Chapter 7: What Courtney Knew
I almost didn't answer that call either.
But something made me pick up.
"Victoria." Courtney's voice was different from the day before.
The brightness was gone.
She sounded younger without it — and more frightened.
"I need to talk to you.
Not for Charles.
For me."
"I'm listening."
"I didn't know he was going to do what he did yesterday.
I knew he was coming to talk to you about the house.
He told me it was a conversation.
He didn't tell me —" She stopped.
"I didn't know he was going to hjt you."
"He dragged me by my hair."
"I know." Her voice cracked slightly.
"I know what I did.
I know I laughed.
I've been sick about it since the moment it happened.
I'm not calling to make excuses."
"Then why are you calling?"
A long pause.
"Because he told me something last night.
After the police let him go.
He was angry and he'd been drinking and he said things he probably didn't mean to say out loud." Her voice dropped.
"He said the drive he took from Lucas's desk has a partnership agreement between Lucas and a woman named Diane Reeves.
He said the agreement was never properly terminated.
He said if he files it with the right people, he can claim that the company was partially founded on an undisclosed partnership and use that to challenge the ownership transfer to you."
"I know," I said.
Silence.
"You already know?"
"Eleanor figured it out this morning."
Another pause — longer this time.
"He's going to file something tomorrow," Courtney said.
"He has a meeting with a business litigation attorney at nine in the morning.
He thinks if he moves fast enough, he can freeze the company shares before Eleanor can respond."
I reached for a pen.
"What's the attorney's name?"
She told me.
"Courtney.
Why are you telling me this?"
The silence stretched out long enough that I thought she might hang up.
"Because I'm twenty-four years old," she said finally.
"And yesterday I stood in a doorway and laughed at a woman in labor being dragged across her own floor." A shaky breath.
"I don't want to be someone who does that and says nothing."
I didn't say anything for a moment.
"Are you safe?" I asked.
"Yes.
He doesn't —" She stopped.
"He's not like that with me."
"If that changes, you call me."
"Victoria —"
"I mean it.
You call me."
She was quiet.
"Okay," she said softly.
I called Eleanor the moment we hung up.
She listened without interrupting.
When I finished, she said: "I need the attorney's name."
I gave it to her.
"I know him," she said.
There was something in her voice I hadn't heard before — a quiet, focused satisfaction.
"He's good.
But he needs clean documentation to move fast.
If that partnership agreement was improperly obtained — taken from the property after a legal hold was filed — it's inadmissible.
And filing it knowing that could constitute fraud on the court."
"Can you stop the meeting?"
"I can do better than that." A pause.
"I'm going to make a call tonight.
Diane Reeves deserves to know what's happening with her name.
And if she's willing to speak with us, she may be the most important person in this entire case."
The line went quiet for a moment.
"Eleanor," I said.
"Lucas trusted you completely."
"I know," she said.
"I intend to honor that."
After I hung up, I sat in the hospital room with Clara asleep in the bassinet beside me and thought about Diane Reeves in Rochester, seventy-one years old, living alone, with no idea that her name was being used as a weapon against the family of the man who had left her fifty thousand dollars.
I thought about what Lucas had written in that codicil.
May you like
*The person who gave him his first real opportunity.*
I wanted to meet her.
