Chapter 3 - The Missing Deed
Two days later, Luke was scheduled to fly to Chicago for a regional corporate board meeting—a routine two-day trip that he made every quarter.
Usually, Janet used these trips to invite her sister Brenda over, redecorate rooms without asking, or throw passive-aggressive dinner parties with her country club friends where Mason was treated like hired help. But this time, Janet had a much bigger objective.
While Luke was thousands of feet in the air over the Midwest, Janet sat at the mahogany desk in Luke’s home office.
She had found Luke’s spare office key tucked behind a framed photograph of his graduation three weeks ago. Now, using a small brass key she had taken from his key ring while he slept, she unlocked the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet labeled Personal & Estate.
Inside were insurance policies, tax returns, and the master property deeds for the house.
Janet pulled out the thick parchment folder, her breath quickening with greedy excitement as she flipped through the pages. She was looking for the prenuptial agreement Luke had insisted upon when they married eighteen months ago—the one that clearly stated that the house, bought three years before they met, remained entirely in Luke’s name and would pass directly to Mason in the event of his passing.
Her finger traced the legal jargon. ...sole property of Luke Sterling... designated heir Mason Sterling...
“Stupid, stubborn man,” Janet muttered to herself, her lips pressing into a thin, hard line. If Luke died tomorrow—or if she could manage to manipulate him into refinancing the mortgage under her name—she and Kyle would finally have secure footing. But as it stood, if Luke ever woke up to how much she hated his son, she and Kyle could be legally evicted with thirty days' notice.
She pulled out her smartphone and began photographing every page of the estate documents, her mind racing with a dozen manipulative scenarios. If she couldn't convince Luke to rewrite his will willingly, she would have to find another way to shift the leverage in this household.
*Knock. Knock.*
Janet jumped nearly out of her skin, dropping her phone onto the desk with a sharp clatter.
The office door swung open. It wasn't Mason. It was Kyle, holding a half-empty bag of chips, looking bored out of his mind.
“Mom, what are you doing in here? Dad’s desk is off-limits; you said so yourself when you were pretending to respect his privacy last year.”
Janet snatched her phone up, sliding the documents hastily back into the folder and locking the drawer. She glared at her son, smoothing down her silk blouse.
“I’m managing household accounts, Kyle. Not that your lazy brain would understand,” Janet hissed, slipping the brass key back into her pocket. “And keep your voice down. If Mason hears us poking around his dad’s office, he’ll run and tell Luke the second he lands in Chicago.”
“Relax, Mom,” Kyle scoffed, tossing a chip into his mouth. “Mason’s downstairs hiding in his room playing guitar or hitting those stupid drums. He doesn't care what we do. But seriously, when are we getting out of this boring suburb? You promised we’d be living in downtown high-rises by winter.”
“Patience, Kyle,” Janet said, a cold, calculating smile spreading across her face. “Rome wasn't built in a day. And neither is an inheritance.”
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What Janet didn't know was that while Kyle had been walking down the hallway toward the office, Mason hadn't been in his room. He had been coming back from the garage, and through the slightly cracked French doors of the office, he had seen the flash of Janet’s camera capturing page after page of his father’s private estate papers.
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