
Diane lowered her head.
Martin asked whether Grant had explained what he intended to do with the document. She said he had talked about proving that Vanessa was entitled to inherit the house. He had claimed Dad had promised it to her years earlier and that the family should honor that promise.
“Did you believe him?” Martin asked.
“I believed he was trying to protect Vanessa.”
Dad gave a small, humorless smile.
“Everyone seems to have been protecting Vanessa. Nobody thought to ask what I wanted.”
Diane began crying quietly.
She explained that she had always believed Vanessa was more vulnerable than I was. Vanessa had stayed close to home, married Grant, and built her life around the family. I had moved away, found a career, and learned to support myself.
Diane had interpreted those differences as evidence that Vanessa needed more help.
She had never considered how her favoritism might look to me, or how it might encourage Vanessa to expect special treatment.
I listened without interrupting.
Then Martin asked the question that mattered most.
“Diane, when you gave Grant the document, did you know it was not the current will?”
“Yes.”
Dad looked up sharply.
“You knew?”
Diane nodded miserably.
“It was dated several years earlier. I told Grant that. He said it was enough to show what you had intended at the time.”
“Did he tell you he planned to use it with the bank?”
“No.”
“Did he tell you he planned to have me declared dead?”
“No.”
Martin wrote down her answers and asked whether she still had any copies of the document. Diane said she had one at home, stored in a folder with old family papers.
Martin asked her not to destroy or alter it and said he would arrange to obtain a copy through the appropriate process.
Dad stood and walked to the window.
For a long time, he said nothing.
Finally, he turned toward his sister.
“You promised me something after our mother died.”
Diane looked up.
“What?”
“You promised that if I ever needed help with the family, you would tell me the truth, even if it upset me.”
Her face crumpled.
“I remember.”
“You told me I could trust you to keep the family together.”
“I was trying to do that.”
“No, Diane. You were trying to keep everyone comfortable. Those are not the same thing.”
She wiped her eyes.
Dad asked her to leave and said Martin would contact her about the document. Diane rose slowly, picked up her handbag, and paused beside me.
“Natalie, I never wanted this to happen.”
I believed that she might be telling the truth. But good intentions didn't undo the damage caused by careless choices.
“I wish you'd asked questions before helping Grant,” I said.
She nodded and left.
After the door closed, Dad returned to his chair. He looked at the family photograph on the mantel for a long time.
Then he turned toward Martin.
“We know where the old document came from. We know Grant had it. But we still don't know what he did with the verification page.”
Martin nodded.
“And we need to find out whether that page was ever attached to the original paperwork.”
Dad looked at me.
“I think Grant knows more than he's admitted.”
I agreed.
What none of us expected was the call that came twenty minutes later.
It was from Harold.
He had spoken to someone who used to work with Grant at a local accounting firm. The man had heard that Grant was searching for a document that had gone missing from a client's file.
Harold didn't know the client's name.
But he knew the document's description.
A signed authorization form, with a missing verification page.
Click here to continue reading: PART 11: Grant’s Former Colleague Recognized the Missing Form, and His Account Revealed a Second Person Who Had Been Quietly Helping Him
My Sister Announced Our Father’s Death While He Sat Across From Me, and Her Next Words Revealed What She Really Wanted
Part 10 of 20
