Chapter 11 - Monday's Deadline
The rest of Sunday unfolded with the peculiar slowness of a day spent waiting for offices to open.
Emmett took Margot to the park, where she climbed a small slide and insisted he push her on the swings.
I watched them from a bench as the morning sun warmed the wet grass.
For twenty minutes, they looked like a father and daughter enjoying an ordinary day.
It was a reminder of what we were actually trying to save.
Not a house.
Not a wedding.
Not our pride.
We were trying to keep Margot's world from being quietly rearranged behind her back.
After lunch, Emmett spoke with attorney Naomi Price, who agreed to review the documents the following morning.
She cautioned him not to assume the appointment meant any filing would succeed.
But she advised preserving messages, changing online account access where he was authorized to do so, and verifying who held keys to the house.
He followed that advice.
Claire had been calling repeatedly.
Her messages shifted from pleading to accusation.
At three o'clock she wrote that she wanted to explain everything.
At four she accused me of wanting Emmett to remain a widower forever.
At five she said the house had been promised to her.
He showed me that final message.
“Promised by whom?” I asked.
“I never promised it.”
He opened an older conversation and found a message from Claire sent during their engagement.
One day we'll build a home that belongs to both of us.
His reply had been simple.
We already have a home, and Margot needs stability.
Now Claire's interpretation of that exchange seemed to have hardened into entitlement.
Near dinner, an unfamiliar number called Emmett.
A man's voice introduced himself as Peter Ellison, Mara's older brother.
He said Mara had not come home after meeting someone who claimed to have documents disproving her allegations.
Emmett immediately asked whether Peter had contacted police.
“He has,” Peter said, “but she's an adult and they need more information.”
We agreed not to jump to conclusions.
Mara might simply have turned off her phone.
Still, I remembered how frightened she'd looked outside my gate.
Then my phone received a photograph from an unknown number.
It showed a manila folder on the passenger seat of a car.
Across its cover someone had written two words in black ink.
May you like
ARTHUR'S FILE.
