Chương 4
Ava told the children that the adults needed to talk next door.
“Are we going home?” Ethan asked.
“Yes.”
“Tonight?”
“In the morning.”
“Are the police coming?”
“No one has called them.”
“Yet?”
Derek said, “No police are coming, buddy.”
Ava looked at him. He looked back, realizing too late that he could not promise that.
“We don’t know,” she said.
Ethan nodded solemnly. He trusted uncertainty more than reassurance now.
Marcus brought his laptop into the adjoining room. Walter remained standing until Ava told him to sit. Derek took the chair near the window. Ava sat at the small round table and placed Lily’s photograph beside the lamp.
Marcus opened the accounting system.
“Shaw Residential Holdings first appeared as a lender to Mercer Construction twenty-three years ago,” he said. “There are quarterly transfers for the next nine years. Some are labeled interest payments. Some are distributions. Some have no memo.”
Walter said, “Private loans.”
“Where are the agreements?” Ava asked.
“In storage.”
“What storage?”
“My office archives.”
Marcus did not look up. “There are scanned promissory notes attached to three entries.”
Walter frowned.
Ava noticed.
“Show me.”
Marcus opened the first document. It bore Walter’s signature and Evelyn Shaw’s. The amount was four hundred thousand dollars. The stated purpose was acquisition of equipment and working capital for Mercer Construction. The repayment term was five years.
“Was it repaid?” Ava asked.
Marcus switched to a ledger. “Not according to these records.”
Walter leaned back. “Those books are incomplete.”
“Where are the complete books?”
“I told you. Archives.”
“The second loan was six hundred thousand,” Marcus said. “The third was one point two million.”
Derek stared at the screen. “Dad.”
Walter ignored him.
Ava scrolled through the attachments. The signatures changed slightly over the years. Evelyn’s early signature was broad, impatient. Later, it became smaller and less steady.
“What did she do?” Ava asked.
“She inherited money.”
“How much?”
“That was not my concern.”
“You borrowed more than two million dollars from her.”
“For the business.”
“Which business bought our first house?”
Walter’s eyes shifted.
Ava felt the answer before he spoke.
“Mercer Construction purchased several properties,” he said.
“Our first house was in your name.”
“I sold it to you below market.”
“You gave us the down payment.”
“As parents do.”
“With her money?”
“No.”
“Prove it.”
Walter stood. “I will not be interrogated by my daughter-in-law.”
Ava stood too. “You called me your daughter for fourteen years when it helped you.”
Derek rubbed his forehead. “Can everybody stop?”
“No,” Ava said. “Nobody is stopping.”
Walter’s breathing had quickened. He adjusted the cuff of his beige linen shirt though the sleeve was short.
“You are creating danger where none exists,” he said. “Evelyn and I had a private financial arrangement. She was compensated. She had use of company resources. Repairs were made to her properties. Bills were paid.”
“Did she know how much money moved?”
“Of course.”
“Did her family?”
“She had no close family.”
The door to the children’s room opened.
Lily stood there.
“Yes, she did,” she said.
The adults turned.
Lily held the photograph’s cardboard backing, which she had removed from the frame. Ava had not noticed her take it.
“There’s writing,” Lily said.
She crossed the room and set the backing on the table.
In faded blue ink, someone had written: Evelyn, Walter, and Naomi at the lake, August 2014.
Ava looked at the photograph again. Behind Evelyn and Walter, at the edge of the dock, a teenage girl sat with her feet in the water. She was half obscured by Walter’s shoulder.
“Who is Naomi?” Ava asked.
Walter did not answer.
Marcus was already searching.
He found an obituary for Evelyn Shaw. It named one surviving daughter: Naomi Shaw Keene, of Chicago.
Ava watched Walter read the screen.
“You said she had no close family.”
“They were estranged.”
“That isn’t the same thing.”
“You know nothing about them.”
“Then tell me.”
Walter sat again, slowly this time.
“Naomi blamed me for her mother’s choices.”
“What choices?”
“Investing in the company. Helping us. Refusing to give Naomi early access to her trust.”
“Were you in charge of the trust?”
“No.”
“Were you a beneficiary?”
“No.”
“Did you have power of attorney?”
Walter’s eyes lifted to hers.
Marcus stopped typing.
Derek said, “Dad?”
Walter looked toward the darkening window. “For a period.”
Ava’s skin went cold.
“What period?”
“When Evelyn’s health declined.”
“What was wrong with her?”
“She had memory issues.”
“What kind?”
“She was evaluated.”
“For dementia?”
Walter pressed his lips together.
Marcus closed the laptop halfway, as though the screen itself had become indecent.
Ava sat down. “You borrowed money from a woman who later gave you power of attorney while she had memory problems.”
“The loans came first.”
“All of them?”
“The major ones.”
“What does that mean?”
Walter rubbed his palms together. Ava had never seen him do that. His hands had always been the most composed part of him, whether he was signing contracts or carving Thanksgiving turkey.
“Some transfers continued,” he said.
“After the diagnosis?”
“They were authorized.”
“By whom?”
“Evelyn.”
“While you held her power of attorney?”
“She wanted the business protected.”
“Did she want you to tell your family that you owned her lake house?”
Walter looked at Derek. “I told you it was complicated.”
“You told me it was ours,” Derek said.
“I told you it would be.”
“You let me bring my kids there.”
“I believed it would be settled.”
“By taking it after she died?”
“I did not take anything.”
The distinction enraged Ava more than a confession might have. Walter had entered a dead woman’s property with an old key, installed his family in its driveway, and still believed ownership was a technicality beneath the larger truth of what he deserved.
Ava opened her phone and searched for Naomi Shaw Keene.
Walter saw the name on the screen.
“Don’t,” he said.
It was the first time he sounded afraid.
May you like
Ava paused.
Derek looked at his father. “Why not?”
