Chapter 9: The Morning It Became Official
Grace filed at nine-fifteen.
I was in the kitchen with Lily when my phone buzzed with her message.
*Done.
All three.
DA has the referral.
Will update by end of day.* I set the phone down and poured Lily another half-glass of orange juice, which she requested with great seriousness every morning as though she were placing an order at a restaurant.
"More please," she said.
"How much more?"
She held her fingers an inch apart.
"Very precise," I said, and poured exactly that much.
She studied the glass.
Approved it.
I sat down across from her.
She was drawing on the back of a piece of printer paper — a house, a garden, a sun with many spikes.
She added a figure in the garden and gave it yellow hair.
"Is that you?" I asked.
"That's Grandpa Edward," she said without looking up.
"He lives in the garden."
My father had passed before Lily was born.
She had heard me talk about him often enough to know his name, his garden, the particular way he'd grown tomatoes even though he had absolutely no gift for it.
She had built a version of him entirely from stories, and apparently he lived in a garden, which he would have liked.
"He'd like that," I said.
She added another figure.
Smaller.
Standing beside Grandpa Edward.
"Who's that?"
"Me," she said.
"I'm visiting."
I watched her draw.
Her small hand moved with great confidence.
Grace called at eleven.
I stepped into the hallway.
"The DA's office has been in contact," Grace said.
"They've reviewed the preliminary documentation.
They're opening a formal inquiry into the trust transfers.
Patricia will be interviewed next week." A pause.
"Gregor Fitch called me twenty minutes ago.
Daniel wants to negotiate a plea arrangement before anything goes to a grand jury."
"How does that affect the civil case?"
"It doesn't.
We proceed on all tracks.
The civil recovery on the trust assets is essentially certain given the paper trail.
The divorce settlement — Daniel's attorney knows he has no leverage.
He's going to sign what we put in front of him."
"And Rebecca?"
"That's the interesting part." I heard Grace shift.
"The DA's office has questions about the property transfers through her LLC.
She's retained her own attorney, separate from Daniel.
They're not coordinating anymore."
Brother and sister.
Separate attorneys.
Not coordinating anymore.
"She's protecting herself," I said.
"Yes.
Which means she's not protecting him." A pause.
"Chloe, it's moving faster than I expected.
The documentation Patricia provided — the digital records especially — that's not a difficult case to build.
It's almost pre-built."
I leaned against the hallway wall.
Through the kitchen doorway I could see Lily adding what appeared to be a dog to the garden scene, though we did not own a dog.
"What about custody?" I said.
"Full physical custody to you pending the inquiry.
Daniel's attorney didn't contest it.
I think they know that contesting custody while he's the subject of a criminal inquiry is not a position they want to be in." Grace's voice was careful.
"He will have supervised visitation rights.
Supervised by a court-appointed third party.
And all contact with Lily's trust fund is suspended immediately."
I closed my eyes for a moment.
"Okay," I said.
"You should know — Daniel sent a letter to the DA's office this morning.
Not through Gregor.
Directly.
Handwritten."
I opened my eyes.
"What did it say?"
"He accepted responsibility for the trust transfers.
Full responsibility.
He stated in writing that his sister was not the originating party — that the idea was his.
That the email was a response to something he had asked her." Grace paused.
"He's trying to reduce her exposure."
"After she retained a separate attorney."
"Yes."
Even now.
Even standing in the middle of everything he had built falling down around him, he was trying to protect his sister.
The same sister who had sl@pped his five-year-old daughter across the face and smoothed her dress afterward like it was nothing.
"Does it help him?" I said.
"It may reduce her charges.
It doesn't help him.
The documentation stands regardless of who originated the idea.
The execution was his.
The signatures were his." A pause.
"His attorney knows this.
I think the letter was more — personal."
I stood in the hallway for a moment after we hung up.
Then I went back to the kitchen.
Lily had finished the garden.
It was very full now — Grandpa Edward, herself, the dog, and what appeared to be two birds sitting in a tree at the top of the page.
"What are the birds?" I asked.
She looked up at me with the patient expression she sometimes used when I asked obvious questions.
"Birds," she said.
"Right," I said.
"Of course."
May you like
She went back to drawing.
I sat down across from her and drank my coffee while it was still warm, which almost never happened anymore, and I thought that this — just this, the kitchen, the orange juice, the garden full of people she loved — this was what everything had been for.
