Chapter 6: The Warning and the Woman Who Sent It
I screenshot the message before I did anything else.
Then I sat on the edge of my bed in the dark and breathed.
The baby was still.
The house was quiet.
Outside, the porch light threw a yellow circle across the front steps and nothing moved inside it.
I forwarded the screenshot to Marsh with a single line: *Received at 2:04 a.m.*
He replied at 6:18 a.m.: *Saved.
This is useful.
Come in at ten if you can.*
I was at his office at nine-fifty.
Patrice brought me tea this time.
Marsh had the screenshot printed and already in a new folder.
"This is witness intimidation," he said.
"Potentially.
We can't prove Douglas sent it directly, but the timing and context create a strong inference." He looked at me.
"Have you had any other contact?
Anyone approaching you in person?"
"The men on the porch yesterday."
"Besides that."
I thought.
"A car drove slowly past my house after I called your office the first time.
I couldn't see the driver."
He wrote something down.
"I want you to document everything.
Time, description, what was said or done.
Every instance." He set down his pen.
"I've also spoken with the county records office this morning.
The deed transfer is registered and on file.
Douglas's challenge is based on a claim of undue influence and diminished capacity.
Given the cognitive evaluation and Ruth Patton's testimony, that challenge is weak.
But weak doesn't mean fast."
"How long?"
"Months, potentially.
Possibly longer if he pushes it to a full hearing."
Months.
I looked at my hands.
"My foreclosure," I said.
"It's already started.
I have maybe sixty days before—"
"I know," Marsh said.
"Eleanor knew too." He opened the folder to a different page.
"She left a second document.
A personal letter to me, separate from the deed.
She asked me to use a portion of her liquid savings — held in a separate account — to cover any immediate financial obligations you were facing, pending resolution of the estate." He slid the page toward me.
"She left enough to cover your mortgage arrears and carry you for eight months."
I stared at the number on the page.
"She knew about my mortgage?"
"She knew you were in foreclosure," Marsh said quietly.
"She didn't say how she knew.
But she was specific about the amount."
Eleanor had watched me for months.
She'd seen me struggling.
She'd planned for it.
She'd planned for Douglas, for the challenge, for the timeline, for the baby.
She'd planned for all of it.
My eyes burned.
I pressed my fingers against them.
"Don't," Marsh said, not unkindly.
"There's more."
I lowered my hands.
"Douglas has retained an attorney," Marsh said.
"A man named Clifford Vane.
Vane is aggressive and expensive and he wins by exhausting the other side." He looked at me directly.
"He will try to make this process as costly and as draining as possible.
He will file motions that go nowhere but take time.
He will request documents and depositions and continuances.
He will try to wear you down."
"Can he win?"
"On the merits?
No.
The document is solid.
The evaluation is solid.
Ruth's testimony is solid." Marsh paused.
"But Vane doesn't always need to win.
Sometimes he just needs the other side to give up."
I thought about Douglas in this office.
The way his eyes had dropped to my stomach.
*You don't want to be dealing with a legal fight when you're about to have a baby alone.*
"I'm not giving up," I said.
Marsh almost smiled.
"Eleanor said you wouldn't."
I drove home slowly.
I was tired in a way that went past sleep.
I was pulling into my driveway when I saw her.
A woman I didn't recognize, standing at Eleanor's front door.
Not a contractor.
Not a deputy.
She was in her sixties, well-dressed, with a key in her hand.
She was trying to unlock Eleanor's door.
I got out of my car.
"Excuse me," I called.
"Can I help you?"
She turned.
Her face was composed, almost bored.
"I'm Diane Higgins.
Douglas's wife." She looked me over once.
"I'm collecting some of Eleanor's personal items.
Family items.
Before this gets any messier."
"You don't have authorization to enter that property," I said.
"It's my mother-in-law's home."
"It's my property," I said.
"And I'd like you to step away from the door."
Diane's expression didn't change.
May you like
But her hand tightened on the key.
"You have no idea," she said quietly, "what you've gotten yourself into."
