Chương 5
“No.”
The admission made the library seem colder.
Elena told someone she would miss the meeting. A door shut on her end of the call.
“Mom, I’m coming.”
“You have work.”
“I also have a mother whose son forged her signature.”
“He is your brother.”
“That sentence is doing a lot of work.”
Lillian rubbed the hinge of her reading glasses with her thumb. “Do not fly across the country in a panic. Dana is handling the legal matters. Marcus changed the access codes. The police documented everything.”
“What are you not telling me?”
The question annoyed her because it was accurate.
“Nothing important.”
“Then tell me the unimportant part.”
Lillian looked at Arturo’s photograph on the desk. He was fifty-nine in the picture, squinting into sun off the Pacific, one hand raised as if protesting the camera.
“Maxwell says you put me up to changing the will.”
Elena gave a short, humorless laugh. “Of course he does.”
“I had not told him it was changed.”
“You announced it in the driveway.”
“He needed to understand the consequence.”
“He’ll hear punishment. He won’t hear consequence.”
“Is there a meaningful difference?”
“To you, yes. To him, maybe not.”
Lillian bristled. “I did not call for interpretation.”
“No. You called because something terrible happened and you’re trying to sound like you’re informing the board.”
“Do not speak to me that way.”
“I’m sorry.”
The apology arrived too quickly. Elena had been apologizing quickly since childhood, a habit developed in a house where Maxwell argued until everyone else grew tired.
Lillian heard it now and hated what it suggested about the family she had managed.
“You do not need to apologize for being frightened,” she said.
“I’m not frightened.”
“Yes, you are.”
“So are you.”
Lillian stared at the phone.
Elena’s voice softened. “I’ll take the evening flight.”
“Tomorrow morning.”
“Tonight.”
“You become ill when you fly overnight.”
“I become unpleasant. There’s a difference.”
“Tomorrow morning,” Lillian repeated. “I need one night before this becomes a family summit.”
Elena hesitated. “Promise you won’t let him in.”
“I promise.”
“Promise you won’t meet him alone.”
Lillian thought of the years in which she had trusted Maxwell’s presence more than anyone else’s.
“I promise.”
After the call, Pilar brought toast, sliced pear, and scrambled eggs Lillian had not requested. She set the tray on the low table and stood with her hands folded over her apron.
“Mr. Maxwell is not coming to lunch Sunday?” she asked.
“No.”
Pilar’s eyes rested briefly on Lillian’s face. “Should I take his favorite wine back to the cellar?”
“Yes.”
“He does not have a favorite wine. He likes whichever bottle has the largest number on it.”
Lillian almost smiled.
Pilar picked up the empty coffee cup from the desk. “I never liked that he called the blue room wasted space.”
“He thought it should be a gym.”
“He has a gym.”
“He wanted a better one.”
“People should be careful when every room must serve them.”
Pilar carried the cup toward the door.
“Did you know?” Lillian asked.
Pilar stopped.
“Know what?”
“That he was planning to move things.”
“No.”
“Did you suspect anything?”
Pilar considered the question. “He asked which closets you use.”
“When?”
“Three weeks ago.”
Lillian set down her fork.
“What exactly did he ask?”
“He said he wanted to send you new shelving. He asked whether you still use the cedar closet upstairs and whether Mr. Arturo’s clothes were there.”
The room became very still.
Arturo’s suits remained in the cedar closet. Not all of them. Lillian had donated most after his death, but seven hung inside garment bags: the charcoal suit from Elena’s wedding, the dinner jacket he wore on their thirtieth anniversary, a tan linen suit with a wine stain near the cuff.
Maxwell knew she had not touched them in years.
“Did he ask anything else?”
“He wanted to know where you keep the silver service.”
Lillian’s stomach tightened.
Pilar moved closer. “Mrs. Morales, what happened?”
Lillian told her.
Pilar listened without interruption. When Lillian finished, she sat in the chair opposite without asking permission, something she had done only once before, after Arturo died.
“I should have told you,” Pilar said.
“You had no reason to think—”
“I thought he was being nosy. He is always nosy.”
“That is not your fault.”
“He asked about the garden sculptures too.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That the bronze cranes are bolted into concrete and he should try lifting one if he wants a hernia.”
Despite everything, Lillian laughed.
Pilar did not.
“Change the staff codes,” she said. “All of them. Delivery codes too. And the garage remote in the Bentley, because Mr. Maxwell borrowed it last month.”
Lillian’s laughter stopped.
“He returned the car.”
“He could have copied the remote.”
Marcus handled it within twenty minutes.
By noon, every gate code, smart-lock credential, alarm passphrase, garage transmitter, and digital guest authorization connected to the property had been reset. Marcus contacted the security vendor and requested an audit of prior entries. He also reviewed the footage from the previous month.
Maxwell had visited six times.
Lillian remembered four.
On one of the unremembered visits, he entered at 2:14 on a Tuesday afternoon using the code assigned to a pool-maintenance contractor. He remained on the property for thirty-seven minutes and left through the service drive.
The contractor had been at another house that day.
Marcus brought the footage to the library. “The camera angle shows him entering the east wing.”
“What is in the east wing?” Dana asked through the speakerphone.
“The archive room,” Lillian said.
“And?”
“Arturo’s office.”
“Any financial records?”
“Old ones.”
“Estate documents?”
“Copies. Nothing current.”
“Keys?”
Lillian looked toward the locked drawer in her library desk.
“A spare key to the safe-deposit box.”
Dana went quiet.
May you like
The key was gone.
The drawer had no sign of forced entry. Maxwell had known where Lillian kept the desk key since he was a teenager. He may also have known she moved it after Arturo’s death.
