Chapter 7 - The Promise My Mother Bought
I didn't go alone. Leona waited at the bakery across from the dock, and June knew where I was. Dad had once taught me to swim from that pier. I hated needing a safety plan to speak to him there.
He looked exhausted. "Clara says you have video."
"I do."
"She fell. You can't pretend she didn't."
"She made me look like I pushed her. Then you threw me down."
His jaw worked. "I shouldn't have grabbed you."
It was the first admission I'd heard, and it still arrived with a condition. "But you need to see what she's putting me through," he added.
I didn't let him change the subject. "Why is there a buyer for Mom's house?"
He looked toward the water. "The shop's in trouble. Clara said the trust allowed a sale for a family emergency."
"Did you read the trust?"
"I read what she gave me."
June had given me the full document that morning. Mom inherited Foxglove Point from her parents and placed it in a trust while she was ill. Dad could use the house during his lifetime, provided he maintained it. When I turned twenty-five, I would become the managing trustee. Before then, a sale required an independent trustee's approval, proof it benefited me, and my written consent. None of those conditions had been met.
"I was sixteen when Mom died," I said. "You told me she left you everything."
"I thought she had."
"You signed a contract to sell it."
He finally looked at me. "I signed a preliminary offer. I thought there was still time to talk to you."
"Was there time to tell me Clara stole her jewelry?"
Dad's expression shifted. Not surprise. Recognition.
"She said Nina had promised that pendant to her," he murmured.
I opened my phone and showed him a still image of Clara putting it in her pocket. He closed his eyes.
May you like
"You know she lied," I said.
His phone rang. Clara's name lit the screen. Before he answered, I caught another message preview beneath it: THE GIRL MUST SIGN BY THURSDAY.
