Chapter 6: Robert Vance Walks Into the Room
Gerald scheduled a formal response meeting for the following Wednesday.
He had invited one additional person, he told me the morning before.
Someone whose presence, he felt, would be useful.
When I walked into the conference room, Robert Vance was already seated at the table.
He was seventy-one years old, broad-shouldered, with white hair and the kind of stillness that comes from a lifetime of not needing to prove anything.
He stood when I came in.
He crossed the room and held both my hands in his the way he had at the funeral, firmly, like a man keeping something from falling.
"Sienna," he said.
"Robert." My voice broke slightly on the second syllable.
I hadn't seen him since the cemetery.
We sat.
Gerald laid out the situation plainly: the inquiry from Phillip Crest, the claim of undue influence, the strategy he believed my family was using.
Robert listened without interrupting.
When Gerald finished, Robert placed both hands flat on the table.
"I want to be clear about something," he said.
"Julian came to me before he updated that estate plan.
He sat in my kitchen and told me exactly what he intended to do and why.
He was not pressured.
He was not confused.
He was the most deliberate man I have ever known, and he loved Sienna with everything he had." He paused.
"I will say that in any room they want to put me in."
"That may become necessary," Gerald said.
"Then it becomes necessary." Robert looked at me.
"How are you holding up?"
"I'm angry," I said.
"I keep trying to feel something else, but mostly I'm just angry."
"Good," he said.
"Stay angry.
It's cleaner than sad right now."
Gerald's assistant knocked and entered.
She placed a printed document in front of Gerald, who reviewed it briefly before sliding it to me.
"This arrived this morning," he said.
"Crest has escalated.
They're now formally requesting an accounting of all assets transferred into the trust during the last three years of Julian's life.
They're looking for a transaction they can characterize as irregular."
Robert's jaw tightened.
"On what grounds?"
"They don't need solid grounds yet.
They need enough to justify discovery."
"What does discovery mean for Sienna?"
"It means they get to ask questions.
Review records.
Depose witnesses." Gerald looked at me.
"It means they get to make this uncomfortable for as long as possible."
I looked at the document.
Then I looked up.
"Julian's grandfather established that trust in 1987," I said.
"Julian's father expanded it.
Julian inherited it.
None of that happened during our marriage.
None of that has anything to do with me influencing anyone."
"Correct," Gerald said.
"Which is why their argument is weak.
But weak arguments can still be expensive."
"Then let them be expensive." I set the document down.
"I'm not settling."
Robert made a sound that wasn't quite a laugh.
He looked at Gerald.
"She sounds like Julian."
"She does," Gerald agreed.
The meeting ran another ninety minutes.
By the end of it, Gerald had a full counter-response drafted and Robert had agreed to provide a formal written statement of his knowledge of Julian's estate intentions.
As we were leaving, Robert held the elevator door for me.
"Can I ask you something?" I said, as the doors closed.
"Anything."
"Did Julian ever talk to you about what he wanted me to do?
After.
With the money."
Robert was quiet for a moment.
The elevator descended.
"He said he wanted you to build something that would outlast both of you." He looked at the doors.
"He said he didn't care what it was, as long as it helped children.
He said you'd know."
The doors opened.
We stepped into the lobby.
"I do know," I said.
Robert nodded once.
Then he put on his coat, buttoned it slowly, and walked out into the afternoon.
I stood in the lobby for a moment.
Through the glass doors, I could see the street, the ordinary movement of a Wednesday, people passing with coffee cups and phones, the city going about its business entirely unaware.
Then my own phone buzzed.
A text from an unknown number.
*You should know your sister has been meeting with Crest's office.
She's been there twice this week.*
May you like
I stared at the message for a long time.
Then I forwarded it to Gerald and walked outside.
