Chương 5
Walter’s voice lowered. “Because Naomi will turn this into something it is not.”
“What is it?” Ava asked.
“Family history.”
“Whose family?”
Walter’s face contracted.
For an instant, Ava wondered whether Naomi was his daughter. The possibility was so obvious and so ugly that she disliked herself for reaching for it. Walter saw the thought cross her face.
“No,” he said. “Nothing like that.”
“Then what?”
“Evelyn and I were close.”
“You were having an affair.”
Derek stood. “Dad?”
Walter stared at the carpet.
Carol Mercer had died seven years earlier after a long illness. Ava remembered Walter sitting beside the hospital bed, feeding his wife ice chips, combing her hair when she could no longer lift her arms. He had been tender and impatient in alternating breaths. He argued with nurses, slept in a vinyl chair, and drove home some afternoons to shower and return wearing a pressed shirt.
“How long?” Derek asked.
Walter shook his head.
“How long were you cheating on Mom?”
“It was not—”
“How long?”
Walter looked at his son. “On and off. Many years.”
Derek walked to the bathroom and shut the door.
No one spoke.
Through the connecting door, the nature program resumed with sound. A narrator described bears searching for food before winter. Ethan turned it down almost immediately.
Ava stared at the photograph. Evelyn and Walter looked happy. Not grandly happy. Not posed. His hand rested on her hip. Her shoulder touched his chest. Behind them, Naomi sat alone at the edge of the dock.
Ava called the number listed for Naomi’s architecture practice.
Walter reached across the table. “Ava.”
She moved the phone out of reach.
A receptionist answered. Ava identified herself and asked to speak with Naomi regarding Evelyn Shaw’s lake property.
There was a pause.
“What did you say your name was?” the receptionist asked.
“Ava Mercer.”
Another pause, longer this time.
“I’ll transfer you.”
Naomi answered without greeting.
“Where are you?”
Ava looked at Walter.
“At a hotel near the lake.”
“Were you inside the house?”
“The side door was opened. We were there less than ten minutes.”
“Who opened it?”
“My husband.”
“With Walter’s keys?”
“Yes.”
Naomi breathed out through her nose. “Is Walter with you?”
“He is.”
“Put me on speaker.”
Ava did.
Naomi’s voice entered the room small and precise.
“Walter, did you take your family to my mother’s house?”
Walter’s hand flattened on the table. “You knew there was an agreement.”
“I knew you were told not to enter.”
“By your attorney.”
“By my mother before she died.”
“She was confused.”
“She wrote it while you were not in the room.”
Walter’s face reddened. “That proves nothing.”
“It proved enough for the locks to be changed.”
“The side lock wasn’t changed,” Ava said.
“No,” Naomi replied. “Because I didn’t know he had that key.”
Walter looked away.
Naomi asked, “What did he tell you?”
“That he bought the house.”
A brief silence followed.
When Naomi spoke again, the precision had left her voice. “Of course he did.”
Ava heard a door close on Naomi’s end and imagined her leaving an office or stepping into a hallway.
“I’m sorry,” Ava said.
“Don’t apologize yet.”
The words landed without cruelty. That made them worse.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I don’t know what you’ve signed, what you’ve benefited from, or how much you knew.”
“I found out today.”
“Your husband knew.”
Ava looked toward the bathroom door.
“How do you know that?”
“He called my mother two years ago.”
Walter closed his eyes.
Derek opened the bathroom door.
“What?” he said.
Naomi continued. “He asked her to sign a transfer deed. She refused.”
Derek stared at the phone. “I spoke to a woman who said she was her caregiver.”
“That was my mother.”
“No. She said Evelyn was resting.”
“My mother sometimes said that when she didn’t want men pressuring her.”
Derek gripped the doorframe. “She told me the paperwork would be reviewed.”
“She told me a Mercer called and asked for her signature. She was frightened afterward.”
“I didn’t threaten her.”
“I didn’t say you did.”
Walter said, “Naomi, this is not helping.”
“Good. I am not trying to help you.”
Ava asked, “Did Evelyn leave instructions about the house?”
“Yes.”
“What instructions?”
“That it remain in the estate until the financial review was finished.”
“What financial review?”
Naomi was quiet.
“Your companies,” she said.
The room seemed to narrow.
“How many?”
“I don’t know yet. My mother’s attorney found transfers, property expenses, loan payments that didn’t match loan documents, and checks signed during periods when she was hospitalized.”
Walter stood so quickly the chair struck the wall.
“That is a lie.”
Naomi’s voice hardened. “I have copies.”
“You have no context.”
“I have dates.”
“You hated your mother.”
Derek said, “Stop.”
Walter did not.
“You ignored her for years,” he said. “You came back when you smelled money.”
Naomi inhaled sharply.
Ava watched Walter and understood something she had resisted for most of her adult life: his strongest weapon was not authority. It was intimacy. He learned where people kept their shame, then placed a hand over it when they opposed him.
Naomi recovered. “My attorney will contact you tomorrow, Ava.”
“Why me?”
“Because your name appears on two companies that received my mother’s money.”
Ava’s mouth went dry.
“Which companies?”
“Mercer Lodging Group and AM Property Services.”
AM Property Services had been created when Ava joined the family business. Walter had said the initials stood for Asset Management. She had joked that they made her sound vain.
“What amounts?” she asked.
“I’m not discussing evidence on a speakerphone with Walter present.”
“I understand.”
“Do not return to the house. Do not remove anything. Keep the photograph.”
Walter stepped toward the phone. “That photograph belongs to Evelyn’s estate.”
Naomi said, “Lily found it, didn’t she?”
Ava looked at Lily’s drawing on the desk next door.
May you like
“How did you know?”
“My mother told me there was a little girl in the family. She saw photographs online.”
