Part 6
“Did you see a draft?”
“Yes.”
“Where is it?”
“I gave my copy back to Thomas.”
“Why?”
“He said Lenora objected to the distribution limits and wanted revisions.”
“Did he agree?”
“He said, ‘She wants the keys because she’s offering gas money.’”
The sentence sounded so much like her father that Evelyn had to look away.
Samuel rubbed his palms together. “Two days later, he told me the deal was off.”
“Why?”
“He didn’t say.”
“Did Adrian know?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you attend any meetings with him?”
“One. Adrian argued that the foundation’s grants should be reviewed by a joint investment committee. Thomas told him charity was not a dowry.”
Evelyn’s eyes returned to Samuel.
“When was that?”
“May twenty-ninth.”
Five days before Thomas entered the hospital.
“Who else heard it?”
“Lenora. Edmund. Caroline Senn.”
“Did Thomas seem ill?”
“Tired. Angry. He kept rubbing the center of his chest, but he said it was reflux.”
Samuel’s voice broke slightly on the final word. He cleared his throat and looked embarrassed.
Evelyn slid a glass of water toward him.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I thought you knew.”
“Everyone keeps thinking I know.”
“Your father protected you from the uglier parts.”
“He left me in charge of them.”
“Yes.”
The agreement between them was painful enough that neither spoke for a while.
Samuel unfolded one spreadsheet.
“If the Vale transfer is blocked, we still have the funding problem.”
“Can we survive?”
“Yes, but not without breaking promises.”
“Which ones?”
He showed her.
A maternal health clinic in North Philadelphia. Two rural emergency departments. A scholarship program for nursing students. A housing partnership converting an abandoned school into apartments for families leaving shelters.
Evelyn read the numbers twice.
Her father had built his reputation by refusing to treat philanthropic commitments as public relations. He told recipients the money would arrive, then made certain it did. Now his last promises competed with one another.
“Why didn’t he reduce the grants when the sale failed?” she asked.
“Because he believed he could replace the money.”
“With the Vale loan.”
“At first.”
“And after he rejected it?”
Samuel looked at the spreadsheet. “He planned to sell his personal art collection and contribute the proceeds.”
Evelyn’s attention sharpened.
“The collection belongs to the estate.”
“Yes.”
“Has it been appraised?”
“Your estate counsel halted the sale after his death.”
“Who requested the halt?”
Samuel hesitated.
“Adrian.”
The answer should not have surprised her, yet it did.
“On what authority?”
“He said you were in no condition to make irreversible decisions.”
“Was he wrong?”
Samuel’s face tightened. “I don’t know how to answer that.”
“Honestly.”
“You were sleeping two hours a night and signing condolence notes until your hand cramped. So no, I didn’t think you should approve an art sale. I also didn’t know the Vales intended to replace it with a control transfer.”
Evelyn closed the spreadsheet.
There it was: the difficulty Naomi had warned her about. Adrian had not invented her grief. He had seen it. He had protected her from one irreversible decision while positioning another to benefit his family.
She left the office after dark.
Mara had parked near a hydrant and was eating almonds from a paper packet. She folded the top before opening Evelyn’s door.
“You don’t need to hide food from me,” Evelyn said.
“I wasn’t hiding it.”
“You folded it like evidence.”
Mara considered this. “The car company has rules about crumbs.”
“My father ate powdered doughnuts back there.”
“Your father believed rules became optional if he tipped well.”
“He often believed that.”
They entered traffic.
Evelyn watched storefronts slide past. Couples leaned over restaurant tables. A man walked a terrier in a yellow raincoat despite the clear sky. At a red light, a cyclist slapped the hood of a cab and shouted something the windows kept inaudible.
“Mara, did Adrian ever ask you about the art collection?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“The day after the funeral.”
“What did he ask?”
“Whether your father had scheduled transport to an auction house.”
“Did you tell him?”
“I said I didn’t know.”
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
Evelyn looked toward the mirror. “Why did you lie?”
“Because it wasn’t his collection.”
The answer was so simple that Evelyn had no immediate response.
Mara signaled and turned onto Walnut Street.
“He also asked whether your father had left papers in the car,” she said.
“What papers?”
“He didn’t specify.”
“Were there any?”
“A legal pad under the passenger seat. I gave it to you with his personal effects.”
Evelyn remembered the box from the hospital: glasses, wallet, watch, a comb with two silver hairs trapped between the teeth, and several notebooks. She had placed everything in the locked drawer of her father’s study.
“Take me back to the estate.”
The legal pad contained grocery reminders, donor names, and pages of numbers Evelyn could not immediately interpret. Near the middle, Thomas had written three lines in block letters.
EDMUND OFFERED LOAN.
LENORA WANTS CONTROL.
A. THINKS MARRIAGE SOLVES CONFLICT.
Beneath that, in smaller writing:
It compounds it.
Evelyn sat in her father’s desk chair and read the lines until Adrian’s initial stopped looking like a letter.
A. thinks marriage solves conflict.
He had known.
Perhaps not about the forged signature. Perhaps not about the altered affidavit. But he had known his family’s proposal created a conflict, and he had believed marriage would erase it.
Her phone vibrated.
Adrian.
She watched it ring without answering.
A second call followed. Then a message.
I’m outside.
Headlights swept across the study windows.
Evelyn closed the legal pad and locked it in the desk.
Adrian entered the house using his key before she reached the hall.
He had removed his tie. His face looked tired, genuinely tired, which made her anger less convenient.
“You weren’t answering,” he said.
“I was occupied.”
“I called six times.”
“Three.”
“It felt like six.”
May you like
He attempted a smile. She did not return it.
His gaze moved to the study behind her. “What are you doing in there?”
