Chapter 5 - What They Were Really After
Harold called on a Friday morning, and I could tell from his first word that something had shifted.
"Cora. I need you to come in today if you possibly can."
"What happened?"
"A letter landed on my desk this morning. From an attorney representing your father."
I put down the pen in my hand.
"My father doesn't have an attorney."
"He does now. A man named Preston Vale, out of a firm in Johnston County. The letter is a formal inquiry into the terms of Marcus's estate. Specifically, it raises the question of whether Marcus's estate plan might have been drawn up under undue influence."
The words came at me one at a time.
"They're saying Marcus was manipulated," I said. "Into leaving everything to me. His wife."
"That's the implication, yes."
I was in Harold's office within the hour. He slid the letter across the desk. I read it twice.
Three pages of polite legal language, but the meaning underneath was ugly and simple: my father was claiming that in his final years, Marcus had been cut off from outside advice and from family, and that his estate plan might not reflect what he really wanted.
"This is not a lawsuit," Harold said. "Not yet. It's a probe. They're checking whether there's anything to dig up."
"There isn't."
"I know that. But I want you to understand the game." He leaned forward. "This kind of inquiry is built to make everything so slow, so expensive, and so exhausting that the surviving spouse finally just agrees to a settlement to make it stop. They don't necessarily expect to win in front of a judge. They expect you to get tired."
I looked at my father's name in the third paragraph.
"How long has he been planning this?"
"His retainer with Vale's firm was signed six weeks ago."
Six weeks. While my mother was calling to suggest a nice family dinner. While Vivian was on the phone telling me she just never knew what to say.
"They already knew about the money," I said. "Somebody told them enough to move this fast."
I thought about Cousin Diane. My car on a downtown street. The chain of phone calls that had turned one parking-lot sighting into a signed legal retainer in a month and a half.
"What do I do?" I asked.
Harold's face didn't move. "You let me answer it. And you don't take a single call from your family without telling me first."
I nodded.
"One more thing." He opened another folder. "Marcus's father. Walter Rourke. I called him this morning as a courtesy, because his name is listed in the trust documents. He was not happy."
"About the inquiry?"
"About your family being behind it." Harold paused. "He asked me to tell you he'll make a formal statement backing the estate plan if it comes to that. His words were —" Harold checked his notepad again, that same habit when he quoted someone directly. "'Marcus picked Cora. That's final. Anybody who wants to fight that can start by fighting me.'"
My eyes stung. I pressed two fingers hard against the bridge of my nose and held them there.
"Tell him thank you," I said when I could talk again.
I drove home through Friday traffic slower than usual. At a red light on Hillsborough Street my phone lit up on the passenger seat. My father's name.
The light turned green. I drove forward. I didn't pick up.
There was a voicemail waiting when I got home. I played it once, standing in the hallway with my coat still on.
His voice was calm. Reasonable. The exact same voice he'd used to tell me he couldn't make the funeral.
*"Cora, I think there's been a big misunderstanding here. Nobody's trying to cause trouble. We just want to make sure Marcus's wishes are being carried out the right way. That's all any of us want. Call me back when you're ready to talk like an adult."*
I deleted it.
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Then I sat down at the kitchen table and wrote out three full pages of notes — every conversation, every date, every detail I could pull from memory — and emailed the whole thing to Harold before midnight.
I was not going to get tired.
