Chapter 4: The Son Who Arrived Too Soon
Gerald Marsh's office was on the third floor of a building downtown that smelled like old carpet and central air.
His assistant, a small woman named Patrice, brought me water without being asked and pulled a chair close enough that I could reach the desk without leaning forward.
"You're thirty-four weeks," she said, not as a question.
"Thirty-four and a half," I said.
She nodded like that mattered and went back to her desk.
Gerald Marsh was in his late sixties, with reading glasses pushed up on his forehead and a file folder already open in front of him.
He stood when I came in.
"Ms.
Collier." He shook my hand.
"I'm sorry about Eleanor.
She was a client of mine for nineteen years."
"She never mentioned you," I said.
"She wouldn't have." He sat down.
"She was a private woman.
But she thought about this decision for a long time." He opened the folder.
"The deed transfer was executed and notarized eleven days ago.
It is entirely legal.
Douglas cannot overturn it simply by claiming otherwise."
"He filed a challenge this morning," I said.
Marsh didn't blink.
"I know.
I received notice at seven forty-five a.m." He looked at me over his glasses.
"Douglas filed that challenge at seven-fifteen.
His mother was found at six-fifty."
The room went quiet.
"He knew," I said.
"He knew something," Marsh said carefully.
"Whether he knew exactly what, or whether he had been watching and waiting, I cannot say yet.
What I can tell you is that the timing is not in his favor."
There was a knock at the office door.
Patrice opened it.
"Mr.
Marsh.
Douglas Higgins is downstairs.
He doesn't have an appointment.
He says he'll wait."
Marsh looked at me.
"You don't have to see him."
"Is he going to go away if I don't?"
"No."
"Then I'll see him," I said.
"Better to know what he looks like."
Marsh studied me for a moment.
"All right.
But I'll be in the room."
Douglas Higgins was nothing like I'd imagined.
He was in his mid-fifties, well-dressed, with the kind of tan that came from a second home somewhere warm.
He walked into Marsh's office like he'd been there before and didn't like it.
His eyes went straight to my stomach.
Something moved across his face.
Not sympathy.
"You're the neighbor," he said.
"I am," I said.
"My mother didn't know you."
"She knew me well enough."
He turned to Marsh.
"This is a joke.
This woman spent three hours on my mother's lawn and walked away with a house worth four hundred thousand dollars.
You know how that looks."
"It looks like your mother made a legal decision about her own property," Marsh said.
"My mother was eighty-two years old and alone and clearly being manipulated—"
"By a pregnant woman in ninety-five-degree heat who mowed her lawn without being asked?" I said.
Douglas's jaw tightened.
"You don't know what you've walked into."
"Then tell me."
He leaned forward.
"That house has been in my family for fifty years.
My father built that porch with his own hands.
My mother had no right—"
"She had every right," Marsh said.
"She owned it outright."
"I will take this to court," Douglas said.
"I have resources you don't have.
I have time you don't have." His eyes dropped to my stomach again.
"And I don't think you want to be dealing with a legal fight when you're about to have a baby alone."
The word alone landed like he'd aimed it.
I kept my face still.
"Are you threatening me?" I asked.
"I'm being realistic."
"Mr.
Higgins," Marsh said, his voice dropping, "I'd encourage you to speak with your own attorney before continuing this conversation."
Douglas stood.
He buttoned his jacket.
He looked at me one more time.
"She was confused at the end," he said.
"Everyone who knew her will say so."
He walked out.
Patrice closed the door behind him.
I sat very still.
The baby moved again, a slow roll this time, like she was settling in.
"He's going to find people to say she wasn't of sound mind," I said.
"He's going to try," Marsh said.
"Which is why it matters that she had a full cognitive evaluation done eight days ago." He slid a document across the desk.
"She requested it herself.
She knew he would do exactly this."
Eleanor had thought of everything.
But Douglas had said *everyone who knew her.*
I thought about that on the drive home.
Who had known her?
Who might Douglas already be talking to?
May you like
I pulled onto my street and saw a truck parked in front of Eleanor's house.
Two men were standing on her porch, trying the front door.
