Chapter 6: What Was Already in Motion
Dinner that night was polished.
Jessica had made pasta.
She set the table with the good placemats, poured sparkling water into tall glasses, and asked David about his day with the focused attention of a woman who wanted to be seen paying attention.
David was happy.
He talked about a meeting at work, a colleague who'd said something funny, a parking situation that had irritated him.
Normal things.
Ordinary things.
Jasmine watched Jessica listen and thought: she's very good at this.
"Jasmine, you're quiet," David said.
"Tired," she said.
"Long day."
Jessica glanced at her.
Just for a moment.
The kind of glance that didn't look like anything unless you were already looking for it.
After dinner, David went to his office to return some calls.
Jessica cleaned up.
Jasmine helped without being asked, drying dishes beside her at the counter, keeping her movements easy and her expression neutral.
"You're being very cooperative tonight," Jessica said.
"I'm always cooperative."
Jessica handed her a glass to dry.
"You called Marcus today," she said.
Jasmine kept drying the glass.
"He's my uncle.
I call him."
"Of course." Jessica turned back to the sink.
"I just mention it because Marcus and I have a complicated history.
I'd hate for him to fill your head with a version of things that isn't entirely accurate."
Jasmine set the glass down carefully.
"What version would that be?"
"Oh, you know how people are.
Old misunderstandings.
Bruised feelings." Jessica's voice was light, pleasant.
"Marcus has always seen me as a threat to your father's relationship with your mother's family.
I understand it.
I don't hold it against him.
But I do worry about the stories people tell themselves."
"What stories does Marcus tell himself?"
Jessica smiled and pulled the drain plug from the sink.
"That he's protecting you," she said simply.
"When really he's protecting something else entirely."
Jasmine said nothing.
She went upstairs.
She locked her door.
She sat on her bed and opened her laptop.
Her mother's name had been Anne.
Anne Calloway before she married David.
Anne Calloway who had died of a sudden cardiac event at the age of thirty-eight, when Jasmine was eleven and the world had come apart quietly and without warning.
Jasmine had never questioned it.
Why would she?
Her mother had been young and it had been devastating and it had also, simply, happened.
These things happened to people.
They had happened to her family.
She typed her mother's name into a search.
Nothing useful.
Then she searched the name of the insurance company Marcus had mentioned in a text sent an hour after their call — a name she hadn't recognized, a company she'd never heard her father mention.
The company existed.
It had been acquired by a larger firm in 2019.
She searched for claim records.
Nothing public.
Of course nothing public.
Then her phone lit up.
Marcus.
"I talked to someone who works in estate and probate," he said.
"Not a lawyer, just someone who knows how these things work.
I described the situation without names."
"And?"
"If a spouse beneficiary on a life insurance policy remarries, in some states the payout structure can be contested if there's evidence the remarriage was — and this is the word she used — *predatory*.
Meaning someone targeted the surviving spouse specifically because of an anticipated or confirmed inheritance."
Jasmine's chest tightened.
"How would anyone prove that?"
"You'd need to show that the second spouse had prior knowledge of the policy.
Prior knowledge of the amount.
And prior contact with the family before the first spouse's death."
The room was very quiet.
"Marcus.
Did Jessica know my mother?"
He didn't answer right away.
When he did, his voice was careful and tired and very serious.
"I found something today," he said.
"An old photograph.
From a neighborhood event about twelve years ago.
Your mother is in it.
And so is Jessica."
Jasmine didn't move.
May you like
"They're standing together," Marcus said.
"They're smiling."
