Chapter 5: My Sister's Kitchen Table
Carol opened the door before I knocked.
She took one look at my face and stepped aside without a word.
I sat down at her kitchen table.
She put the kettle on.
I spread the documents out under the overhead light and she leaned over them with her reading glasses pushed up on her nose.
She didn't speak for a long time.
"This is Harold Finch's seal," she finally said.
"You know him?"
"He handled Dad's estate.
He's been the Bennett family attorney for as long as I can remember." She straightened up.
"He was at your engagement party, Nora.
Daniel introduced him to you."
I had forgotten that.
A quiet man with a grey suit and a firm handshake.
*Harold's practically family*, Daniel had said.
"Carol.
I signed documents three days before the wedding.
Vendor releases, Daniel said."
She looked at me over her glasses.
"There were tabs," I said.
She sat down slowly.
"Oh, Nora."
"I didn't read them.
He was standing right there and I was exhausted and I trusted him."
"Stop." She reached across the table and put her hand over mine.
"Stop right there.
This is not something you did.
This is something they planned."
I pressed my lips together hard.
"Don't," she said.
"Don't you dare hold this."
The kettle started to whistle.
Neither of us moved.
"The marriage certificate," I said.
"Renata told me there may be a wife before her.
Someone who disappeared from the record."
Carol's hand tightened on mine.
"How many times has he done this?"
"I don't know yet."
"We need a lawyer."
"First thing in the morning."
"No." She stood up and went to the counter.
"Tonight.
My neighbor Grace is a family law attorney.
She's done fraud cases.
I'm calling her right now."
"Carol, it's almost midnight."
"She'll answer." Carol already had her phone out.
"She owes me three years of casseroles."
I almost laughed.
It came out wrong — too close to a sob.
I pressed my hand over my mouth.
Carol looked at me.
She put the phone down for a moment.
She came back to the table and put both arms around me from behind, her chin on top of my head, the way she used to when we were children and something had gone badly wrong.
"I've got you," she said.
"You hear me?
I've got you."
I nodded.
I couldn't speak.
She held on for another moment.
Then she picked up the phone and dialed.
Grace answered on the third ring.
"Grace, it's Carol.
I need you.
Tonight." A pause.
"Yes, that serious.
Bring your laptop." She looked at the documents on the table.
"And whatever you know about notarial fraud."
She hung up and looked at me.
"Forty minutes," she said.
"Make the tea."
I got up and finished what she'd started.
My hands had stopped shaking.
Not because things were better.
Because there was something to do next.
Grace arrived in thirty-eight minutes with her laptop bag over one shoulder and her reading glasses already on her face.
She sat down, looked at the documents for four minutes without speaking, and then looked up at me.
"Who else knows you have these?"
"Daniel.
Margaret.
Harold Finch."
"And they know you left the house with them?"
"Yes."
She nodded slowly.
"Then we don't have much time before someone tries to say these aren't the originals." She opened her laptop.
"Tell me everything.
Start from the vendor releases."
I started from the vendor releases.
May you like
Outside, Carol's street was completely quiet.
Inside, the kitchen light stayed on.
