Part 7
Elena looked at her. “You don’t need to explain me.”
“You explain everybody.”
“That doesn’t mean you have to.”
Clara asked, “Why would Julia create a four-million-dollar trust?”
The room became quiet again.
Martin answered. “The funds came from your father.”
Clara felt something cold pass through her.
“Did he know?”
“Not about Nora. Julia demanded compensation for what he had done. I negotiated it.”
“You negotiated hush money.”
“I secured independence for her.”
“Using company money?”
“No. Personal assets.”
“Disclosed to whom?”
“No one.”
“Taxed?”
“Yes.”
“Documented?”
“Yes.”
“Legal?”
Martin hesitated.
Elena looked up from the file.
Clara said, “That was not a difficult question.”
“The transfer was legal. The circumstances around it could expose the estate to claims.”
“Whose claims?”
“Yours. Other beneficiaries. Possibly the company, depending on how aggressively counsel interprets historical obligations.”
“And you thought taking the originals to New York before Nora’s hearing was appropriate.”
“The trust counsel requested them.”
“Did the trust counsel request my sister’s letter?”
“No.”
“My mother’s letter?”
“No.”
“The photographs?”
“No.”
Martin removed his glasses and pressed the bridge of his nose. Without them, he looked less authoritative and more tired.
“I made a mistake,” he said.
Nora stared at him.
It was apparently not a phrase she had heard from him.
Clara did not soften. “Which one?”
“Today.”
“Only today?”
“No.”
He put his glasses back on.
Clara took the portfolio and set it on her lap. “These documents stay with me.”
Martin’s professional instincts returned. “You have no clear ownership right to all of them.”
“Nora?”
The girl looked at Elena.
Elena said, “The things that belonged to Anna should stay with Nora’s guardian.”
“I agree,” Clara said. “We’ll separate them together. Not on a train. Not in a law office that reports to him.”
Martin’s mouth tightened. “You need counsel.”
“I have counsel.”
“Mercer North’s general counsel has conflicts.”
“I’ll hire someone else.”
“You do not yet know the scope.”
“That is why people hire lawyers.”
Elena’s expression suggested reluctant approval.
Nora rubbed her thumb over the bottle cap.
Clara turned toward her. “Where are you staying?”
“With Ms. Reyes.”
“Is that safe?”
Nora frowned. “Yes.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“Our building is old,” Elena said. “The radiator bangs. The front lock works when people remember to pull the door hard. It is safe.”
Clara nodded. “All right.”
She had almost offered a hotel suite. The impulse came from habit: identify discomfort, purchase an alternative. She saw how it would sound and let it pass.
“Can we go somewhere more private?” she asked.
Elena said, “My apartment is private.”
Martin objected immediately. “The documents should not be moved without being inventoried.”
Nora looked at Clara. “He says that when he wants to keep something.”
Martin’s face hardened. “I say that because chain of custody matters.”
“What custody?” Clara asked. “No crime has been reported.”
“Not yet.”
“Is there a crime in these files?”
He did not answer.
Clara stood.
Daniel returned after she opened the door. He confirmed that no one had called police and that Martin had declined to report the portfolio stolen. He asked them to sign a brief incident record stating that the property had been recovered and no injuries had occurred.
Nora read the form before Elena signed.
Daniel noticed. “You check everything?”
“Now I do.”
He nodded as though that made sense.
Marissa brought a plain cardboard file box from the office supply cabinet. Together, Clara and Nora placed the portfolio inside it so none of the loose papers could fall. Martin watched every item disappear.
Clara rolled her silver suitcase with one hand and carried the box with the other.
At the corridor entrance, she stopped.
Martin stood behind them.
“You’re not coming,” she said.
“I have information you need.”
“You had thirty-two years.”
“I also have records that are not in that box.”
“Then you can bring them when my new lawyer asks.”
“Clara.”
She looked at him.
He lowered his voice. “There are people at Mercer North who will not treat this as a family matter.”
“Neither will I.”
His eyes searched her face. “Be careful whom you tell.”
She thought of the deleted messages, the private facility deposit, the false public appeals for Julia, the eulogy she had delivered.
“No,” she said. “You were careful. I’m going to be accurate.”
She walked away with Nora and Elena.
The station swallowed them into ordinary movement.
Outside, Chicago was bright and windy. The three of them stopped beneath the terminal awning while rideshare cars edged toward the curb and drivers leaned on their horns with weary hostility.
Clara’s car service waited half a block away.
Elena had taken the train downtown. She seemed uncertain whether to accept a ride from a woman whose family had structured the last three decades of her friend’s life.
“We can take the L,” she said.
“With the files?” Clara asked.
“You carried them through a station.”
“That was before I understood what they were.”
“You still don’t.”
Clara looked at the cardboard box.
“No,” she said. “I don’t.”
Nora stood between them, holding the silver suitcase handle because Clara’s hands were full. The suitcase was nearly as tall as her hip.
A gust lifted her hair.
“Mom liked the train,” she said.
Clara looked down.
“The elevated train?”
“All trains. She said nobody could call you from the next car and ask where you were.”
Elena smiled sadly. “She liked being temporarily unreachable.”
Clara thought of the conference train she had canceled. “So do I.”
Nora did not smile, but something in her expression eased.
They took Clara’s car.
The driver glanced at the cardboard box but asked no questions. Clara sat in the front because Nora chose the rear seat beside Elena. The silver suitcase went in the trunk. The portfolio stayed on Nora’s lap.
May you like
Traffic crawled north along the river.
Clara watched the city through the window, seeing familiar buildings without attaching meaning to them. Her phone continued to vibrate. She turned it off.
