Chapter 5 - Vivian Had Been Selling a Story That Wasn’t Hers
“I have never heard of this trust.”
Lauren’s voice was barely audible.
I took the laptop.
There it was.
LWB CREATIVE TRUST
Trustee:
Lauren Mercer Hart
Mailing address:
A suite in Philadelphia.
Not ours.
Not Vivian’s public office.
Lauren searched the address.
A law firm.
Baxter, Crane & Lowe.
“Do you know them?”
“No.”
Paige answered her phone on the first ring.
Lauren did not say hello.
“Why am I listed as trustee of LWB Creative Trust?”
Silence.
Then:
“You’re what?”
Lauren turned the laptop toward the phone as though Paige could see it.
“The company filings list me.”
“That makes no sense.”
“No. It doesn’t.”
“Send me the record.”
Lauren did.
Paige called back five minutes later.
“I’ve never seen this.”
“Could Mom have created a trust in my name?”
“Not legitimately without paperwork.”
“Exactly.”
“Call Rachel.”
We did.
Rachel Kim had been Lauren’s college roommate before becoming an intellectual-property attorney.
She answered at 1:36 a.m. with the warm greeting:
“Someone better be bleeding.”
Lauren said:
“My mother formed a company using my work, put my baby in an investor deck, circulated a release with a fake version of my signature, and apparently made me trustee of something I didn’t know existed.”
Rachel paused.
“Okay.”
Another pause.
“I’m awake now.”
For forty minutes, Lauren explained.
Rachel interrupted only to clarify dates.
Then:
“Do not call Vivian.”
“She keeps calling me.”
“Let her.”
“What about Sophie?”
“Send Richard a written demand tonight that distribution of all materials containing Sophie’s name or image stop immediately.”
“Can you write it?”
“I already am.”
“What about my concept?”
“That takes more work.”
“She copied it.”
“I believe you. Law likes specifics.”
Lauren gave a tired laugh.
“Of course it does.”
“We need timelines, source files, metadata, employment agreements, anything showing what existed when.”
“I have the original files.”
“Good.”
“The trust?”
“I’m pulling records.”
“Can someone just list me?”
“People can write almost anything on a filing. Whether it creates legal authority is another question.”
“So what do we do?”
“We find the underlying instrument.”
Rachel’s keyboard clicked.
Then stopped.
“Interesting.”
“What?”
“The trust isn’t private in the way I expected.”
“What does that mean?”
“The formation record references an attached memorandum.”
“Can you see it?”
“Give me a second.”
Silence.
Then Rachel said:
“Lauren.”
Something in her tone made me sit straighter.
“What?”
“The stated purpose is to hold intellectual property contributed by the trustee.”
“I contributed nothing.”
“I know.”
“What property?”
“The schedule is not public.”
Lauren looked at her notebook.
Rachel continued.
“But the memorandum identifies one beneficiary.”
“Who?”
“Sophie.”
My wife stopped moving.
Our one-year-old daughter was apparently the beneficiary of a trust she had never heard of, supposedly administered by a mother who had never agreed to administer it.
“Rachel.”
“Yes.”
“Find everything.”
“I will.”
By three in the morning, we finally went to bed.
Neither of us slept.
At seven, Sophie woke up yelling happily from her crib because one-year-olds are gloriously indifferent to corporate fraud.
We spent Sunday pretending to be normal parents.
Pancakes.
Bath.
Blocks.
Two naps.
One diaper failure so catastrophic that for ten minutes even Legacy Within stopped mattering.
At noon, Richard emailed confirmation that every investor and contractor had been ordered to delete unauthorized family photographs pending legal review.
At 1:15, Vivian texted:
You are escalating something that could have been resolved privately.
Lauren did not answer.
At 2:03:
Paige violated my confidence.
No answer.
At 3:40:
Richard is overreacting because he is worried about optics.
No answer.
At 4:11:
I was trying to create something that would ultimately benefit Sophie.
Lauren read that one aloud.
Then deleted nothing.
Rachel called Sunday evening.
“I found the attorney.”
“Which attorney?”
“The one who formed the trust.”
“Baxter?”
“A partner named Malcolm Lowe.”
“Did you speak to him?”
“Not yet. I sent a representation notice.”
“What did you find?”
“The trust owns a registered trademark application.”
Lauren stared at me.
“For what?”
“WITHIN.”
My wife sat down.
She had used that name four years earlier.
Rachel continued.
“It also claims ownership of copyright deposits for brand materials.”
“My materials.”
“Possibly.”
“How?”
“Someone submitted files.”
“When?”
“Seven months ago.”
“Under whose name?”
“LWB Creative Trust.”
“But I’m supposedly trustee.”
“Yes.”
“So somebody filed my work through a trust claiming I controlled it.”
“That is one possible interpretation.”
Lauren’s voice hardened.
“There are others?”
“Always.”
“What else?”
Rachel hesitated.
“The copyright deposit includes a declaration.”
“Signed by whom?”
“Lauren Mercer Hart.”
Of course.
Lauren laughed.
Not because anything was funny.
“Can you show me?”
Rachel emailed it.
The signature looked better than the parental release.
Much better.
But it was still wrong.
Then I noticed the date.
“Lauren.”
She followed my finger.
The declaration had been signed on March 8.
Lauren had been in Seattle with me March 8.
Our anniversary trip.
There were hotel records.
Flights.
Photographs.
Everything.
“That’s good,” Rachel said.
“It feels insane that my being three thousand miles away is what makes this good.”
“For evidence purposes, it helps.”
Lauren scrolled down.
The document attached a description of the underlying works.
Original concept architecture, naming framework, consumer segmentation language, product concepts, and visual assets created 2021–2025.
Lauren whispered:
“2021.”
Her original notebook began in 2022.
She frowned.
“That predates my work.”
Rachel heard her.
“What?”
“The date.”
“What about it?”
“If Mom says the concept existed in 2021, maybe she’ll argue she created it first.”
“Maybe.”
Lauren thought.
“No.”
“What?”
“My mother wasn’t talking about anything like this in 2021.”
“Can you prove that?”
“I don’t know.”
Rachel said:
“Then we keep digging.”
Monday morning changed everything.
At 8:14, an email arrived from Malcolm Lowe.
He acknowledged Rachel’s notice.
He attached eleven documents.
One was the trust agreement.
Lauren opened it.
Page one.
Settlor:
Vivian Mercer.
Trustee:
Lauren Mercer Hart.
Beneficiary:
Sophie Elizabeth Hart.
Page fourteen contained the trustee acceptance.
Lauren’s signature.
Not genuine.
Page seventeen contained a notarization.
That was worse.
Because the notary named was someone Lauren knew.
Paige Mercer Ellis.
Lauren called her sister.
Paige answered.
Lauren said only:
“Why is your name notarizing my signature?”
Nothing.
Then Paige whispered:
“I never notarized anything.”
Lauren looked at me.
Paige continued.
“My notary commission expired three years ago.”
May you like
And from somewhere behind Paige, a man’s voice suddenly said:
“Hang up the phone.”
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