Chapter 3: The Door at the Bottom of the Stairs
Emma pushed the confidential folder beneath her coat while I slipped the power-of-attorney form inside my shirt.
Stephanie’s heels struck each stair slowly.
“Emma, answer me.”
“I’m up here,” Emma called.
The office door opened.
Stephanie stopped when she saw me beside the desk.
“What are you doing in my private office?”
“Learning why you wanted to marry me.”
Her eyes moved across the disturbed folders.
“Those are client documents.
Put down anything you touched.”
“Is my mother your client?”
“She asked me to help with her insurance.”
“She never asked you to declare her incapable.”
Stephanie’s mouth tightened.
“You’ve had one emotional night, Charles.
Don’t turn it into a paranoid fantasy.”
Emma stepped beside me.
“Tell him about Dr.
Alan Price.”
Stephanie looked at her sister.
“You have no idea what you’re interfering with.”
“Dr.
Price signed a statement saying Margaret can’t manage her affairs,” Emma said.
“Richard paid him.”
“That’s a lie.”
“Then why did I hear you celebrating when he agreed?”
Stephanie reached for Emma’s coat.
I moved between them.
“Don’t touch her.”
“This is family business.”
“You stopped being my family when you called my mother a peasant.”
Stephanie folded her arms.
“And you threw away our marriage over one stupid sentence.”
“No.
I threw it away because that sentence showed me who you are.”
Her phone lit up on the desk.
The message preview carried Richard’s name: HAS MARGARET SIGNED THE FINAL PAGE?
I turned the screen toward her.
“Which final page?”
Stephanie snatched up the phone.
“You entered my home without permission.”
“You told me to come alone,” Emma said.
“I was speaking to Charles.”
“No, you weren’t,” I said.
“You didn’t know I was coming.”
For the first time, Stephanie had no answer.
Emma’s hand trembled beneath her coat, but she kept her eyes on her sister.
“Charles,” Stephanie said softly, “give me what you took, and I’ll forget this happened.”
“You’re offering me a deal?”
“I’m offering you one chance to avoid humiliating your mother in court.
If these papers become public, people will ask whether she really is confused.”
“My mother has worked that farm for fifty years.”
“And a clever attorney will say that doesn’t make her competent today.”
Emma pulled out her phone.
“I recorded that.”
Stephanie’s face changed.
She lunged for it, but Emma stepped back.
“You’ve always been weak,” Stephanie said.
“Do you think Charles will protect you when Dad cuts you off?”
“I’d rather be poor than become you.”
A car door closed outside.
Stephanie glanced toward the window and smiled.
“You should have left when you had the chance.”
Richard entered the apartment and called from below.
“Stephanie, are they still upstairs?”
I took Emma’s arm.
“We’re leaving.”
Stephanie blocked the doorway.
“Not with my property.”
“The document with my mother’s false signature belongs with Daniel.”
“You won’t reach him,” she said.
“Dad filed the petition at eight this morning.”
My hand tightened around the paper beneath my shirt.
“The court hasn’t heard from us.”
“It doesn’t need to yet.
We requested an emergency order.”
Richard’s footsteps reached the landing.
May you like
Stephanie stepped aside, her smile returning.
“By lunchtime, Margaret may no longer control Willowbrook—or her own bank account.”
