I thought of my eight-year-old going through his grandmother’s desk, in a house full of staff, looking for an envelope with his mother’s name on it.
“Mr. Tate, why would Spencer want custody of a trust he can’t touch?”
Bernard put his glasses back on.
“Because a parent with primary custody can petition the court to replace a trustee for cause. If Eli lives with Spencer, and Spencer’s lawyers paint you as unstable, or unfit, or simply too poor to be trusted with three point eight million dollars, a sympathetic judge might agree. And then the trustee would be Spencer. And then the money would not be Eli’s for very long.”
“Why does he need it?”
Bernard looked out the window at the river.
“Because Langford Hospitality Group has been in default on a hundred and forty million dollars of loans since March,” he said. “And because the only property in that family that isn’t pledged to a bank is a hotel in Lisbon. Which, I believe, is where your son’s plane was headed.”
