Chương 4
Lauren crouched beside the pieces.
For reasons she could not explain, the broken bowl hurt more than the clothes in the fountain.
Daniel took two steps toward her.
She held up one hand.
“Don’t.”
He stopped.
Lauren gathered the largest pieces and placed them inside the torn suitcase. She left the fragments too small to pick up without cutting herself. Then she closed the hatchback, sat behind the wheel, and tried to start the car.
Nothing happened.
She turned the key again.
The dashboard lights flickered and went dark.
For one absurd second, she nearly laughed. She imagined stepping back into the rain and asking Daniel for a jump. She imagined Margaret offering tea while an employee found cables. The whole family could stand under the porte cochere and discuss battery maintenance as though no one had forged a dead man’s name.
Lauren rested her forehead against the steering wheel.
A knock sounded on the window.
Daniel stood outside holding a black umbrella.
She lowered the glass two inches.
“The battery is dead,” he said.
“I noticed.”
“I’ll have someone bring a charger.”
“No.”
“Lauren.”
“I said no.”
“You can’t stay here.”
“I can sit in a car on my own driveway.”
He looked toward the mansion. Margaret had gone inside. The door remained open, spilling light across the rain.
“I didn’t know about the date,” he said.
Lauren raised her head.
“What?”
“The date on the recorded deed. I didn’t know it had been entered that way.”
“You signed the transfer as grantee.”
“I signed a stack of documents Peter gave me.”
“Peter Weller?”
Daniel nodded.
His company counsel had attended Robert’s funeral. He had stood behind Margaret during the service, holding her umbrella while Lauren watched the crematorium doors close.
“Did Peter forge my father’s signature?”
Daniel’s grip tightened around the umbrella handle.
“I don’t know.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“It’s the only one I have.”
“You told the bank the title was clean.”
“I relied on counsel.”
“You changed the locks.”
“You left.”
“You put my belongings on the curb.”
“Mother arranged that.”
“Your mother told me she meant legally.”
“She says a lot of things.”
“Was the mansion collateral when you sent the letter?”
Daniel looked away.
Rainwater dripped from the edge of the umbrella onto the open window.
“I thought Robert intended to transfer it,” he said. “He told me he would.”
“To you?”
“To us.”
“He signed it to me.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“You searched his office.”
“I looked for estate documents.”
“You diverted June’s calls.”
“That was not my decision.”
“But you knew.”
He did not answer.
A groundskeeper arrived with a portable battery pack. Daniel stepped back while the man connected it. Lauren watched Daniel’s brown shoes sink slightly into the wet gravel at the driveway edge.
When the engine started, the groundskeeper closed the hood and hurried away without looking at either of them.
Daniel bent toward the window.
“Do not open that envelope without your attorney.”
“Your mother already gave me the same advice.”
“I’m serious.”
“So was she.”
“There may be things in it you’re not prepared to see.”
“My father is dead. You put my underwear in a fountain. I’m running out of things I can’t handle.”
His mouth tightened.
“Robert wasn’t who you think he was.”
“Neither are you.”
Lauren raised the window and drove away.
In the rearview mirror, Daniel remained in the center of the driveway with the umbrella over his head and the empty suitcase beside him. The mansion rose behind him, all symmetry and old stone, its open door black at the center.
Lauren did not cry until she reached the first traffic light.
Even then, it was not graceful. She pressed both hands over her mouth and made a sound that frightened her. The driver in the next lane looked over, then politely faced forward.
The light changed.
Someone honked.
Lauren wiped her face with the heel of her hand and drove to June Park’s office with the photograph on the passenger seat.
June practiced law above a bakery in a narrow brick building where the hallway always smelled of sugar and overheated wiring. Her office contained three chairs that did not match, a dying fern, and a framed law school diploma hung slightly crooked because she refused to make another hole in the wall.
She opened the door before Lauren knocked.
“You told them about the copies,” June said.
Lauren stared at her.
“Daniel called Peter. Peter called me. Peter shouted long enough that my assistant put him on speaker for educational purposes.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You should be. Come in.”
June was sixty-seven, with silver hair cut to her jaw and the patient expression of a person who had spent most of her career waiting for men to finish explaining things she already understood. She wore black slacks, running shoes, and a cardigan with one button missing.
Lauren placed the envelope on her desk.
“I found this behind the photograph.”
June read the note without touching it.
“Where was the frame?”
“In my clothes. Daniel threw them into the fountain.”
June closed her eyes.
“That sentence contains several problems.”
“He was dumping the suitcase when I arrived.”
“Were there witnesses?”
“Two landscapers. A bank representative and an analyst arrived afterward.”
“Which bank?”
“I don’t know. The man was called Bell. The woman was Ortiz.”
June wrote the names on a yellow pad.
“What did you say to them?”
“Everything you told me not to.”
“Specifics.”
Lauren repeated the conversation as accurately as she could. June interrupted only to ask who stood where, who touched the envelope, and whether Daniel had admitted the six-million-dollar loan before or after the bank’s representatives left.
When Lauren finished, June removed her glasses and rubbed the bridge of her nose.
“You may have prevented the refinancing.”
“Good.”
May you like
“Maybe. Or you may have alerted them in time to move assets and destroy records.”
Lauren looked toward the window. Below, a woman emerged from the bakery carrying a white box tied with red string. She paused under the awning, frowned at the rain, and used the box to shield her hair.
