Chapter 10: What Margaret Came to Say
She was standing on the front step with her coat still on, her car running in the drive.
"I can't stay," she said.
"I just need to tell you something."
"Come in."
"I really can't.
If she finds out I was here—" She stopped.
"She knows about Stuart Crane.
She knows I called him.
She's not speaking to me."
"Margaret—"
"I'm not here for sympathy.
I'm here because she said something tonight that frightened me." She looked at me directly.
"She said she was going to make sure you understood what it meant to take something from this family.
Those were her exact words.
'Make sure she understands.'"
"She's threatened me before."
"Not like this.
She wasn't angry when she said it.
She was calm." Margaret's jaw tightened.
"My mother is frightening when she's angry.
She is terrifying when she's calm."
I held the door.
"Come inside.
Please."
She hesitated.
Then she stepped in.
Daniel came to the hallway.
He saw his sister and something moved across his face — relief, then worry.
"Maggie."
"Don't," she said.
"I'm not here for a family moment.
I'm here because I think she's going to do something to the property."
"What do you mean?"
"There's a man she's been speaking to.
Not Crane, someone different.
She took a call from him in the garden so I couldn't hear.
But I saw the name on her phone when it rang." She looked at me.
"His name is Aldous Frey.
Does that mean anything to you?"
"No."
"It meant something to her attorney.
I overheard him say the name on a call last week and his tone changed completely." She pulled out her own phone and showed me a search result she'd already pulled up.
"Aldous Frey.
Property disputes.
He's known for finding technical defects in inheritance documents.
Errors in filing, missing witnesses, procedural gaps.
If he finds one, even a small one, it can be used to delay or void a transfer."
Patricia had told me the documents were solid.
But solid wasn't the same as perfect.
"I need to call my attorney," I said.
"Call her tonight," Margaret said.
"Don't wait until morning."
She turned to go.
"Margaret." Daniel's voice stopped her at the door.
"Thank you.
For Crane.
For this.
For all of it."
She looked at her brother for a moment.
"I didn't do it for you," she said.
"I did it for Noah."
She left.
I called Patricia at nine in the evening.
She picked up.
"Aldous Frey," I said.
A pause.
"Where did you hear that name?"
"Margaret.
Evelyn's been in contact with him."
"How long has Patricia been quiet for?" I asked.
"I'm thinking." Another pause.
"Frey is legitimate.
He's found real errors before — cases where documents were filed incorrectly, witnesses weren't properly independent, dates were off.
He's thorough."
"Could he find something in my father's documents?"
"Gerald filed everything.
Gerald has been doing this for forty years." But her voice had a careful quality to it.
"I want to pull the original filings tonight and go through them myself.
Every page.
Every signature.
Every date."
"Do you think there's something there?"
"I think Evelyn is desperate and Frey is expensive and she wouldn't be paying for expensive if she didn't think she had something." Patricia's voice was steady.
"Go to sleep, Claire.
Let me work.
I'll call you by seven in the morning."
I did not sleep.
I lay in the dark and listened to the house — the old sounds of it, the settle and creak that I had known since childhood, the way the wind came through the gap under the study window that my father had always meant to fix.
At 6:47 in the morning, Patricia called.
"I found it," she said.
My stomach dropped.
"One of the witness signatures on the trust amendment — the one filed four years ago — the witness address is listed as a business address, not a residential address.
It's a minor procedural point.
Most judges would overlook it."
"But Frey wouldn't."
"No.
He wouldn't." A pause.
"But here's the thing, Claire.
I also found the solution.
Gerald kept a notarized affidavit from that same witness confirming their identity and address at the time of signing.
It was filed separately, as a backup.
Your father asked for it specifically."
I closed my eyes.
"He planned for this too," I said.
"He planned for Aldous Frey," Patricia said.
"Or someone like him.
The affidavit closes the gap completely.
If Frey brings it to court, we present the affidavit, and the argument collapses in under ten minutes."
I sat up in bed.
"So she has nothing."
"She has nothing," Patricia confirmed.
"I'll prepare a formal response today and file it preemptively.
So that if Frey does bring anything, we've already answered it."
I got up and went to the window.
The oak tree was there in the early morning light, still and solid.
My father had thought of everything.
Every attack.
Every angle.
Every small procedural gap that a desperate woman might try to use against his daughter and his great-grandchild.
He had thought of all of it, years before it happened, and he had quietly, carefully, built a wall around us.
I got dressed.
I went downstairs and made coffee.
When Noah came down for breakfast, I was already at the table.
"You're up early," he said.
"Couldn't sleep."
He climbed into his chair and reached for the cereal box.
"Is everything okay?"
May you like
"Everything is okay," I said.
And this time, I meant it.
