A handwritten note was clipped to the original agreement.
Naomi Bell has the executed documents. Ask her to compare every signature.
Naomi Bell had been Thomas’s attorney for twenty years.
Evelyn had told us Naomi retired shortly before his funeral.
Suddenly, I wasn’t sure that was true.
I took out my phone.
“I’m calling her.”
Evelyn stepped toward me.
“You are not dragging lawyers into my home.”
I moved toward the doorway.
“Your home?”
She stopped.
It was a small question, but it changed the air between us.
Daniel held the trust documents in one hand and the box in the other.
“Mom, are you selling a house that doesn’t belong to you?”
Evelyn’s expression hardened.
“We were going to discuss the sale today. You know that.”
What we knew was that she had invited us over to sign papers authorizing what she called a routine settlement of Thomas’s estate. A real estate agent was coming on Friday. Evelyn said maintaining the house had become too expensive.
She had also announced that June’s education account was empty because I had supposedly misused it.
I remembered how carefully she had watched me when she said that.
Waiting for guilt.
Waiting for panic.
Waiting for something she could use.
“I’m calling Naomi,” I repeated.
Evelyn moved quickly.
She reached past me toward the box, but Daniel caught her wrist before her fingers could close around it.
He didn’t squeeze.
He simply stopped her.
“Enough.”
His mother stared at him as though he had struck her.
