Chapter 5 - The Blue Folder
Wren woke from a nap with a nightmare and asked Rose to sit where she could see the door. When I came upstairs, she held out one small hand.
"Is Celia coming?"
"No. You are staying here with me."
"Promise?"
"I promise you'll be safe tonight, and I'll keep working to make sure you're safe after that."
She considered this longer than a child should have to.
Downstairs, Rose showed me a photograph she'd taken three weeks earlier. In it, Wren stood outside the reading room, holding a drawing. Behind her, through the half-open door, a blue folder lay on my desk.
"I took this because it was the first time she'd smiled all week," Rose said. "Look at the folder."
I enlarged the image. A typed page protruded from its cover: WILLOW POINT TRUSTāPROPOSED TRANSFER.
My stomach tightened.
Willow Point was a narrow piece of lakeshore Nora's parents had left for Wren. There was a weather-beaten cottage, a dock with loose boards, and a row of birch trees where Nora had taught Wren to skip stones. Nora's trust protected the property until our daughter grew up.
"Why would Celia have those papers?" Rose asked.
"She shouldn't. Neither should my mother."
For months, Elaine had complained about the cottage's taxes and repairs. She'd called it a burden and urged me to sell. I'd refused every time.
I phoned Becca Rowe, Nora's longtime friend and the independent co-trustee. She answered sleepily from a conference in Portland.
"Mark, I was going to call you," she said. "Somebody sent me a consent form to sign."
"Consent for what?"
"A sale. Nearly three million dollars. I told the broker no."
"Who sent it?"
"A company called Northshore Holdings. They said you'd already agreed."
May you like
My throat went dry. "I haven't."
Becca was silent. Then she said, "Mark, the form came back with my signature on it anyway."
