Chapter 8: Gerald's Move
My lawyer's name was Patricia Howe.
I had used her for the trust administration since Emily's mother passed.
She answered on the second ring.
"Nathan.
I wasn't expecting to hear from you today."
"I need you to listen to something," I said.
I was in the car park of the chapel.
Emily was in the back seat with a juice box from the nanny's bag, watching something on a tablet with headphones on.
The nanny — a woman named Sue who had been with us for three years — sat beside her with one hand resting quietly on Emily's knee.
I told Patricia everything.
The note.
The texts.
Hillcrest.
Gerald Marsh.
The trust.
She was silent for several seconds after I finished.
"Send me the screenshots from Daniel's phone," she said.
"Right now, before anything else."
"I'm doing it."
"Nathan, listen to me carefully.
Gerald Marsh is a competent attorney and Constance Farrow has money.
If he files an emergency motion today, it will not succeed — the grounds aren't there — but it will create noise.
It will create a record.
That's what it's designed to do."
"What do I do?"
"You go home.
You do not speak to Rebecca, Constance, or Gerald without me present.
You document everything you remember from this morning, in writing, with timestamps, before the day is out." A pause.
"And you call Emily's pediatrician on Monday.
I want a letter on file confirming her current care, her stability, her relationship with you.
Preemptive."
"You think this goes to court."
"I think Gerald Marsh doesn't make calls he doesn't intend to follow through on," Patricia said.
"I think we treat this seriously from this moment forward."
I looked in the rearview mirror at Emily.
She was laughing at something on the screen.
The headphones were slightly too big for her and kept sliding down over one ear.
"Patricia," I said.
"The trust.
If they somehow succeeded — if a court appointed a new trustee—"
"They won't."
"But if they did."
"The trust was established by Emily's mother with very specific language," Patricia said.
"I helped draft it.
It names you as trustee with a succession clause that goes to my firm, not to any guardian or spouse.
Rebecca's legal team would have found that if they'd done their homework properly."
I let out a slow breath.
"They didn't do their homework," I said.
"It appears not." Patricia's voice was dry.
"Which tells me Gerald came into this late and didn't read the full document.
He read the guardianship provisions and stopped there."
"So the whole plan was based on an incomplete reading of the trust."
"That would be my assessment, yes."
I sat with that for a moment.
The plan that had been two years in the making.
The dinners, the homework help, the careful warmth, the promises about Emily.
All of it built on a legal misreading.
The thing they had been reaching for was never actually there.
"I'll have a formal response ready before end of business Monday," Patricia said.
"If Gerald files anything before then, call me immediately."
"I will."
"Nathan." She paused.
"I'm sorry about today.
I know this wasn't how it was supposed to go."
"No," I said.
"It wasn't."
I hung up and sat for a moment in the quiet of the car.
Then my phone buzzed.
A text from an unknown number.
*You should ask Rebecca about the life insurance policy.
The one she added you to eight months ago.
Ask her who the beneficiary is.*
I stared at the screen.
I didn't recognize the number.
I typed back: *Who is this?*
Three dots appeared.
Then disappeared.
Then appeared again.
May you like
*Someone who should have spoken up sooner.
I'm sorry I didn't.*
