Chương 2
For the first time that morning, Daniel looked frightened.
Olivia’s fingers loosened from his sleeve.
Emma got into the sedan before either of them could ask another question.
Linda climbed in beside her and immediately began searching through her handbag. She found two peppermints, a pharmacy receipt, a packet of tissues, and a pair of reading glasses she accused Emma of moving the previous week.
“I did not move your glasses.”
“You put them on my kitchen counter.”
“Your kitchen counter is where you left them.”
“I leave them beside the lamp.”
“The lamp was being repaired.”
“That doesn’t mean the glasses wanted to move.”
Laura shut the door and took the front passenger seat. The driver pulled away from the courthouse. Through the rain-streaked rear window, Daniel remained under the portico with Olivia several feet from him.
Emma watched until a delivery truck blocked them from view.
Then she pressed both hands to her belly and let the smile leave her face.
Laura glanced back. “Contraction?”
“No.”
“Pain?”
“Not the kind you can file.”
Linda stopped digging through her bag. “What does that mean?”
“It means I need a minute.”
They gave her one.
Traffic crawled south through the Loop. The sedan’s wipers moved with a dull, steady rhythm. Pedestrians leaned into the rain, shoulders raised, coffee cups hidden beneath coats. A cyclist slapped the hood of a taxi and shouted something nobody inside the car could hear.
Laura’s phone lit up.
She read the message and looked toward Emma without speaking.
Emma noticed. “Say it.”
“Eleanor’s attorney called. She died at seven twelve this morning.”
Linda whispered, “Oh, no.”
Emma looked back through the wet glass.
Eleanor Carter had been ninety-one years old, sharp-tongued, suspicious of sympathy, and convinced that most restaurants used too much salt. She had spent the last three weeks in a private room at Northwestern Memorial, where she corrected nurses who called her sweetheart and refused flowers because they shed on the floor. The night before, Emma had sat beside her bed while the rain began against the hospital window.
Eleanor had been awake only ten minutes.
“Don’t let him turn me into a sentimental old woman,” she had said.
“I won’t.”
“And don’t name the baby after me.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“That sounded too quick.”
“I’m eight months pregnant. Everything I say sounds impatient.”
Eleanor’s mouth had moved in what might have been a smile. Her hand, thin and cool beneath the pulse monitor, closed around Emma’s fingers.
“Did Laura get the audit?”
“Yes.”
“Did she get all of it?”
Emma had hesitated.
Eleanor’s eyes opened wider. “That means no.”
“She has enough for the emergency order.”
“Enough is what people say when they’re afraid of the rest.”
The monitor had made three soft sounds. A nurse had looked through the glass panel in the door and then moved on.
Emma had leaned closer. “There’s a board consent from six years ago.”
“The one you signed.”
“Yes.”
“The false one.”
Emma had pulled her hand away.
Eleanor had not chased it. “Truth doesn’t improve because you leave it in a drawer.”
“It could ruin the case.”
“It could ruin you.”
“Yes.”
“Those are different concerns.”
Eleanor had closed her eyes. Her breathing became uneven, then settled.
“You told me the new trust decides who inherits the controlling shares,” Emma said. “Daniel thinks I’m threatening him with it.”
“You are.”
“I haven’t decided whether to submit it.”
“That isn’t the decision.”
“What is?”
“Whether you tell the truth before he makes you.”
Eleanor had slept after that. Emma stayed until nearly midnight, listening to the rain and the quiet machinery around the bed. She left without waking her.
Now, in the sedan, she looked at Laura.
“Was she alone?”
“Her night nurse was with her. The estate attorney arrived twenty minutes later.”
“Was the trust executed properly?”
Laura turned slightly in her seat. “According to the estate attorney, yes. Independent witnesses, physician’s capacity statement, separate counsel. Daniel will challenge it anyway.”
“He’ll say I manipulated her.”
“He already said that in the hallway to his lawyer.”
Linda stared at Emma. “What trust?”
Emma rested her head against the seat.
The baby shifted again.
“Eleanor changed her estate plan last month.”
“And you knew?”
“Yes.”
“What did she change?”
Laura looked out the windshield, giving Emma the choice to answer.
Emma rubbed the side of her belly where a heel or elbow pressed beneath the skin. “Daniel believed he would inherit her voting shares in Carter Urban Holdings. He believed that once she died, he’d own the company, the Gold Coast apartment, and most of the investment accounts tied to the family trust.”
Linda waited.
“He won’t.”
“Who will?”
“Not one person.”
“That isn’t what you told him outside.”
“I told him there was a secret that decides who inherits everything. I didn’t say one person gets it.”
Linda’s face hardened in the way it did when she thought Emma was being clever instead of honest. “You enjoyed saying it.”
Emma turned toward the window.
“Maybe for half a second.”
Laura looked back again. “Enjoying half a second doesn’t invalidate the evidence.”
“No,” Linda said. “But it might cost her later.”
The sedan stopped beneath the covered entrance to Emma’s obstetrician’s building. She had refused to cancel the appointment because the baby had not participated in Daniel’s fraud and should not lose a medical checkup because of it.
Linda looked at the clinic doors. “You planned to come here after court?”
“It was on the calendar.”
“You froze your husband’s accounts and scheduled an ultrasound twenty minutes later?”
“The appointment existed first.”
Laura almost smiled. “That may be the most Emma sentence I’ve ever heard.”
May you like
Emma stepped out of the car beneath the driver’s umbrella. Rainwater splashed over her black heels. By the time she reached the lobby, her dress was damp at the hem and her lower back had tightened into a persistent ache.
The waiting room was too warm. A television mounted in the corner played a daytime cooking program with the sound muted. A man in work boots slept with his arms crossed while a woman beside him filled out insurance forms on a clipboard. Someone had left a paper cup of tea on the children’s table.
