Chapter 5: The Attorney Named Grace
My daughter Nora found out the same way she found out most things — by calling at exactly the wrong moment.
I was sitting in the parking garage outside Roy's building, still in my car, the folder on the passenger seat, when my phone rang.
"Mom.
You sound weird.
What happened?"
"I'm fine."
"You're not fine.
You sound like you did when Grandma died."
"Nora—"
"What's going on?
Is this about Dad's estate?"
I looked at the folder.
"Yes."
"Tell me."
So I told her.
Not everything.
Not Roy's disclosure about other clients.
But the core of it — the adjusted figures, the mediation, what I had walked away from six years ago believing was a fair settlement.
The silence on her end lasted long enough that I checked to make sure the call hadn't dropped.
"He knew," she said finally.
"He knew the whole time."
"Yes."
"And he just—" She stopped.
"Mom, you went back to work.
You took that job at the agency that you hated because you said you needed the income.
You did that because you thought—"
"I know."
"He watched you do that."
"Nora, I need you to let me handle this."
"I'm not going to say anything to Jamie yet." Jamie was her brother, two years younger, still raw from losing his father.
"But Mom.
You need a real attorney.
Not the one from the divorce."
She was right.
I already knew she was right.
Her name was Grace Holloway.
Nora had used her two years earlier for a contract dispute and described her as the kind of woman who read every line of every document and remembered all of it.
She had an office on the east side, a firm of four, and a reputation for financial litigation.
Grace saw me three days later.
I brought the box.
She read Roy's letter first.
Then the comparison summary.
Then she went back to the beginning and read everything again, more slowly.
"Walk me through the mediation," she said.
"Everything you remember."
I did.
The conference room.
The attorneys.
The figures on the table.
My decision to accept and move on.
Grace made notes without looking up.
"Did your attorney at the time request independent verification of the financial disclosures?"
"I don't know.
I assumed he did."
"Do you still have the mediation documents?"
"In the box."
She found them.
Read them.
Set them aside with a particular kind of stillness that I was beginning to recognize as her version of controlled reaction.
"Your attorney did not request independent verification," she said.
"Is that unusual?"
"In a case involving a privately held business of this size?
Yes." She looked up.
"It's not malpractice on its own.
But combined with what Roy Cafferty is prepared to state in writing, you have a viable fraud claim against Daniel's estate.
Potentially against Roy as well, though his cooperation changes the picture."
"He said he's willing to provide a full statement."
"I'll need to speak with him directly." She paused.
"There's also the question of your divorce attorney's conduct.
That's a separate matter and a separate conversation."
I nodded.
"One more thing," Grace said.
She tapped the comparison summary.
"This figure — the difference between what was disclosed and what the business was actually worth at the time of mediation.
You understand what that means in terms of what you were owed."
"I do now."
"Are you prepared to pursue this fully?"
I thought about the kitchen table.
The cold coffee.
Daniel's handwriting on the box.
The folding table we'd bought for forty dollars when we had nothing.
"Yes," I said.
Grace closed the folder.
"Then let's start with the estate," she said.
"Because the estate is still open, and Daniel's executor has a legal obligation to respond."
She picked up her pen.
"What's the executor's name?"
I told her.
Grace wrote it down and underlined it once.
"He's going to push back," she said.
"Hard.
Are you ready for that?"
Before I could answer, her desk phone rang.
She glanced at the display, and something in her expression changed.
"I need to take this," she said.
"It's Roy Cafferty's attorney."
She picked up the phone.
I watched her face as she listened.
"When did this happen?" she said.
A pause.
"Is he all right?"
Another pause.
Longer.
May you like
Grace looked at me across the desk.
"We'll need to move faster than I thought," she said.
