The Attorney on Franklin Street
Chapter 07 - The Attorney on Franklin Street
The attorney’s office was above a bakery in downtown Clarksville.
Her name was Dana Whitmore, and she had spent twenty years handling military family disputes, property cases, and financial fraud.
She read the documents in silence.
Then she removed her glasses.
“Your mother did not have authority to sign these.”
“I know,” Luke said.
“She also could not legally take control of your wife’s medical decisions.”
Claire folded her hands over her belly.
“What happens now?”
Dana separated the papers into three stacks.
“The bank investigation is one issue. The forged documents are another. The property transfers are a third.”
Luke stared at the stacks.
His family had become evidence.
Dana pointed to the petition describing Claire as emotionally unstable.
“Was this ever filed?”
“We don’t know,” Claire said.
Dana searched the county system.
Nothing had been formally filed.
Claire exhaled.
“So she was bluffing.”
“Maybe,” Dana said. “Or she was preparing.”
Luke looked at Claire.
Preparing for what?
Dana found the answer in a handwritten note clipped behind the petition.
If Luke extends deployment, file before birth.
The room went silent.
Claire read the sentence twice.
“Before birth?”
Dana nodded.
“If she had established enough control over the finances and created a record suggesting you were unstable, she may have intended to petition for some form of emergency authority after the baby was born.”
Luke pushed back from the table.
Dana raised a hand.
“Stay calm. Nothing has been filed. You have options.”
Luke looked at the forged signature.
He had spent years believing danger was something that announced itself loudly.
May you like
Sometimes it did not.
Sometimes it wore pearls, made dinner, collected the mail, and said it was only trying to help.
