Chapter 7: The Advisor Arrives
I didn't move from my chair.
"Ethan," I said.
"Don't open the door until I say so."
He looked at me.
For a half-second I thought he might argue — old habit, old reflex.
Then he stepped back from the window and nodded.
The knock came.
Three measured raps.
The knock of someone who was used to being let in.
I stood, crossed to the door, and opened it.
Marcus was older up close — mid-sixties, with the careful grooming of a man who understood that appearance was a form of argument.
His document case was good leather, worn at the corners.
He'd had it a long time.
"Mrs.
Ashworth," he said.
He knew my name.
Of course he did.
"I don't believe we've met," I said.
"My name is Marcus Hale.
I represent Patricia Voss in certain private matters.
I was hoping we could speak."
"At ten o'clock at night."
"Patricia felt the matter was time-sensitive."
"Patricia isn't here."
"No." He glanced past me into the room.
His eyes found Diane.
Something moved across his face — not guilt exactly, but the professional cousin of it, the expression of a man recalculating.
"I'm aware.
She asked me to come on her behalf."
"To do what, exactly?"
He reached into the document case.
"To present a revised proposal.
Patricia is prepared to withdraw the contribution claim against the property in exchange for—"
"Stop." I held up one hand.
"Before you say another word, I want you to understand something.
Diane is in this room.
She has her phone.
And she has eleven messages from a number connected to Harwick Property Consulting, which I understand you may have some familiarity with."
Marcus's hand stilled inside the case.
"Additionally," I said, "the Ashworth Family Trust, which holds this property, has a retaining attorney who I've already contacted this evening.
Whatever proposal you're carrying, it will be reviewed by him before I respond to a single word of it." I paused.
"So.
Would you still like to present it?"
He withdrew his hand from the case.
Empty.
"May I come in?" he said.
"No."
A beat.
"Mrs.
Ashworth, I want you to know that my involvement in the matter involving Diane was — I was retained to draft a document.
I was not informed of the full context."
"You drafted an agreement to pay a woman to disappear with a man's child and you weren't informed of the full context."
He had no answer for that.
"Mr.
Hale." Ethan appeared behind me.
His voice was quiet and very flat.
"Did my mother pay you to draft that agreement?"
Marcus looked at him.
The calculation was visible — attorney's instinct, weighing exposure against loyalty against the specific look on Ethan's face, which was the look of a man who had nothing left to lose tonight.
"She retained me," Marcus said carefully.
"The nature of the retainer is privileged."
"She tried to pay Diane fifty thousand dollars to take my daughter to another city." Ethan stepped forward.
"That's not a private matter.
That's not privileged.
That's—"
"Ethan." I put a hand briefly on his arm.
Not to stop him.
Just to slow him down.
"Mr.
Hale, here's what happens next.
You go back to Patricia and you tell her the contribution claim is dead.
The Trust filing will be in her attorney's inbox by morning.
You tell her that Diane has documentation of every contact Patricia made, and that we will be speaking to a family law attorney this week about the suppression agreement." I looked at him steadily.
"And you tell her that if she makes one more move against this house, against Diane, or against Rose, the documentation goes to the bar association along with a formal complaint about the attorney who drafted the agreement."
Marcus was very still.
"That's the proposal," I said.
"You don't need to open your case."
He looked at me for a long moment.
Then he looked at Ethan.
Then, briefly, at Diane.
He closed the document case.
"I'll convey your position," he said.
"Thank you for coming, Mr.
Hale."
I closed the door.
Behind me, Diane let out a breath that sounded like it had been held for months.
"Is it over?" she asked.
I turned around.
Rose had woken up and was looking at the ceiling with the wide, unfocused attention of a very young baby, interested in everything and afraid of nothing.
May you like
"Not yet," I said.
"But Patricia just lost her attorney."
