Chương 14
Letting Grant help would complicate that.
Maybe I needed it complicated.
“We’ll see.”
He nodded.
“That’s better than no.”
“Don’t make me regret it.”
“I make no promises.”
By one in the morning, we had run out of useful things to discover.
Grant took the couch.
I went to the back bedroom.
The mattress complained when I sat on it.
I placed Dad’s letter on the nightstand.
Through the wall, I heard Grant moving around, opening a cabinet, probably searching for another blanket.
Then he called, “Owen?”
“What?”
“Where do you keep sheets?”
“Hall closet.”
A pause.
“There are six closets in this tiny house.”
“The one in the hall.”
“I hate you.”
“Good night.”
A minute later he shouted, “Found them.”
I smiled into the dark.
Sleep came badly.
I dreamed nothing I could remember.
At seven, I woke to the smell of burned coffee.
Grant stood in the kitchen wearing yesterday’s clothes and staring accusingly at the coffee maker.
“This machine is defective.”
“You forgot the filter.”
“That feels unnecessarily judgmental.”
I fixed it.
While fresh coffee brewed, I checked my phone.
There were four messages.
One from Lydia asking whether Grant had murdered me.
Two from Mom.
The last was from an unknown number.
I opened it.
Mr. Hale, this is Rebecca Morrison.
Your mother called me early this morning.
I stared at the screen.
Grant noticed.
“What?”
I handed him the phone.
He read the message.
Then the next line.
She says you now own the cabin and found David’s old papers.
Grant looked up.
“There’s more.”
I took the phone back.
Rebecca’s final sentence was short.
Before you sign or repair anything, we need to talk about what your father promised my family.
I read the message twice.
Grant leaned against the counter.
“Well, that sounds cheerful.”
I typed back before I could invent reasons not to.
I’m at the cabin.
Can you meet today?
Her answer came less than a minute later.
Ten o’clock.
I’ll bring the original agreement David signed.
Grant stopped joking.
“Original?”
“Apparently.”
At nine-thirty, a dark blue Subaru pulled through the gate.
The woman who stepped out looked about sixty, with silver hair cut close to her jaw and the practical winter coat of someone who had lived near a lake long enough to stop dressing for photographs.
She carried a canvas document bag.
“You’re Owen.”
“Yes.”
She looked at Grant.
“And you must be Grant.”
Grant blinked.
“How do you know?”
Rebecca gave him a dry smile.
“Your father talked.”
“That seems to be causing problems even now.”
“Sounds like David.”
She did not hug us or offer condolences five years late.
I appreciated that.
Inside, she refused coffee and sat at the kitchen table.
Her eyes moved over the papers we had spread there.
“You found the B-17 file.”
“You knew about it?”
“I knew your father kept copies.”
She opened her bag.
“What did he promise your family?” I asked.
Rebecca studied me for a moment.
“Not my family.”
“My mother.”
That answer shifted something.
Grant sat straighter.
Rebecca removed a document from a plastic sleeve.
“After my father died, I became trustee for the property next door.”
She placed the paper between us.
“David and I finally agreed on how to correct the old easement.”
The document looked almost identical to the unsigned draft we had found.
Except this one had signatures.
Rebecca Morrison.
David Hale.
A notary stamp.
Dated eleven months before Dad died.
I looked at her.
“Why wasn’t it recorded?”
“Because your father asked me to wait.”
“Why?”
Rebecca folded her hands.
“He wanted the cabin transferred to you first.”
Grant closed his eyes briefly.
Of course.
Dad had created another dependency between two unfinished tasks.
“He thought recording everything together would simplify the title history,” Rebecca continued.
“Bell disagreed, by the way.”
“I’m beginning to like Bell.”
“You should.”
She tapped the document.
“Then David got sick again.”
“And after he died?”
“I called your mother.”
Grant muttered, “Here we go.”
Rebecca heard him.
“I told her I could record the release immediately.”
“What did she say?”
“That she wasn’t sure she planned to keep the cabin.”
My jaw tightened.
Rebecca continued.
“I said the agreement protected the property either way.”
“And?”
“She asked whether the old easement made the cabin harder to sell.”
Grant gave a quiet whistle.
I stared at the tabletop.
“What did you tell her?”
“The truth.”
Rebecca’s expression remained neutral.
“That an unresolved easement can concern buyers, lenders, and title companies, depending on how it appears in the record.”
“So she asked you not to record the release.”
“Yes.”
“Why would she do that?”
Grant answered before Rebecca could.
“Because she wanted the cabin to look worse.”
I looked at him.
He shrugged without humor.
“Distressed property.”
Rebecca nodded slowly.
“That was my assumption too.”
My stomach turned.
Mom had not merely ignored the property.
She had allowed a correctable title problem to remain because uncertainty helped justify selling quickly.
Maybe even cheaply.
I took out my phone.
Grant reached across the table.
“Don’t.”
I looked at his hand.
“Don’t what?”
“Call her angry.”
“I am angry.”
“I can see that.”
“That usually happens when somebody manipulates an estate for five years.”
Rebecca looked toward the window.
“I can come back.”
“No,” I said.
Grant kept his hand on the table.
“Finish this first.”
For once, he was right.
I hated that.
I put the phone down.
“What did Dad promise Mom?”
Rebecca reached into her bag again.
“A different thing.”
She pulled out a second sheet.
Not legal stationery.
Just a photocopy of Dad’s handwriting.
At the top he had written:
LAKE AGREEMENT.
Rebecca said, “David wanted my family to keep foot access to the north landing.”
“That’s in the draft.”
“Yes, but he also wanted something else.”
She pointed to the bottom.
If Owen owns the place, Rebecca can use the north path as long as she wants.
No vehicles.
No building.
May you like
No nonsense.
Grant smiled.
