Chapter 6: What Anna Left Behind
I did not sleep that night.
I sat in the chair beside Lily's bed until the sky outside the window went from black to gray to the pale, uncertain color of early morning.
A nurse came in twice to check the IV.
Both times she looked at me and said nothing, which I was grateful for.
At six-fifteen, Lily opened her eyes.
"Dad."
"I'm here."
She looked at the ceiling for a moment.
"Did they find Uncle Michael?"
"Yes."
She turned her head toward me.
"Is he arrested too?"
"Yes."
She was quiet.
Then: "Are you sad?"
I thought about how to answer that honestly.
"Yes.
But not in a way that changes anything."
She reached out and took my hand.
We stayed like that until the breakfast tray arrived.
Detective Collins came at nine.
She had a paper cup of coffee and looked like she had also not slept.
"Evelyn's attorney made contact this morning," she said, sitting down.
"He's already floating a deal.
She'll cooperate fully on the trust fraud in exchange for reduced charges on the endangerment count."
"She endangered Lily's life."
"I know.
The DA knows.
It doesn't mean her attorney won't try." Collins set her coffee down.
"I want you to hear this from me directly so you're not blindsided.
Whatever deal gets offered, you'll have input.
The DA's office will want your statement."
"What does cooperate fully mean?
What does she have that they want?"
"Hartfield Advisory Group had a third signatory," Collins said.
"Not Evelyn.
Not Michael."
I looked at her.
"Anna's estate attorney," she said.
"The man who set up the trust.
He's been taking a fee from Hartfield for every withdrawal he processed without flagging it.
He had a fiduciary duty to notify you.
He didn't." She paused.
"His name is Gerald Marsh."
Gerald Marsh had sat across from me in a wood-paneled office three days after Anna's funeral.
He had handed me a box of tissues and explained the trust structure in a calm, unhurried voice.
He had told me the money was safe.
He had told me Lily was protected.
"How long has he been involved?" I asked.
"From the beginning," Collins said.
"He helped structure Hartfield.
He's the one who changed the mailing address on the account."
"He was Anna's attorney," I said.
"She trusted him."
"I know."
Lily was watching us from the bed.
She had stopped eating her toast.
"Who's Gerald?" she asked.
"Someone who made some bad choices," I said.
She considered that.
"Like Uncle Michael?"
"Yes.
Like Uncle Michael."
She picked up her toast again.
"Are there more bad people, Dad?
That we don't know about yet?"
Collins and I looked at each other.
"We're going to find out," Collins said.
"That's my job."
Lily nodded, apparently satisfied.
She finished her toast.
The estate attorney's office was sealed by court order before noon.
His assistant called my cell phone three times.
I didn't answer.
The fourth call came from a number I didn't recognize, and I answered it because I had learned to be careful about unknown numbers.
It was not who I expected.
It was Anna's sister, Patricia.
We had not spoken in fourteen months.
"Daniel," she said.
"I saw the news.
I need to tell you something.
About Gerald Marsh." Her voice was careful and controlled, the way people speak when they have been rehearsing.
"I knew something was wrong.
Eight months ago.
I tried to tell Anna's mother and she told me to stay out of it."
"Patricia," I said.
"I need you to call Detective Collins.
Right now.
Can you do that?"
A pause.
"Yes."
"Tell her everything.
Everything you told me and everything you didn't."
"Will it help Lily?"
"Yes," I said.
"It will."
The call ended.
I stood in the corridor outside Lily's room and looked at the closed door and thought about Anna — about the trust she had built so carefully, the documents she had signed, the people she had believed in.
May you like
She had trusted all of them.
Every single one.
