Brenda silenced it.
“Who is that?” Kenneth asked.
“Nobody you need to speak to.”
His own phone chimed.
She lunged toward him.
He recoiled, looking down at the message.
I watched the color leave his face.
“What?” I asked.
He read silently, then swallowed.
“Confirmation for tomorrow. They want the rest of the estate documents before releasing the balance.”
“The balance of what?”
He turned the screen toward Mr. Abernathy.
There had already been an advance.
The beach house had been offered for sale. Brenda had represented Kenneth as the person authorized to dispose of it after my death. Tomorrow’s date appeared throughout the correspondence.
I put my hand flat against the table.
“You weren’t waiting for me to die.”
Brenda said nothing.
“You were telling people I had.”
“I was going to replace the money.”
There it was. Not a denial. Not even surprise that we had reached the truth.
Kenneth stared at her.
“How much?”
She tightened the strap of her bag around her wrist.
“How much, Brenda?”
“Enough to stop things collapsing.”
Mr. Abernathy asked Kenneth to forward the message without changing or deleting anything.
Brenda spoke over him.
“We can repay an advance. We can say the transaction fell through. Nobody needs to destroy a family over a mistake.”
“You submitted my death as a fact.”
“You weren’t supposed to find out.”
