Chapter 2: She Wasn't Talking About the Guest Room Anymore
I answered the call.
"Mom." Harrison's voice was tight.
Controlled.
The kind of voice he used when he wanted to sound calm but wasn't.
"We need to talk about what you did."
"I agree," I said.
"Let's talk about the eighteen thousand dollars."
Silence.
Not the short silence of someone thinking.
The long silence of someone caught.
"That's…
that's not what this call is about."
"It is now," I said.
I heard him exhale.
Then, lower, away from the phone, his voice dropped to something I wasn't supposed to hear.
"She knows."
Two words.
But they told me everything.
He wasn't alone.
And whoever was in that room with him already knew what he had done.
I kept my voice steady.
"Harrison.
Whose idea was it?"
He didn't answer.
"Was it yours?
Or did she ask you to do it?"
"Mom, you're making this into something it isn't—"
"Eighteen thousand dollars, Harrison.
From the emergency account your father set up before he d*ed.
For me.
Not for handbags.
Not for spa days.
For me."
The line went so quiet I could hear my own heartbeat.
Then a second voice came on.
Sloan.
"Lorraine," she said, smooth as glass.
"I think it's time we had a real conversation.
About the house."
My grip tightened on the phone.
May you like
The house.
She wasn't talking about the guest room anymore.
