Chapter 6 - Lenora Had A Financial Reason To Keep Alistair Confused
My father controlled a large block of shares in Mercer Development.
Not a fantasy fortune.
A real family company built over forty years.
At his death, those shares passed according to a trust structure.
Most voting control eventually came to me.
A smaller percentage went to Maris for life income.
But three months before Dad died, a proposed amendment had appeared.
It would have redirected part of his voting interest into a marital branch trust benefiting me and Lenora jointly.
My attorney had seen a copy but believed Dad never finalized it.
The signature page existed.
The notarization did not.
And the draft was never properly executed.
Lenora had told me Dad was considering “simplifying succession.”
I thought nothing of it.
Now the timing mattered.
The draft was prepared during the same period his medication problems worsened.
If Dad had become sufficiently confused—or if someone could later portray him as having agreed—Lenora might have gained indirect long-term influence over shares she otherwise had no claim to.
I confronted our family estate attorney.
He remembered something important.
“Your father called me personally two weeks before he died.”
“What did he say?”
“He told me not to process any amendment.”
“Why?”
“He said he was no longer confident documents presented to him at home were being explained accurately.”
My hands went numb.
“Did he name Lenora?”
“No.”
That mattered.
We could not simply fill in facts because we suspected her.
But the pattern was growing.
Medication irregularities.
An unauthorized or questionable prescription.
Dad’s notes.
A disputed amendment.
A ripped page.
And Lenora physically trying to keep Maris away from the records.
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Still, suspicion was not proof.
I needed to know whether my father had actually been poisoned—or whether our family was building a murder theory out of grief and coincidence.
