Chapter 6: The Solicitor's Name
My husband was still at the laptop at midnight when he found it.
Not through anything complicated.
Through a letter.
Three months ago, my parents had asked me to help them sort through some paperwork — old insurance documents, a folder of receipts they wanted to clear out.
I'd spent an afternoon at their kitchen table going through it with my mother while my father napped.
I hadn't paid attention to most of it.
But I'd taken a photo of the folder's contents on my phone because my mother had asked me to keep a record of what we'd discarded.
I'd forgotten the photo existed.
My husband hadn't.
He found it in my cloud backup, zoomed in, and there it was — a letterhead, partially visible beneath another document.
A firm's name.
An address twenty minutes from my parents' house.
Hargreaves & Pell, Solicitors.
"That's them," he said.
"We can't just call them.
They won't speak to us.
Client confidentiality."
"No.
But we can find out who the named partner is.
And we can find out if James has any professional connection to that firm."
He typed for a few minutes.
I stood behind him with my coffee going cold in my hand.
"There," he said.
The firm's website listed three partners.
The third name: D.
Pell.
My husband opened a second tab.
A LinkedIn profile.
Daniel Pell.
And in the employment history, four years back, a position at a mid-sized property company.
The same property company where James had worked before he went independent.
I set my coffee down.
"They know each other," I said.
"They worked together for four years."
"James didn't find that solicitor for my parents.
He chose them.
He walked my parents into a firm run by someone he already knew."
"Someone who might be willing to — " My husband stopped.
"We don't know what's in those documents.
We don't know what James has actually managed to change, if anything."
"But we know he had access.
He was in those meetings."
"Yes."
I pulled out my chair and sat down across from him.
"We need to see the documents."
"Your parents would have copies."
"My parents trust James right now.
If I ask to see the will, it confirms everything he's already told them — that I'm after the estate, that I'm making trouble."
"So we don't ask your parents," my husband said.
"We go around them."
"How?"
He leaned back.
"Your father has a brother.
Uncle Pete.
Is he close to your father?"
"They talk every Sunday."
"Does your father tell him things he wouldn't tell your mother?"
I thought about it.
Uncle Pete was seventy-three, lived alone since his wife passed, and had known my father since they were boys.
They were the kind of brothers who didn't say much but meant everything they did say.
"Yes," I said.
"He would."
"Then we need to talk to Pete.
Not about the will.
Just about how your father has been.
What he's been saying.
Whether anything has changed in the last few months."
I looked at the clock.
Nearly half past midnight.
"I'll call him in the morning," I said.
My husband nodded and closed the laptop.
We went to bed.
I lay in the dark for a long time, thinking about my father's face at dinner.
The way he'd looked at the carpet.
The way he hadn't spoken.
He hadn't been quiet because he was ashamed of James.
He'd been quiet because James had already told him what to think of me.
My phone buzzed once on the nightstand.
A text from James.
*I think it's time we had a proper conversation.
Just the two of us.
Call me tomorrow.*
I turned the phone face-down.
He thought he was still in control of this.
May you like
He thought I was still the person who would either explode or go quiet.
He had no idea what was already in motion.
