Chapter 2 - THE MAN WHO SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN THERE
Gerald Croft realized his mistake before anyone else moved.
His eyes shifted from Megan to Daria, then to me.
He turned toward the door.
Todd stepped into his path.
"No."
Gerald stopped.
Todd was not a large man.
He was five feet nine on a generous day and had spent most of his adult life managing a landscaping company rather than lifting weights.
But betrayal does strange things to posture.
For the first time since I had known him, Todd looked dangerous.
"You are going to explain why you're standing in my house talking to my wife about a forged will."
Gerald glanced at Megan.
"This is not the appropriate setting."
Daria almost smiled.
"Interesting concern for appropriateness."
Gerald recognized her then.
His expression tightened.
"Daria Owens."
"Gerald Croft."
"I thought you practiced in Raleigh."
"I do."
She crossed her arms.
"You thought Angela would be alone."
He said nothing.
Megan suddenly shoved the legal document into Gerald's chest.
"Fix this."
He did not take it.
"Megan."
"You said it would hold."
Todd made a strangled sound.
Gerald closed his eyes.
"Stop talking."
"No."
Megan's voice rose.
"You told me Nick's new will wouldn't matter because the trust language controlled everything."
Daria's attention sharpened.
"What trust language?"
Gerald looked at her.
"There is no reason for me to discuss privileged matters with you."
Daria laughed.
"You have not been authorized to practice law for eight months."
"Disbarment does not erase privilege."
"No, but conspiracy tends to complicate it."
Gerald's face hardened.
My mother began crying quietly near the dining table.
My father stood beside her, rigid with anger.
The rest of the relatives had stopped pretending they should leave.
Nobody wanted to miss what happened next.
I wanted all of them gone.
But some colder part of me wanted witnesses.
Daria seemed to understand that without being told.
She lifted her phone.
"For the record, Gerald, I am not asking you to discuss a former client's privileged communications."
She pointed toward the fake will.
"I am asking whether you created that document after you were disbarred."
Gerald stared at her.
"No."
Megan spun toward him.
"What?"
His eyes flashed.
"I said no."
"You printed it in your office."
Todd whispered, "Jesus Christ."
Gerald took one step toward Megan.
"You are confused."
Megan laughed hysterically.
"Don't you dare."
She bounced Knox against her shoulder as he cried.
"Don't you dare pretend I'm crazy after everything I've paid you."
That was the second time she said too much.
Daria's gaze dropped to Megan's face.
"Paid him with what?"
Megan went silent.
Todd looked at her.
"What did you pay him with?"
"My money."
"What money?"
"I have money."
"No, Megan."
Todd shook his head slowly.
"We have a mortgage, two car payments, your student loans, and a business loan I personally guaranteed."
He swallowed.
"What money?"
Megan's expression turned vicious.
"Maybe if your company made more, I wouldn't have to explain every dollar."
Todd actually flinched.
I had seen Megan do that before.
When she was cornered, she did not retreat.
She found the nearest weakness and stabbed it.
Gerald tried to step around Todd.
Daria spoke without moving.
"If you leave, that's your decision."
She held up her phone.
"But I have your statement, Megan's statements, the disputed document, and twenty-five witnesses."
Gerald looked toward me.
"Mrs. Dorsey, I would strongly advise you not to make accusations while your husband's estate is unsettled."
I stared at him.
"Are you threatening me too?"
"I'm advising you."
"You're not my lawyer."
"Then consider it common sense."
He leaned slightly closer.
"Nicholas left complications."
The words were almost gentle.
"Complications you do not yet understand."
Daria stepped between us.
"You can go now."
Gerald smiled at her.
For a moment, I understood why people had trusted Gerald professionally.
He had the kind of face that suggested patience.
Nothing about him looked frantic, even with twenty-five witnesses around him and a fraudulent document sitting beneath a plastic cake cover.
That calmness made him dangerous.
He spoke as if every problem could be converted into paperwork.
Daria recognized the tactic too.
She asked whether he maintained malpractice insurance after disbarment.
His smile disappeared.
Then she asked whether he had notified any former clients that he was no longer authorized to practice.
He told her that was irrelevant.
She agreed.
"To Angela, maybe."
Then she looked toward the relatives still hovering in the hallway.
"To the people you represented yourself to tonight, maybe not."
Gerald glanced around the room for the first time as if noticing the witnesses individually.
I watched him recalculate.
Men like Gerald depended on people feeling isolated.
A frightened person across a desk was manageable.
A room full of people remembering the same sentence was less so.
"She'll call me."
"No, she won't."
He looked past Daria at me.
"She will when the bank does."
Then he walked out.
Todd shut the door behind him.
The lock clicked.
Inside the living room, the relatives finally began leaving for real.
Daria quietly asked Todd not to let anyone take photographs of the disputed papers.
Todd nodded, then seemed to remember it was his house.
He walked to the coffee table and gathered every page into a clear plastic cake-cover sleeve because it was the only clean container nearby.
The absurdity of it would have been funny in another life.
A supposedly multimillion-dollar will sat beneath a plastic lid meant for leftover birthday cake.
My mother followed me into the foyer.
"Angela."
I stopped but did not turn around.
"Please don't make any decisions tonight."
I faced her.
"What decision do you think I am about to make?"
She looked past me toward Megan.
"About the family."
I almost asked which family she meant.
Mine with Nick?
Megan's with Todd?
The one our parents were trying to keep visually intact while every actual bond split open?
Instead, I said, "The family already made decisions tonight."
My mother began crying.
"She is scared."
"So am I."
That seemed to surprise her.
People rarely imagine competent women are scared.
They imagine we are prepared.
There is a difference.
I walked outside before she could ask me to become prepared for everyone else too.
For several seconds, nobody spoke.
Then Megan sat down hard on the sofa and began sobbing.
It was not quiet grief.
It was theatrical, choking, full-body sobbing that made three relatives immediately move toward her.
I watched them gather around my sister.
Five days after I buried my husband, I was somehow becoming the villain at a party where she had claimed to be carrying his child on her hip.
My aunt Rebecca reached for Megan's shoulder.
"Honey, just breathe."
Megan looked at me through tears.
"She hates Knox."
I felt my entire body go cold.
"What?"
"Angela hates him because he might be Nick's."
"Stop it," Todd said.
Megan ignored him.
"She never could have children, and now she can't stand the idea that Nick had one with me."
My mother gasped.
I walked toward the front door.
Daria caught my wrist.
"Don't leave alone."
"I need air."
"Then I am coming with you."
Todd looked at Megan.
"I'm taking Knox."
She clutched the baby tighter.
"No."
"You are screaming while holding him."
"He's my son."
"He's mine too."
That sentence changed Megan's face.
It was subtle.
But I saw it.
So did Daria.
Todd reached again.
Megan backed away.
"Don't touch him."
Todd stared at her.
Then he whispered, "Is he?"
The room went still again.
Megan blinked.
"What?"
"Is he mine?"
"Of course he is."
"You just told everyone Nick is his father."
"Biologically."
Todd looked as if someone had struck him.
"So for a year, I changed diapers, sat up through fevers, paid for pediatricians, and called him my son while you knew?"
Megan did not answer.
Todd's eyes filled.
"Did you know?"
"I suspected."
"Did you know?"
"I said I suspected."
He nodded once.
Then he stepped back.
"I want a DNA test."
Megan's panic was immediate.
"No."
Nobody missed it.
Todd's face collapsed.
"Why not?"
"Because I am not letting you turn my child into evidence."
"You already did."
He pointed toward the fake will.
"You just used him to make a claim for millions of dollars."
Daria looked at me.
"Angela, we need to leave."
I nodded.
As we walked toward the door, my mother called my name.
I did not turn around.
Outside, the October air felt too warm.
Daria waited until we reached my car before speaking.
"Gerald's comment about the bank bothered me."
"Everything about Gerald bothers me."
"No."
She shook her head.
"He knew something specific."
I unlocked the car.
My phone rang before I could open the door.
The caller ID showed First Carolina Private Bank.
I answered.
"Mrs. Dorsey?"
A man's voice sounded strained.
"This is Aaron Bell from First Carolina's fraud department."
Daria watched my face.
"We need to speak with you immediately about a line of credit opened against your residence."
I could barely form the next words.
"What line of credit?"
There was a pause.
May you like
"The one with an outstanding balance of eight hundred and sixty thousand dollars."
