Chương 5
“His company doesn’t own this villa.”
“I know.”
Claire looked at her.
Daniel had represented the project in magazines. She knew Northcrest Development had consulted, although she had never been clear on exactly what that meant.
Evelyn continued.
“There was a picture of you.”
“So you found me because of a wedding article?”
“I found your name.”
“Why didn’t you call?”
“I did.”
Claire’s skin prickled.
“When?”
“Three weeks ago.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“I never got a call.”
“I didn’t call you. I called Daniel.”
Of course.
“What did he say?”
“That you knew everything.”
Claire’s fingers went cold.
Evelyn watched her without satisfaction.
“He said he had explained the dispute. He said you knew I was alive. He said you believed I was unstable and supported him.”
“That’s not true.”
“I know that now.”
“How?”
Evelyn nodded at Claire’s hand.
The missing ring.
“Oh.”
“I came prepared for you to throw me out.”
Claire looked toward the door.
“You slapped him.”
“Yes.”
“That didn’t help.”
“No.”
“Do you regret it?”
Evelyn considered.
“My hand does.”
Claire looked down before Evelyn could see the unwilling smile.
It vanished quickly.
“What happened with the house?”
Evelyn put down her tea.
Her explanation was not clean.
Claire had expected a story with a villain and a victim.
Instead she got bank statements, a dead husband, an adult son who had been useful until usefulness became control, a stroke that left Evelyn unable to walk without assistance for several months, a trust she did not fully understand because her husband had always handled the estate lawyers, and a business problem Daniel had never admitted was as severe as it was.
After Evelyn’s husband died, Daniel began paying some of her bills.
She had let him.
That part embarrassed her.
“I liked not opening envelopes,” she said. “Your generation thinks old people are terrified of apps. I was terrified of property taxes.”
Claire asked, “Did you give him power of attorney?”
“A limited one.”
“For what?”
“Banking while I was recovering.”
“And the house?”
“No.”
Evelyn reached into the folder.
She removed a copy of a recorded transfer.
The paper stated that a successor trustee had transferred the Halcyon Ridge property into an entity Claire recognized.
Mercer Ridge Holdings.
She had heard Daniel mention it.
She had never asked what it owned.
Attached to the transfer was a certification stating that Daniel had become successor trustee following Evelyn Mercer’s death.
Claire read the date twice.
Evelyn had been in a rehabilitation hospital thirty miles away.
“How did this get recorded?”
“That is one of the questions my attorney is asking.”
“Did he forge a death certificate?”
“We have a copy of something that was submitted to the title company. My middle name is wrong. My birth date is right.”
Claire looked up.
“Wouldn’t someone verify it?”
“One would hope.”
The bitterness in Evelyn’s voice was old.
Not theatrical.
Tired.
“His lawyers say they relied on documents provided to them. The title company says it relied on the law firm and the certified materials. Everybody relied on everybody. Meanwhile, my house became collateral.”
“For what?”
“Northcrest.”
Claire sat very still.
Evelyn slid another page toward her.
A loan document.
Mercer Ridge Holdings had pledged the property as security connected to a business credit facility.
Claire did not understand all of it.
She understood the amount.
Six million dollars.
Her mouth went dry.
“Daniel’s company?”
“Yes.”
“Was the house worth six million?”
“Not then.”
“Then how—”
“It was one part of a larger package.”
Claire read until the words lost shape.
She had spent the previous year listening to Daniel talk about Northcrest’s expansion. Hospitality projects. Coastal properties. A hotel redevelopment inland. He said business had been difficult during a financing squeeze but stable.
There had been no mention of his mother’s house.
“Why didn’t you go to the police?”
“I did.”
“What happened?”
“Questions.”
“That’s all?”
“For a while.”
Evelyn’s expression hardened.
“You bring an old woman with a stroke history into a room and put her polished son across from her with attorneys, and people like to ask whether she might be mistaken.”
Claire wanted to object.
Not because she thought Evelyn was lying.
Because the sentence was too easy.
Reality, in Claire’s experience, was rarely so perfectly cruel.
Evelyn seemed to read the doubt.
“My first lawyer also made mistakes. I signed something I shouldn’t have signed after the stroke. Daniel really did have authority over some accounts. He really did pay medical bills. Some transfers were legitimate. That made the bad ones harder to separate.”
That sounded more real.
Claire relaxed a fraction.
Evelyn saw that too.
“You should doubt me,” she said.
Claire looked up.
“Daniel told me you were dead.”
“Yes.”
“That makes doubting him easier.”
“It shouldn’t make believing me automatic.”
For the first time since the slap, Claire felt something other than alarm around Evelyn.
Respect, perhaps.
Or simply relief at being given permission not to know.
“What changed?” Claire asked. “Why do you have the documents now?”
“A new attorney. Time. A clerk who noticed that a woman declared dead was paying assisted-living fees from an account under the same Social Security number.”
Claire’s eyebrows lifted.
“That sounds almost too convenient.”
“It was not convenient. It took fourteen months after that.”
Evelyn leaned back.
“My current lawyer likes paper. She does not like dramatic people. You would like her.”
“I don’t know if I like you yet.”
“Good.”
Claire looked again at the black folder.
“Where did you get my power-of-attorney form?”
Evelyn’s face changed.
“That came two days ago.”
“From whom?”
“Not from Daniel.”
“Then who?”
“I was asked not to say until the person has spoken to their firm.”
Claire knew before Evelyn finished.
“Matthew.”
Evelyn said nothing.
Claire closed her eyes.
The attorney standing beside the walnut table.
The attorney who could not answer a simple question.
The attorney Daniel had brought to witness signatures.
May you like
Something inside Claire shifted from fear toward anger.
Anger was easier.
