Chương 3
Eleanor looked at Mara.
“Sit down.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re looming.”
“I drove four and a half hours.”
“That was unwise.”
“So was inviting him into the house.”
The sentence escaped before Mara could stop it.
Nora lowered her eyes. Detective Grant became interested in the evidence bags.
Eleanor’s face did not change, but her hand moved beneath the blanket.
“Yes,” she said. “It was.”
The physician released Eleanor shortly after midnight with instructions that she not remain alone. She refused the wheelchair at the exit, accepted it after three steps, and complained that hospital blankets were designed by people who disliked fabric.
Mara drove them back to the estate.
The Vale house stood on a rise above winter-bare gardens and a line of dark trees. The oldest section had been built in the 1920s, though Charles had added the marble study, an indoor pool no one used, and a gallery long enough to make family photographs look like evidence in a museum.
Police tape crossed the study door.
Eleanor stopped when she saw it.
“This is absurd.”
“It’s a crime scene,” Mara said.
“It is my room.”
“Tonight it is both.”
Nora offered to prepare tea. Eleanor asked for Scotch. Mara said no. Eleanor asked whether Mara had recently acquired a medical degree. Nora made tea.
They sat in the smaller morning room, where the furniture had been chosen for comfort rather than effect. Eleanor held a spare pair of glasses with thick brown frames she disliked. Mara sat opposite her in an armchair too low for military posture and watched Nora set down the tray.
“What exactly was in the envelope?” Mara asked.
“A certified copy of a deed recorded eleven days ago.”
“Transferring the property to whom?”
“Harrowmere Preservation Holdings.”
Mara waited.
Eleanor stirred sugar into her tea, though she had taken it without sugar for as long as Mara could remember.
“Adrian controls the company,” she said.
“Directly?”
“Through another entity. He believed I would not follow the chain.”
“How did you get the copy?”
“The town clerk’s office mailed it.”
“Why?”
“Because I requested that any filing affecting the property be sent to me directly.”
“Why would you make that request unless you already suspected him?”
Eleanor’s spoon touched the side of the cup.
“I had questions.”
“How long?”
“A few weeks.”
“And you didn’t call me.”
“You were busy.”
“You don’t know whether I was busy.”
“You are always busy.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It is the answer I had.”
Nora stood near the doorway with her hands clasped. Mara glanced at her.
“You can go home.”
“I live in the east wing.”
“I mean you don’t need to stay in the room.”
Nora looked at Eleanor, not Mara.
“Stay,” Eleanor said.
The small decision irritated Mara more than it should have. She leaned back, forcing her hands open.
“What did you sign?”
Eleanor removed her glasses and polished them with the edge of a linen napkin.
“Adrian brought several estate-planning documents last month. Amendments to the charitable trust, management authorizations, a revised property schedule.”
“Did you read them?”
“Most.”
“Most?”
“I had been at the ophthalmologist. My vision was blurred. He said the signature pages were identical to the drafts we had reviewed.”
“And you believed him.”
“I had believed him for twelve years.”
Mara looked toward the dark window.
Her reflection hovered over the glass in formal uniform, straight-backed and severe. Behind her stood the outline of the house she had spent half her life escaping.
“What was the charitable trust?” she asked.
Eleanor took a sip of tea.
“The estate was not meant to pass to you.”
Nora’s head lifted.
Mara looked back at her mother. “I didn’t ask whether it was.”
“No, but it is the question beneath the others.”
“The question beneath the others is whether your adviser stole your house.”
“And if he had not, you would still have come here eventually expecting to discuss inheritance.”
“I came because he frightened you.”
“You came because someone else took control.”
The accuracy of it made Mara stand.
She crossed to the fireplace, though no fire had been lit. On the mantel stood a photograph taken the day she had graduated from West Point. Charles looked delighted. Eleanor looked proud in the formal, careful way she wore pride when other people were present.
Mara turned the photograph facedown.
Nora quietly left the room.
Eleanor watched her go.
“That was rude,” she said.
“I did not come for the house.”
“I know.”
“Then why did you say it?”
“Because when I am frightened, I become cruel before anyone else can.”
Mara stared at her.
Eleanor replaced the thick-framed glasses.
“I am trying to improve,” she added. “At seventy-eight, progress lacks drama.”
The old dry humor nearly opened something between them. Mara did not let it.
“What was the estate supposed to become?”
“A residential and training center for military families caring for injured veterans.”
Mara turned fully.
“You never mentioned that.”
“I had not finalized it.”
“Why military families?”
Eleanor looked into her tea.
“Your father spent his last year saying we had money and no useful imagination.”
Charles had died six years earlier after a brief illness that had made every room in the house smell faintly of antiseptic and oranges. During his final month, Mara had been deployed. She arrived eight hours after he died.
Her mother had said, You always arrive after the decision has been made.
Mara had never forgiven the sentence, perhaps because she had not forgiven herself.
“Did Adrian know about the plan?” she asked.
“He developed the structure.”
“So he knew the estate would leave your personal control.”
“Yes.”
“And possibly his.”
“Yes.”
“Did he object?”
“Never directly.”
Detective Grant called at eight the next morning.
May you like
He had located Adrian’s attorney, who said his client would cooperate voluntarily after reviewing the allegations. Adrian denied stealing anything. He claimed Eleanor had given him the envelope and later become confused during an emotional disagreement.
“Confused,” Eleanor repeated.
