Chương 11
“So does the amendment.”
“Yes.”
“Then answer.”
“I can’t.”
Maya looked at the gray lockbox.
For the first time since finding Caroline’s letter, she wondered whether taking it had been a mistake.
Not because Richard owned it.
Because everyone suddenly wanted control of what was inside.
“I’m not bringing you the originals Monday.”
Caleb was silent.
Then he said, “Good.”
The answer startled her.
“What?”
“Bring copies.”
“Harlan told me not to give you originals.”
“For once, Harlan and I agree.”
Maya pressed her fingers against her forehead.
“I hate all of you.”
“That seems reasonable.”
“You don’t get points for being charming.”
“I wasn’t trying to be.”
He sounded tired now.
Human, irritatingly.
Maya said, “Who drafted the trust?”
Another silence.
This one felt different.
“Caleb.”
“I did not draft it.”
“You said that.”
“Ask Eleanor who did.”
Maya lowered the phone.
Across the room, sunlight had reached the lockbox and turned one scratched corner silver.
“Why would my grandmother know?”
Caleb’s answer came carefully.
“Because your mother didn’t create that trust alone.”
Maya sat down without meaning to.
The edge of the couch caught the back of her knees, and the phone stayed pressed against her ear while the room seemed to rearrange itself around Caleb’s sentence.
“Who helped her?”
“I didn’t say someone helped her.”
“You said she didn’t create it alone.”
“I chose those words carefully.”
“I noticed.”
Caleb breathed out.
“Talk to Eleanor before you talk to Richard again.”
“Why?”
“Because she can tell you what she personally witnessed.”
“She already did.”
“Not all of it.”
Maya stared at the photographs of the trust documents still open on her laptop.
“How do you know what she told me?”
“I don’t.”
“Then stop talking like you do.”
“That’s fair.”
“No, fair would be everybody telling me the truth in the same twenty-four-hour period.”
He did not answer.
Maya rubbed her bare foot against the one still wearing a sock.
It irritated her enough that she pulled the sock off and threw it toward the laundry basket.
She missed by three feet.
“Did Grandma help Mom create the trust?”
“Ask her.”
“Did you?”
“I advised Caroline on a separate matter.”
“What matter?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“Did it involve my father?”
A car horn sounded faintly on Caleb’s end.
He was not at home.
Or maybe he lived somewhere people honked before seven in the morning.
“Caleb.”
“Yes.”
“Did it involve my father?”
“I cannot answer that question.”
She closed her eyes.
“You’re unbelievably annoying.”
“I’ve been told.”
“By my mother?”
The silence lasted just long enough.
Maya opened her eyes.
“Oh my God.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“Maya, be careful about constructing conclusions from what I’m legally unable to say.”
“Were you this irritating with her?”
“Yes.”
The answer came so quickly she laughed once.
It escaped before she could stop it.
Caleb laughed too, but only for a second.
Then the weight returned.
“She didn’t trust easily,” he said.
Maya’s smile disappeared.
“That sounds like privileged information.”
“It sounds like an observation.”
“You knew her.”
“I met with her several times.”
Maya looked toward the kitchen, where the coffee maker waited empty.
She had bought the machine because it could be programmed overnight and had never once programmed it.
Her mother would have called that paying extra money to preserve a bad habit.
“Did she ever mention me?”
Caleb did not answer immediately.
Maya hated herself for asking.
“Forget it.”
“She did.”
Her throat tightened.
“What did she say?”
“That isn’t a conversation we should have while I’m standing outside a courthouse.”
So that explained the traffic.
“You’re at court?”
“I have a hearing at eight.”
“And you answered me?”
“You called three times.”
“I called once.”
“I’m including yesterday.”
“That is not how calls work.”
“No.”
For another second they sounded almost normal.
Then Maya looked at Caroline’s signature again.
“Did she want me to find this?”
“I don’t know.”
“Would you tell me if you did?”
“Yes.”
She believed him, which was inconvenient.
“I’m going to Grandma’s.”
“Good.”
“You don’t get to approve.”
“Noted.”
“And Monday is still copies only.”
“Yes.”
Maya ended the call before he could say anything else.
She made coffee strong enough to qualify as an administrative error, showered, and changed clothes twice because the first sweater smelled faintly like the restaurant where she had worn it Thursday.
By seven twenty, the lockbox was inside a reusable grocery bag on the passenger-side floor.
She disliked how much that looked like she was transporting stolen property.
Technically, she might have been.
Eleanor Bennett lived seventeen minutes away when traffic behaved and thirty when it remembered it was Monday.
Maya reached her building in twenty-six.
Her grandmother had already opened the apartment door before Maya knocked.
“You look terrible,” Eleanor said.
“Good morning.”
“Did you sleep?”
“Apparently with one sock on.”
“That doesn’t answer me.”
“No.”
Eleanor stepped aside.
She wore navy slacks, a cream blouse, and pearl earrings.
At seventy-eight, she dressed for breakfast as though a bank manager might arrive unexpectedly.
Maya had once seen her take out the trash in lipstick.
The apartment smelled like toast.
A television murmured from the living room, where two morning anchors appeared deeply concerned about airport delays.
Eleanor noticed the grocery bag.
“You brought it.”
“Yes.”
“Your father knows?”
“Yes.”
“That was foolish.”
“Taking it or telling him?”
“Both.”
Maya followed her into the kitchen.
A plate waited at the table with toast cut diagonally and a hard-boiled egg.
“I’m not hungry.”
“I didn’t ask.”
“Grandma.”
“You become unpleasant when you don’t eat.”
“I’m already unpleasant.”
“Yes, imagine the danger.”
Maya sat.
Eleanor poured coffee into a cup with a faded picture of Mount Rushmore on it.
Maya peeled the egg because resistance would take longer.
“Who drafted Mom’s trust?”
Eleanor stopped pouring.
Not dramatically.
The coffee simply reached a little too close to the rim.
May you like
She put the pot down.
“Who told you to ask me?”
