Chapter 6: What the Old Man Already Knew
Renaldo Marquetti was not what people expected.
I had learned this in my first week.
Visitors came to the mansion braced for a diminished man — frail, confused, propped against pillows.
They left unsettled, though they couldn't always say why.
He had the kind of stillness that made other people feel they were moving too fast.
He was seated in the chair by the window when I came in that afternoon, a book open on his knee, the lake gray and flat behind him.
He looked up when I entered and his eyes went immediately to my splinted wrist.
"Sit down," he said.
"Before you fall again."
"I didn't fall," I said.
"I was pushed.
Indirectly."
He closed the book.
"Indirectly," he repeated.
"That's a careful word."
"I'm a careful person."
"You are." He studied me.
"Gideon told me about the oil."
"I thought he might."
"He didn't tell me everything.
He never does.
He thinks protecting me is the same as respecting me." He set the book on the side table.
"Sit down, Adeline.
My neck is getting tired."
I sat in the chair across from him.
The afternoon light was thin, coming in low across the water.
"The other nurses," I said.
"Did you know?"
He was quiet for a moment.
"I suspected.
After the third one left." He folded his hands on his knee.
"Patricia Holt told me directly.
She sat in that chair — the one you're in now — and she said, Mr.
Marquetti, someone in this house does not want me here, and I believe it is the same someone who has been removing anyone you trust."
My chest tightened.
"What did you do?"
"I told Gideon there was a problem.
I did not tell him the whole of it because I did not have proof.
Gideon does not move without proof.
It is one of his better qualities and one of his more frustrating ones." He looked at the window.
"Patricia left two days later.
I don't know what happened in those two days.
I only know she was gone."
"She left a note in the agency file."
"What did it say?"
"The patient is not the problem."
He smiled.
It was a tired smile, but warm.
"She was a good woman.
I hope she found a better situation."
I looked at my hands.
The splint was white against my skin.
"Mr.
Marquetti—"
"Renaldo."
I stopped.
He raised one eyebrow.
"My son insists on formality.
I find it exhausting.
My name is Renaldo."
"Renaldo," I said.
"Your daughter believes you're planning to change your will."
"I have changed my will," he said.
"Three weeks ago.
The documents are filed."
The air in the room shifted.
"Does Sera know it's already done?"
"No.
She knows I've been speaking with my solicitor.
She doesn't know the conversation concluded." He looked at me steadily.
"She has been trying to prevent it for four months.
She did not succeed."
"What did you change?"
He was quiet for a moment.
Then he said: "I removed Sera's control over the estate's medical trust.
The trust that funds my care.
She had been appointed administrator when my wife passed.
I did not understand at the time what that would mean to her." He paused.
"I understand now."
"She was using it to control who stayed in this house."
"She was using it to control everything that came near me." His voice didn't rise.
It just became more precise.
"The agency fees, the medication orders, the staffing approvals — all of it passed through her.
She could make a nurse's position untenable without ever touching a staircase." He looked at my wrist.
"Until she apparently decided subtlety was taking too long."
My throat was dry.
"Who controls the trust now?"
"Gideon." He picked up his book again.
"He doesn't know yet.
My solicitor will contact him this week."
"And Sera?"
"Sera will find out when Gideon does." He opened to his page.
"I have been waiting for the right moment.
I believe the right moment has arrived."
I stood to leave.
"Adeline."
I turned.
He was looking at me over the top of his book.
His eyes were very clear.
"Thank you for not quitting," he said.
I didn't trust my voice entirely.
"Thank you for being worth staying for," I said.
He nodded once and returned to his page.
In the corridor outside, I stopped and pressed my back against the wall and breathed.
Somewhere below, a door opened and closed.
Then I heard Sera's voice, sharp and low, and a second voice I hadn't heard before — a man's voice, not Gideon's, not Walter's — saying something I couldn't make out.
I moved to the top of the main staircase and looked down.
Sera was in the entrance hall with a man in a gray suit.
He had a leather case under his arm and the manner of someone who charged by the hour.
She was handing him a folder.
"I need to know if it can be contested," she said.
"On the grounds of diminished capacity."
The man looked at the folder.
May you like
"How recent is the assessment?"
"That's what I'm paying you to find out," Sera said.
