Chương 2
“She said his name.”
“What exactly did she say?”
Robert stared at the folded statement.
“She said, ‘Once Dad’s back home, we need to get him to sign the rest before he changes his mind.’”
A knot formed beneath my ribs.
“The rest of what?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did she say anything else?”
“She said something about Tyler being there as a witness.”
Daniel’s son.
The twenty-two-year-old whose car was supposedly “acting weird.”
I moved into the left lane.
Robert noticed.
“That’s the turn for the highway.”
“I know.”
“Franklin’s office is southwest.”
“I know that too.”
“Then why are you—”
“I don’t want Daniel checking your location through your phone.”
Robert stared at me.
“My what?”
“Does he have access to your phone account?”
“I have no idea.”
“Family location sharing?”
“What is that?”
“Exactly.”
I took the next exit toward a shopping center.
Robert watched me park outside a grocery store.
“You’ve kidnapped me and brought me to produce.”
“I need your phone.”
He reluctantly handed it over.
The screen was locked.
“Passcode?”
“If I tell you, you’ll know my passcode.”
“That is generally how passcodes work.”
“Linda always said never give anyone your passcode.”
“Linda has been dead six years.”
“That doesn’t make her wrong.”
“Robert.”
He sighed and entered it himself.
I checked the location settings.
He was sharing his location with Daniel.
Robert stared at the screen when I showed him.
“I never turned that on.”
“Maybe Daniel did when he set up the phone.”
“When?”
“You got this after you dropped the old one in the lake.”
“I did not drop it.”
“You fell out of the boat holding it.”
“That is materially different.”
I disabled the sharing.
My irritation had begun turning into something colder.
A bank transfer could have an explanation.
A misunderstood phone call could have an explanation.
Daniel monitoring Robert’s location could even have an innocent explanation.
Stacked together, the explanations were getting harder to imagine.
My phone buzzed again.
This time it was Emily.
I stared at her name.
Robert reached across and covered the screen with his hand.
“Not yet.”
“That’s my wife.”
“She’s my daughter.”
“That doesn’t give you priority.”
“It does today.”
I looked at him.
He withdrew his hand.
There was fear in his face now, but something else sat behind it.
Shame, maybe.
“Why can’t I tell Emily?”
“Because I don’t know who knows what.”
“You think Emily is involved?”
His expression changed immediately.
“No.”
“Then what?”
“I think Emily will call Daniel.”
“She might.”
“She will.”
He was right.
Emily hated unresolved family conflict.
Her first instinct was always to get everybody on the phone and make them talk until somebody apologized or hung up.
Usually Daniel hung up.
“She deserves to know.”
“She deserves facts.”
Robert pushed his door open.
“Where are you going?”
“I have to pee.”
I stared at him.
“You were discharged from a hospital fifteen minutes ago.”
“And somehow they failed to remove my bladder.”
I got out and walked around to help him.
He slapped my hand away, then accepted my arm three steps later without acknowledging the contradiction.
Inside the grocery store, ordinary life continued with offensive normality.
A toddler cried beside a display of watermelons.
An employee restocked cereal.
Two elderly women argued pleasantly about whether peaches were any good this late in the season.
Robert moved slowly toward the restroom, one hand against my shoulder.
I could feel how little strength he actually had.
Whatever waited at his house, he was in no condition to fight anybody.
When he came out, he looked gray.
“You okay?”
“Fine.”
“You’re not.”
“I’m seventy-one and wearing compression socks.”
He lowered himself onto a bench beside a machine selling lottery tickets.
“Fine is relative.”
I bought him a bottle of water.
He drank half of it and made a face.
“Hospital water tasted better.”
“That is the first documented case of anyone saying that.”
He smiled briefly.
Then the smile disappeared.
“Michael, there’s something else.”
I sat beside him.
“Of course there is.”
“Daniel brought papers to the hospital two days after my surgery.”
“What kind of papers?”
“He said they were estate documents.”
“Did you sign them?”
“Some.”
My stomach dropped.
“Robert.”
“I was on pain medication.”
“Did you read them?”
“I tried.”
“Did anyone else?”
“Daniel said Franklin had prepared everything.”
“And you believed him?”
Robert turned the water bottle between his palms.
“I wanted to.”
That answer landed harder than any excuse would have.
“Did Franklin send them?”
“I called his office this morning.”
“And?”
“He hasn’t prepared anything for me in eleven months.”
The grocery store suddenly seemed too bright.
“Then what did you sign?”
“I don’t know.”
My phone rang again.
Daniel.
This time a text followed immediately.
Dad’s location disappeared.
Call me now.
Robert read it over my shoulder.
Neither of us said anything.
A second message appeared.
Are you with Franklin?
Robert slowly stood.
His face had lost what little color remained.
“How would he know to ask that?”
I slipped the phone into my pocket.
“I don’t know.”
Outside, I helped him back into the SUV and locked the doors.
Before I could start the engine, another message arrived.
It came from Tyler.
Grandpa, don’t sign anything at the lawyer’s office.
Then a second message appeared before Robert could finish reading the first.
Dad knows where you’re going.
I read Tyler’s second message twice before handing the phone to Robert.
He stared at it long enough for the screen to dim.
“Call him,” Robert said.
“Tyler?”
“Now.”
I tapped the number and switched to speaker.
Tyler answered before the first full ring.
“Grandpa?”
“It’s Michael.”
There was traffic noise behind him, then a car horn and what sounded like a turn signal clicking.
“Where is he?”
Robert leaned closer to the phone.
“I’m here.”
Tyler exhaled so hard we both heard it.
“Okay.”
“Why does your father know where I’m going?”
Silence.
May you like
“Tyler.”
“I don’t know how much you know.”
