With a firm pull, he ripped the papers from his father’s grasp.

“Give those back,” Richard hissed, his face pale in the beam of my flashlight.

Nathan ignored him and turned his back on his father.

“Hold the light, Emily,” he said.

I took the heavy flashlight, my fingers trembling so hard the beam danced across the ceiling.

I aimed the light at the documents in Nathan’s hands.

They were old parchment pages, bound together with thick blue ribbon and a wax seal that had been broken.

At the top of the first page, the words *The Whitmore Family Trust* were printed in elegant, raised script.

“This is the original,” Nathan muttered, flipping through the pages with his thumb.

His eyes scanned the columns of numbers and legal jargon.

“Look at the dates,” I said, pointing a shaking finger at the bottom of the page.

The original date was signed twelve years ago.

But beneath it, a new rider had been pasted over the original parchment.

It was a clumsy job, sealed with a glossy adhesive that had begun to yellow and curl at the edges.