Chapter 5 - Edmund Wasn’t Just a Family Friend
To outsiders, Edmund Barlow had always looked harmless enough.
He had been in and out of my father’s business world for nearly thirty years, first as a financial adviser, then as a “trusted family associate,” the kind of man who knew where old property lines lay, where trusts had been built, and which secrets had been buried under polite dinners and handshakes.
He was never formally family.
But he behaved like he had inherited certain rights inside our home.
After my father died, Edmund became more present, not less.
He claimed he was helping me “stabilize the estate” while I focused on running the company and raising Olivia with Isabella.
Now I was suddenly looking backward at a dozen moments that had once seemed trivial.
Edmund showing up unannounced.
Edmund asking odd questions about locked cabinets.
Edmund lingering too long when Isabella left a room.
Edmund once telling her, with a smile that never reached his eyes:
“Some things should stay where the family put them.”
At the time, Isabella dismissed it as creepy and rude.
Now I no longer believed it had been only that.
I had one of my attorneys pull everything Edmund had ever handled connected to my father’s estate.
At the same time, I ordered a quiet internal audit of household staffing records.
If Marina had been helping him knowingly, I needed to understand how long that arrangement had existed.
By midnight, I knew one thing for sure.
Marina had not come to our house through the normal hiring process.
Someone had personally recommended her.
May you like
That someone was Edmund.
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