The man stopped beside the curb.
“Daniel Brooks?”
Daniel’s face lost its color.
Vanessa turned toward him. “Who is that?”
The man closed the car door and walked toward the porch.
“My name is Leonard Ellis,” he said. “I’m the executor of the estate of Margaret Brooks’s late aunt, Evelyn Brooks.”
My hand tightened around the wet photograph.
I had not heard Aunt Evelyn’s name in months.
She had died quietly in a nursing facility outside Albany. Her lawyer had called me once, but I had been working a night shift and never returned the message. Daniel had told me there was nothing to worry about.
“She didn’t leave anything,” Daniel had said. “The bills took care of the rest.”
Leonard stopped at the bottom of the porch.
His eyes rested on me with a strange gentleness.
“Mrs. Brooks, I’m sorry to find you outside in this weather.”
Daniel stepped between us.
“This is a family matter.”
Leonard looked at him.
“That is precisely why I’m here.”
Vanessa glanced at the document case.
“What does that mean?”
Leonard opened it and removed a thick envelope sealed with blue tape.
“Your aunt’s final instructions were delivered to my office this afternoon,” he said to me. “The original property documents were included.”
The rain struck the plastic cover over my suitcase.
Daniel stared at the envelope.
“What property documents?”
Leonard’s gaze shifted toward the house.
“The deed to this address.”
For several seconds, nobody moved.
The porch light buzzed above us.
Vanessa gave a short, disbelieving laugh.
“That house belongs to Daniel.”
Leonard did not answer her immediately. He turned the envelope over and checked the name written across the front.
“According to the county records and the original transfer instrument, this house belongs to Margaret Brooks.”
Daniel’s mouth opened, but no sound came out.
I looked at the brick beneath his shoes.
The house had always been mine.
I had known that in my body, in my memory, in every payment I had made.
But hearing it spoken aloud in the freezing rain felt different.
It made the last six years rearrange themselves.
The locks Daniel had changed.
The mail he had started opening.
