Chapter 3: The Woman Who Was Never Supposed to Be There
She was in her late sixties, small-framed, wearing a pale blue cardigan over a floral dress.
Her hair was silver and neatly pinned.
She walked slowly, one hand gripping a wooden cane, but her eyes were sharp and completely steady.
Mrs.
Bennett made a sound I had never heard from her before.
Something between a gasp and a word that didn't finish.
"Eleanor."
Maverick didn't move.
He stood exactly where he was, and the color that had already left his face somehow found a way to drain further.
Eleanor Bennett — the woman the family had told me was too unwell to attend the wedding, the woman whose inheritance was printed on the document now sitting on the bed — looked at her nephew and said nothing for a long moment.
Then she looked at me.
"You must be Amy."
"I am," I said.
"She told me about you." Eleanor glanced at Mrs.
Bennett.
"My sister said you were the only person in this family worth trusting."
Maverick found his voice.
"Aunt Eleanor, this isn't — you shouldn't be here.
You're not well enough—"
"I drove myself." She set her cane against the wall.
"I've been well enough for six months, Maverick.
You simply preferred me to believe otherwise."
His brother Daniel stepped back.
His brother Curtis looked at the floor.
Mr.
Bennett — Maverick's father, Gerald — turned to his son with an expression I had only seen once before, at a funeral.
"How long?" Gerald's voice was barely above a whisper.
"How long have you been taking from her account?"
"Dad—"
"Answer me."
Maverick's jaw tightened.
"It wasn't taking.
It was managing.
She needed someone to manage her affairs and I was the one who—"
"You were the one who forged my signature," Eleanor said.
The room went completely still.
Eleanor reached into her cardigan pocket and placed a single folded sheet of paper on top of my folder.
She smoothed it flat with one careful hand.
"The original power of attorney was limited.
It covered her medical decisions only." She tapped the paper.
"This signature — the one that gave you access to the full account — I never signed it."
Maverick looked at the document.
His mouth opened.
"That's not—"
"I had it verified three weeks ago," Eleanor said.
"By two separate forensic examiners."
Gerald Bennett picked up the paper.
He read it.
He set it back down.
He didn't look at his son again.
Mrs.
Bennett sat on the edge of the bed, still in her corsage, and pressed both hands flat against her knees.
She stared at the purple bridesmaid dress lying beside her and said nothing.
I had rehearsed this moment so many times in the weeks before the wedding.
I had imagined needing to argue, to defend myself, to fight through disbelief and denial.
I had prepared for Maverick to be convincing.
He had always been convincing.
But Eleanor had walked through the door, and every word I had prepared became unnecessary.
Penelope gathered her dress from the floor and moved toward the bathroom without speaking.
Nobody stopped her.
Nobody looked at her.
Whatever she had been to Maverick in that room, she had already become irrelevant to what was happening now.
Maverick turned to me.
His voice dropped low, the way it always did when he wanted something.
"Amy.
You and I need to talk.
Alone.
Before this goes any further."
I looked at him.
"There is no further for us, Maverick."
"You don't understand what you're doing."
"I understand exactly what I'm doing." I picked up my folder from the bed.
"I've understood it since the night I found the first transfer record in your desk drawer."
His eyes changed.
"You went through my desk."
"You left it unlocked." I held the folder against my chest.
"Three months before our wedding.
You left it unlocked, and I wasn't looking for anything.
I was looking for a pen."
Gerald Bennett turned toward the window.
His shoulders dropped.
Curtis spoke for the first time.
"How much?"
Nobody answered him.
He asked again, quieter.
"How much did he take?"
Eleanor looked at Curtis steadily.
"Two hundred and forty thousand dollars.
Over nineteen months."
The number landed in the room like something physical.
Daniel sat down on the arm of the chair near the door.
He put his head in his hands.
Maverick's voice came back hard and fast.
"That money was going to be returned.
Every cent.
I had a plan — the investment was going to pay out and I was going to put it all back before anyone—"
"Before anyone noticed," Eleanor finished.
"Yes.
That is what people always say."
She picked up her cane.
She looked at me one more time, and something in her expression shifted — not pity, not sympathy exactly, but recognition.
"You could have simply left him," she said.
"You didn't have to do this."
"No," I said.
"But you deserved to know."
Eleanor nodded once.
Then she walked to the chair near the window and sat down, as though she intended to stay for a while.
Gerald Bennett finally turned back to face his son.
May you like
What he said next was only four words.
But they closed every door Maverick had been counting on.
