“You set a trap.”
“No. You created evidence.”
Eleanor lifted a second memory card from the metal box.
Miriam had told her to keep copies in three places. One was with the attorney. One was in the lockbox. The third was already in the hands of the county investigator.
The hidden truth had not been the transfer records alone. It was the planned sale.
For weeks, Olivia had been contacting a real-estate broker, telling him Eleanor suffered from memory loss and would soon be placed in assisted living. She had sent him photographs of the house, copies of the deed, and a scanned document bearing Eleanor’s signature.
That document was the one taped beneath the house rules.
It was a forged power of attorney.
The signature looked convincing, but the date was wrong. Eleanor had been in the hospital that day after fainting at the library. Her medical records proved she had been unconscious for six hours.
Olivia had hidden the document in plain sight because she believed nobody would read beneath the rules.
Michael picked it up with both hands.
“Where did you get this?”
“Your wife sent it to a broker.”
Olivia’s eyes flashed.
“Because I was trying to save the family.”
“You were trying to sell my home,” Eleanor said.
“And what was I supposed to do? Keep raising a child in a place where we were always one emergency away from losing everything?”
“You could have worked.”
“I did work.”
“You stopped after three months.”
“I was caring for Claire.”
“Claire was in school.”
“You don’t know what it was like.”
“No,” Eleanor said. “I know what it was like to work while raising a child.”
Olivia’s face crumpled, then closed again.
Michael looked at Eleanor. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I wanted you to tell me the truth first.”
“I was going to.”
“When?”
He had no answer.
