Chapter 5: Someone You Know
Dorothy did not call Megan.
She read the message three times, then set her phone on the kitchen counter and made dinner.
Soup from what was in the refrigerator.
Bread from the freezer.
She ate at the table where Henry used to read the paper on Sunday mornings, and she thought carefully about what Megan was doing.
Megan had spent two days losing ground.
The guests had left.
The attorney's letter had arrived.
The cease and desist was coming.
Every move Dorothy had made was calm, documented, and correct.
Megan had nothing left except information — and she was dangling it like bait.
*Someone you know.*
Dorothy washed her bowl, dried it, and put it away.
Then she called Graham.
"Megan sent a message," she said.
"She claims Patricia Welles isn't working alone.
She says there's a third party involved.
Someone I know.
She wants me to call her."
A pause.
"Don't."
"I wasn't going to.
But I want to understand what she's doing."
"She's trying to reopen a negotiation you've already closed," Graham said.
"If she has information that's genuinely useful to you, she'll provide it in writing when her other options run out.
If she's bluffing, she'll go quiet.
Either way, calling her gives her something she doesn't currently have — your attention and your uncertainty."
"The title search," Dorothy said.
"How long?"
"I put in the request this afternoon.
Forty-eight hours, possibly less.
If there's anything beyond the notice of interest, we'll see it."
She thanked him and hung up.
She did not sleep well.
Not because she was frightened, but because the phrase *someone you know* kept surfacing in the dark the way unwanted things do — not loudly, just persistently.
In the morning, she called her sister-in-law, Vera.
Vera was Henry's younger sister, seventy-three years old, sharp as she had ever been, and the one person in the family who had never pretended that Megan was easy to like.
"I need to ask you something," Dorothy said when Vera picked up.
"I've been waiting for you to call," Vera said immediately.
Dorothy went still.
"What do you know?"
"Sit down first."
"Vera."
"Sit down, Dorothy."
She sat.
"In August," Vera said, "I ran into Patricia Welles at the county planning meeting.
I didn't know who she was at the time.
We spoke briefly.
She asked about coastal properties on the north side — very casually, the way people do when they're fishing.
I mentioned that my brother's family had a cottage out that way.
I didn't think anything of it." A pause.
"I didn't know her name until you just said it."
Dorothy's hand tightened on the phone.
"She found you," Dorothy said.
"She found out about the cottage through you."
"I think so.
I'm sorry.
I had no idea what she was."
"It's not your fault." Dorothy meant it.
"Did she ask about the ownership?
Whether Henry had passed?"
"She asked if the family had had the property long.
I said since the seventies.
She asked if it was likely to stay in the family." Vera's voice was tight.
"I said I hoped so.
I said Robert and Megan seemed very attached to it."
The shape of it became clear.
Patricia Welles had not found Robert and Megan by accident.
She had found a lead — a widow's property, an eager son, a daughter-in-law with plans — and she had followed it straight to Megan's door.
"Vera.
When Megan says there's a third party involved — someone I know — do you think she means you?"
Silence.
"I think," Vera said slowly, "that Megan may be trying to make you feel like everyone around you has been working against you.
So that you feel alone.
So that you pick up the phone and call her."
Dorothy looked out the window at the garden.
The roses Henry had planted along the south fence were bare now, just canes and thorns, waiting for spring.
"She's not going to make me feel alone," Dorothy said.
"But I need to know if there's anyone else.
Anyone who might have talked to Patricia without realizing it."
"I can make some calls," Vera said.
"Quietly."
"Please."
After she hung up, Dorothy sat for a long time in the sunroom.
She was not frightened.
She was something colder and more useful than frightened.
She was paying attention.
Her phone buzzed.
A number she didn't recognize.
She answered.
"Mrs.
Calloway?" A man's voice.
Professional, measured.
"My name is Daniel Fitch.
I'm a senior associate at Coastal Meridian Development Group.
I understand there may have been some miscommunication about our interest in your property.
I'd welcome the chance to speak with you directly."
Dorothy looked at Henry's photograph on the shelf.
"Mr.
Fitch," she said.
"My attorney's name is Graham Selby.
Any communication regarding this property goes through him."
A brief pause.
"Of course.
I simply wanted to — "
"Through him," she said.
"Good afternoon."
She ended the call and immediately forwarded the number to Graham with a single line: *He called me directly.
Please note it.*
Graham replied in four minutes: *Noted.
May you like
That was a mistake on their part.
I'll use it.*
