Chapter 9 - The Offer
Nathan called me at 6:15 on a cold morning.
I let it ring twice before answering.
“Mom,” he said, sounding tired and almost gentle, “we need to settle this.”
He offered to withdraw the guardianship petition if I signed an agreement giving him authority to sell part of the property.
He called it a compromise.
He said I could keep the house until I died.
He promised Corinne would apologize.
When I asked how much he expected from the sale, he gave a figure far below the price listed in the preliminary agreement with Hollis Development.
“Where's the rest?” I asked.
“Fees.”
“What kind of fees?”
He was silent.
I told him all future proposals would go through Elise.
His voice hardened instantly.
“She's turning you against your own blood.”
“No,” I said.
“She's reading what you ask me to sign.”
I ended the call before he could make another threat.
That afternoon, Elise and I met Arthur Bell in a small office two counties away.
He had not been hiding from me.
He'd been taking care of his sister after a surgery and avoiding Nathan, who had repeatedly demanded the red ledger.
Arthur brought bank records, loan acknowledgments, and copies of correspondence with the developer.
Some papers bore Nathan's signature.
Others bore signatures that appeared to be mine but were not.
Arthur tapped a document near the bottom.
“This is what Hal wanted me to hold,” he said.
It was a sworn statement, dated shortly before Hal died, describing an argument over the house.
Hal wrote that Nathan threatened to have us declared unable to manage our affairs if we refused to give him money.
I remembered the argument.
I had been in the garden when it began and came inside to find Hal shaking.
He told me later that Nathan was only under stress.
I had believed him because I needed to.
Arthur looked at me with sadness.
“He didn't want you to read this while Nathan still had a chance to change.”
“Hal had more faith in him than he deserved,” I said.
Arthur shook his head.
“No, Quinn. Hal had faith in you.”
He reached for a second envelope.
Inside was a key to a safe-deposit box that I didn't know existed.
“There is something else,” Arthur said.
“Hal told me to give you this if Nathan ever tried to force you out.”
I thought of the wooden cane resting by my chair.
My husband had been gone fourteen months and was still trying to protect me.
When Arthur handed me the envelope, I saw five words written in Hal's careful block letters.
May you like
Ask what happened to the trust.
