Chapter 8 - THE WOMAN HE ALMOST MARRIED
Arthur spread old photographs across the dining table. There was Diana at a school fundraiser twelve years earlier, standing next to her mother, Celia Cross. Celia's arm rested on Roland Pike's shoulder. They were family, not strangers.
He replayed the night he met Diana. She had known which charity he supported and which whiskey his grandmother disliked. He'd called it chemistry. Now it looked like preparation.
Diana appeared at the estate gate the next morning with an attorney and a camera crew from a gossip website. She wanted her belongings. She also wanted an audience.
“Arthur assaulted me,” she told the camera. “His grandmother suffers from confusion. I was trying to protect him.”
Arthur met her outside with Moreno present. “Your things are inventoried. They'll be delivered through your lawyer.”
“You're really choosing that old woman's lies over me?”
“I'm choosing the woman you left on a marble floor.”
Diana's eyes flashed. “Ask Evelyn about the guardianship petition. Ask her why she's so afraid of an independent doctor.”
Later that day Leonard arrived carrying papers filed in county probate court. Diana had supplied a sworn statement alleging Evelyn could not manage her affairs and that Arthur was concealing financial abuse. Her attorney wanted an emergency hearing.
“Can she do that?” Arthur asked.
“Anyone can report concerns,” Leonard replied. “It doesn't mean the court will believe them. But allegations get examined.”
Evelyn read the petition carefully. “Let them examine me. And open my books.”
Arthur reached for her hand. She pulled away—not in anger, but to sign a written authorization for an independent audit.
Then Leonard turned the last page toward Arthur. Attached was a medical note supposedly written by Evelyn's former physician.
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The physician had died two years earlier.
