Chapter 2 - What Lucas Left Behind
My daughter was born six hours later.
Four pounds, thirteen ounces.
Tiny.
Furious.
Perfect.
They took her to the neonatal unit because she needed help regulating her breathing.
I saw her for less than a minute before they moved her.
I named her Lily Grace Gallagher.
Lucas and I had chosen the name together.
I cried when I said it aloud.
Not because I was sad she was here.
Because he wasn't.
Samantha arrived sometime after midnight.
She waited until the doctor confirmed I was stable.
Then she placed a sealed envelope on my hospital table.
Lucas's handwriting.
FOR VICTORIA ONLY.
My hands started shaking.
“When did he give you this?”
“Twelve days before he died.”
I looked at her.
“Why didn't you give it to me?”
“His instructions.”
“What instructions?”
“If nothing happened, he intended to collect it himself after sixty days.”
“And if something did?”
“I was supposed to wait until you were physically safe and away from Charles.”
I stared at her.
“He named my father?”
“Yes.”
That hurt.
Not because Lucas distrusted Dad.
Because he had been worried enough to put his name in writing.
I opened the envelope.
V,
If Samantha is giving you this, something went wrong.
I couldn't continue.
I pressed the paper against my chest.
Samantha waited.
Eventually, I read again.
Lucas explained that he had discovered irregularities inside Baldwin-Gallagher Logistics.
Vendor payments.
Fuel contracts.
Maintenance invoices.
Millions moving through companies he didn't recognize.
He confronted Dad.
Charles denied everything.
Lucas investigated quietly.
Then strange things began happening.
His office was searched.
His laptop disappeared for two days and returned.
Someone attempted to change insurance beneficiaries.
Then Dad asked Lucas whether he had updated his will since my pregnancy.
I felt sick.
Lucas had written:
I don't know whether your father is dangerous. I know only that desperation changes people, and Charles is more desperate than he is admitting.
There was a flash drive attached to the letter.
Samantha had already made forensic copies.
“What is on it?”
“Evidence.”
“How bad?”
“Bad.”
Lucas had traced roughly $2.7 million in questionable payments.
Most went to three vendors.
All three companies were linked through addresses, phone numbers, or intermediaries to Charles.
One had another connection.
Courtney.
My twenty-four-year-old stepmother.
She owned a consulting company.
I almost laughed.
Courtney had never held a full-time job longer than six months.
Her “consulting company” had received $310,000 from Baldwin-Gallagher Logistics.
“For what?”
Samantha shook her head.
“No legitimate services we've found.”
I remembered Courtney laughing while my water broke.
Then I remembered something else.
Her handbag.
A designer bag Dad claimed he bought for her birthday.
Cost almost $8,000.
Suddenly every expensive thing in their life looked different.
The house.
The vacations.
The new SUV.
The jewelry.
Samantha continued.
“Charles was released pending further proceedings.”
“Already?”
“The assault investigation is separate. There are witnesses, photographs, medical documentation. But yes, he isn't currently in custody.”
“Can he come back to my house?”
“No.”
Samantha had helped arrange an emergency protective order.
The locks were being changed.
Security installed.
I looked toward the neonatal unit.
“Good.”
Then Samantha hesitated.
“What?”
“Charles isn't your only problem.”
Of course he wasn't.
“Courtney?”
“Yes.”
“What did she do?”
“After the police left, she tried to remove documents from Lucas's office.”
“Did she?”
“Not successfully.”
A neighbor had filmed Courtney carrying boxes toward her SUV.
Police returned.
The boxes contained corporate files.
And one document that made no sense.
A draft sale agreement.
My house.
Buyer listed:
Baldwin Property Ventures LLC.
Purchase price:
$1.
I stared at it.
“They were going to sell my house to themselves?”
“Transfer it.”
“But they couldn't.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because you're on the deed.”
I almost smiled.
Dad had built his entire plan around a fact he never checked.
Lucas added me six years earlier.
Samantha found the recorded deed.
Clear.
Valid.
Joint ownership with survivorship rights.
When Lucas died, the property became mine.
Completely.
Dad's folder claiming Lucas left debts didn't change that.
Then Samantha told me something almost funny.
My father had already promised the house to someone else.
A developer.
He planned to transfer it through Baldwin Property Ventures, then sell it for $1.4 million.
My house.
The nursery Lucas painted.
The backyard where we married.
The bedroom where his T-shirt was still beneath my pillow.
Dad had converted all of it into a number before I had even buried my husband.
“What happens now?”
“The developer has withdrawn.”
“And the company?”
“Board meeting Friday.”
I laughed bitterly.
“I just gave birth.”
“I know.”
“I don't know anything about running a logistics company.”
“You don't need to.”
“Dad will say I do.”
“Charles no longer controls the board.”
I looked at her.
“Because of the shares?”
“Yes.”
Then she placed another document in front of me.
Lucas had named an interim voting adviser.
Someone with thirty years of logistics experience.
Someone Dad despised.
My mother.
Not Courtney.
My biological mother.
Rebecca Sloan.
The woman Charles had spent twenty years calling incompetent.
I hadn't spoken to her in nearly eight months.
Not because we were estranged.
Because she lived in Seattle and our relationship had become distant.
But before divorcing Dad, Mom had been the original operations director of Baldwin Freight.
Half the systems Lucas later modernized had been built from her early work.
Dad erased that history after the divorce.
Lucas hadn't.
I called her.
She answered on the first ring.
“Victoria?”
Her voice broke.
“Mom.”
“Oh, sweetheart.”
I started crying.
She did too.
Then she said:
“I'm already at the airport.”
I looked at Samantha.
“You knew?”
She nodded.
Mom continued:
“Lucas called me two weeks before he died.”
I stopped crying.
“What?”
“He asked me to come back if anything happened.”
“Why?”
Mom was silent.
“Mom?”
“Because Lucas found something about your father that went further back than the company.”
“How far?”
“To our divorce.”
I closed my eyes.
“What did he find?”
My mother took a breath.
“Victoria, your father didn't build Baldwin Freight alone.”
May you like
I waited.
“Half of it was mine.”
