Chapter 3: What the Will Actually Said
I carried Sophie to the couch and covered her with the blanket from the back of the armchair.
She didn't stir.
The rabbit was still tucked under her chin.
I went back to the kitchen and stared at the text.
*She took more than the money, Rachel.
Check the will.*
I typed back: *Who is this?*
No reply.
I called Dana again.
"Ryan's will," I said the moment she picked up.
"Do you know if Lauren ever showed it to you?
Or mentioned changes to it?"
"Rachel, slow down.
What happened?"
"I got a text from an unknown number.
It said Lauren took more than the money.
It said to check the will."
A pause.
Then Dana's voice came back quieter.
"Ryan's estate was handled by a firm downtown.
Calloway and Marsh.
I know one of the associates there — a woman named Grace Tillman.
She handled a case for my colleague last year.
If there was anything irregular in how the will was filed or executed, Grace would know what to look for."
"Can you call her tonight?"
"It's almost ten o'clock."
"Dana."
Another pause.
"I'll text her.
No promises."
I hung up and opened the photographs I had taken of the documents.
I enlarged the signature on the $90,000 transfer and held the phone closer to the light.
It was close.
Very close.
The loop on the R.
The way the C curved slightly left.
But the pressure was wrong.
Whoever had signed it had pressed too hard on the downstroke, the way someone does when they are copying carefully rather than signing from habit.
I had looked at my own signature ten thousand times.
That was not how I wrote.
My phone buzzed again.
Dana.
*Grace will call you at 8 a.m.
She says don't contact the bank directly yet.
Don't call Lauren.
Don't respond to the unknown number again.*
I set the phone down.
Sophie made a small sound from the couch.
I walked to the doorway and watched her.
Her breathing had steadied.
One hand had curled around the rabbit's ear the same way she had been holding it on my front steps.
I thought about what she had said in the car on the way inside.
"Aunt Rachel, do you think Mom is coming back?"
I had said I didn't know.
She had nodded, very slowly, as if that was the answer she had already prepared herself for.
Eight years old.
Already braced for abandonment.
I went back to the table and opened my laptop.
Ryan's accident had been covered briefly in the local news.
I found the article in four minutes.
Workplace fall at a construction site in Westerville.
He had p@ssed away at the hospital two days later.
Sophie had been five.
Then I searched for the name of the firm.
Calloway and Marsh.
Their website listed four attorneys.
Grace Tillman was the third name down.
Estate planning and probate litigation.
Probate litigation.
I read that phrase twice.
I clicked on her profile.
The photograph showed a woman in her mid-forties with reading glasses pushed up on her head and an expression that suggested she had heard every version of every story and was still paying attention.
I closed the laptop.
From the living room, Sophie said, "Auntie?"
I was at the couch in three steps.
"I'm here."
Her eyes were half-open.
"Is my rabbit still here?"
"Right under your hand."
She felt for it without looking, found the ear, and closed her fingers around it.
"Okay," she said.
And went back to sleep.
I sat on the floor beside the couch with my back against the cushions and my phone in my lap.
The unknown number had not replied.
But just before midnight, a second text arrived from the same number.
May you like
*Kyle isn't the first man she's done this with.
Ask her about Marcus Hale.*
