Part 4
“Can you authenticate it?” she asked.
“Not tonight.”
“Any obvious edits?”
“Not obvious.”
“That isn’t the same thing.”
“It never is.”
Mara called Sarah Wren.
Clara had refused dinner but eaten half a piece of toast after Sarah cut it into narrow strips. She was sitting on the living room floor between two elderly spaniels, still wearing her funeral dress. The scratch on her cheek had darkened slightly. Sarah had cleaned it with a cotton pad and been told not to make a fuss.
When the phone rang, Clara muted the television.
Sarah listened, said very little, then held the phone against her chest.
“Detective Keene wants to ask you something.”
“About the instruction?”
Sarah frowned. “How did you know?”
“Because that’s why Mom made the recording.”
Sarah sat on the couch. “Clara, did you know what was in the chest?”
“I knew something was.”
“How?”
Clara looked toward the rain-dark window.
Two weeks before Margaret disappeared, she had come into Clara’s room after midnight. She wore socks but no shoes and carried the silver recorder in one hand. Clara had been awake reading beneath the blanket.
Margaret sat on the edge of the bed.
“Do you remember the game with the portraits?” she asked.
Clara did. During long estate dinners, Margaret used to send her looking for tiny objects hidden in the paintings: a blue feather, a brass key, a dog with one white ear.
“If I go somewhere and Uncle Julian tells you not to look for me,” Margaret said, “go to the portrait where the green stone points down.”
Clara had laughed because she thought it was another game.
Margaret did not.
“Say it back.”
“The portrait where the green stone points down.”
“And what do you do there?”
“You didn’t say.”
Margaret touched the scratch already forming on the recorder’s battery case.
“Use what he gives you.”
Clara had spent six weeks believing she remembered the conversation wrong.
Then she entered the chapel and saw the portrait of her mother wearing the emerald brooch, the stone painted like a small green arrow. Beneath it sat the walnut chest. Beside the flowers, Julian had placed the ceremonial hammer.
Use what he gives you.
Clara told Sarah everything.
On the phone, Mara went quiet.
“Why didn’t you tell me before?” she asked.
“I told Uncle Julian.”
Sarah closed her eyes.
“What did he say?”
“He said Mom had been confused. He said she sometimes made up things when she didn’t sleep.”
“Did your mother have trouble sleeping?”
“She worked late.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Clara looked down at the dogs. One had rested its gray muzzle on her knee.
“No,” she said.
Mara asked whether Margaret had given her anything else. Clara said no. Mara asked whether she knew where the copied documents were hidden. Clara said she did not.
Sarah took the phone back.
“Clara stays here,” she said.
“For tonight,” Mara replied. “After that, child services will make an emergency placement recommendation.”
“Recommend this house.”
“I already did.”
“Will Julian fight it?”
“Yes.”
Sarah looked at Clara, who was pretending not to listen.
“Good,” Sarah said. “Let him do it in writing.”
Julian did.
At eight the next morning, his attorney filed an emergency petition in Essex Probate and Family Court alleging that Sarah had exploited Clara’s grief, encouraged destruction of valuable property, and obstructed the lawful guardian’s access to the child.
Lydia learned about the petition when Julian placed a copy on her desk.
Her office occupied the third floor of a converted textile mill overlooking the Grayhaven River. On clear days, she could see the chapel spire above the trees of the Vale estate. That morning the river was the color of old steel.
She read the petition twice.
“You called Sarah emotionally unstable,” she said.
“She has a documented history of depression.”
“After her husband died.”
“It remains documented.”
“She has no criminal record, no child welfare complaints, and a twenty-year career in public schools.”
Julian loosened his tie. He had not changed his shirt since the memorial. “You are not representing her.”
“I’m not representing you either.”
“You represent the trust.”
“The trust is now the subject of a criminal investigation.”
“An allegation is not an investigation.”
“The police served a preservation demand on our servers at seven fifteen.”
He said nothing.
Lydia turned to the final page. Her own name appeared in an affidavit attached to the petition.
She read the paragraph slowly.
Attorney Lydia Thorne observed marked deterioration in Margaret Vale’s emotional condition during the weeks preceding her voluntary disappearance, including paranoia, erratic accusations, and threats to abandon her custodial responsibilities.
“I never said this.”
“You said she was agitated.”
“At a trustees’ meeting.”
“You said she had become suspicious.”
“She discovered missing money.”
“You said she threatened to leave.”
“She said she would leave the board.”
Julian leaned against her desk. “The language can be revised.”
“My name is under it.”
“It hasn’t been submitted with your signature.”
“It says I will testify.”
“You will.”
Lydia placed the petition down.
The radiator clicked near the window. Someone in the office kitchen laughed at something, then lowered their voice, remembering Julian was present.
“I’m retaining counsel,” Lydia said.
His expression barely changed. “For what purpose?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“That is an expensive way to be dramatic.”
“I prepared minutes for meetings that did not occur.”
“At Margaret’s instruction.”
“No.”
“She approved the restructuring.”
“No.”
“She benefited from it.”
“No.”
Each answer made him look less familiar.
He pushed away from the desk. “You are frightened. I understand that. But fear is not a moral revelation.”
Lydia almost laughed.
He had said something similar the night Margaret vanished.
Fear is not evidence.
They had been standing in the estate’s boathouse while rain struck the roof hard enough to hide other sounds. Margaret’s purse lay open on the floor. One strap had torn. Julian held her phone in his hand.
May you like
Lydia had been wet to the knees.
“Call an ambulance,” she had said.
