Chapter 8: The Morning She Stopped Pretending
Isabella came downstairs at nine o'clock.
She was dressed impeccably — charcoal trousers, a silk blouse, hair arranged as though the previous night had been nothing more than a late evening.
She walked into the kitchen and stopped when she saw Grace Alderman sitting at the table with a legal pad covered in notes.
She looked at Grace.
Then at William.
Then at Emma.
"Good morning," she said.
"Sit down, Isabella," William said.
She didn't sit.
She moved to the counter and poured herself a coffee with the steady hand of someone who had decided, somewhere between midnight and now, exactly how this morning would go.
"I don't believe we've met," she said to Grace.
"Grace Alderman.
I'm William's attorney."
"I see." Isabella turned to William.
"You might have told me you'd invited legal counsel into our home before nine in the morning."
"Sit down," William said again.
She sat.
She set her coffee cup on the table with the same precise care she'd used with the champagne glass the night before.
"I'd like to explain —" she began.
"We have the recording," Grace said.
A pause.
Very small.
Controlled.
"I beg your pardon?"
"The conversation you had with Emma at twelve forty-seven this morning.
We have a full audio recording.
Clear voices, complete content." Grace looked at her steadily.
"I'd recommend you speak with your own attorney before saying anything further."
Isabella looked at Emma.
Emma looked back at her.
"You recorded a private conversation," Isabella said.
"New York is a one-party consent state," Emma said.
"I was part of the conversation."
Something moved across Isabella's face.
It wasn't fear exactly.
It was the expression of someone who has just discovered that the board they were standing on has been removed.
"William." She turned to him.
Her voice shifted — softer now, more intimate, reaching for the register of a wife speaking to a husband.
"Whatever this looks like, whatever she's told you — I need you to hear my side.
I need you to give me that."
"The photograph you sent me," William said.
"Of Ethan in Maine."
"Yes."
"When was it taken?"
"When he arrived.
I told you —"
"My attorney is having the metadata examined." William kept his voice level.
"If that photograph was taken inside this house, or before the date you claimed, I need you to tell me that now."
Isabella was quiet.
"William —"
"Was my son ever in Maine?"
The kitchen clock ticked.
Isabella set both hands flat on the table.
"I made decisions that I believed were in the best interest of this family," she said carefully.
"Ethan is a deeply troubled child.
His behavior before the party was —"
"Was my son ever in Maine?" William asked again.
She looked at him.
Then at Grace.
Then at Emma.
"No," she said.
The word dropped into the room like something heavy.
William stood up from the table.
He didn't raise his voice.
He didn't move toward her.
He simply stood up, and the act of it — the quiet finality — was worse than anything louder would have been.
"Get out of my house," he said.
"William, the legal implications of —"
"Grace will handle the legal implications." He didn't look away from her.
"I want you out of this house within the hour.
Whatever you came here with, you take.
Whatever else is here, you leave."
Isabella stood.
She picked up her coffee cup, then set it back down.
"You're going to regret this," she said.
"You don't have the full picture.
There are things about Catherine's estate — about the trust — that you don't understand yet.
Things I know that could —"
"Are you threatening me?" William asked.
She stopped.
"Because if you are," he said, "I'd like you to do it again, clearly, while Grace is listening."
Isabella looked at Grace's legal pad.
At the pen in Grace's hand.
She straightened.
She smoothed her blouse.
"I'll be out within the hour," she said.
She walked out of the kitchen.
Her heels were quieter on the floor than they'd been the night before.
Emma looked at William.
He was standing very still, one hand resting on the back of his chair.
"Are you all right?" she asked.
He looked at her.
His face was tired in the way that comes from a night of understanding things you didn't want to understand.
"No," he said.
"But I will be."
From upstairs, faintly, they heard Ethan's voice — asking the nurse for water, ordinary and alive.
May you like
William closed his eyes for just a moment.
Then he went upstairs to his son.
