Chapter 8: What Eleanor Kept for Last
I didn't let him in.
"If there's a second box," I said, "Dorothea will know about it.
Eleanor documented everything."
"Dorothea doesn't know about this one," Julian said.
"My mother kept things even her attorney didn't know about.
I found it years ago.
I left it alone because I thought—" He stopped.
"I thought it would never matter."
"What's in it?"
"Things about our family.
About money that came into this house before I was born.
About my father." His voice was controlled, but something underneath it wasn't.
"If any of that becomes part of a legal proceeding, it doesn't just affect me, Claire.
It affects people who have nothing to do with this."
"Are you threatening me?"
"I'm warning you," he said.
"There's a difference."
"Then warn me plainly.
What are you asking me to do?"
He looked at me steadily.
"Walk away from the will.
Take a settlement — a fair one, I'll make sure of that — and let this end quietly.
For both of us."
I looked at him on that step.
The man I had married.
The man I had believed for nineteen years.
The man who had sighed when I told him his mother was gone.
"No," I said.
"Claire—"
"No, Julian.
Find the box.
Show it to whoever you want.
I'm not walking away from what Eleanor chose to give me because you've found something new to use as leverage."
He stared at me.
"You've changed," he said.
"Eleanor asked me to," I said.
And I closed the door.
---
I called Dorothea immediately.
"A second box," she repeated.
"He said Eleanor kept it separate from everything she gave me."
"Is that possible?"
A pause.
"It's possible.
Eleanor was careful and private.
If she wanted something kept outside the formal estate documentation, she would have known how to do it." Another pause.
"But Claire, I want you to think about something.
Julian has known about this box for years, by his own account.
He left it alone.
He only mentioned it now, when he needs something from you.
That tells you what's in it."
"What do you mean?"
"If that box contained something that genuinely helped him," Dorothea said, "he would have used it already.
He would have gone straight there the morning after Eleanor died.
The fact that he's using it as a threat rather than as evidence means it doesn't help him.
It means he's hoping the uncertainty frightens you more than the contents would."
I sat with that.
"He's bluffing," I said.
"Or the box contains something that implicates him as much as anyone else," she said.
"Either way, my advice is the same.
Let him produce it.
Don't make any agreement based on a box you haven't seen."
I called Patricia next and told her everything.
"Good," she said.
"You did exactly right.
Now let me tell you what happened this morning."
She had filed the financial disclosure order.
Julian's attorney had called her within the hour.
"He's rattled," Patricia said.
"His attorney was very professional about it, but I've worked with her before.
She only calls that fast when her client is panicking."
"What did she say?"
"She said Julian wants to discuss a settlement before the disclosure process begins." Patricia's voice was dry.
"They always want to settle before the disclosure.
Because the disclosure is where we find everything they didn't want us to find."
"What did you tell her?"
"I told her we'd be happy to discuss settlement figures," Patricia said.
"After the full disclosure is complete."
For the first time in days, something loosened in my chest.
"Patricia," I said.
"What do you think is in those accounts?"
"I think Julian has been managing money in ways that would not survive scrutiny," she said.
"I think Eleanor suspected it too, which is why she documented what she did.
And I think when we see the full picture, the settlement he was offering you will look very small."
She was right.
Three weeks later, when the disclosure documents arrived, I sat at Patricia's conference table and watched her read through them page by page.
She made small marks in the margins.
She didn't react outwardly to most of it.
Then she reached a page near the back and set her pen down.
May you like
"Claire," she said.
"I need you to look at this."
