Chapter 7 - The Woman Who Opened the Door

I stayed with Dani over a bakery, where nobody asked permission to laugh. I hadn't realized how much I missed ordinary noise.

"You're shaking," Dani said as she placed pasta in front of me.

"There's a report with my name on it. A man died."

"Then we find the report. We don't assume the worst or pretend it's nothing."

Dani had known me since college. When Marcus tried to cut her off, she kept calling.

Around midnight, an unknown number appeared on my phone.

"Ivy?" Eleanor whispered.

I sat upright. "How did you get this number?"

"It's the number you've always had. I just wasn't supposed to use it."

After a pause Eleanor said, "I saw what he did this morning."

"You saw it many mornings."

"I know."

That small admission almost hurt more than another excuse would have.

I remembered every Sunday dinner when she had corrected my manners while Marcus pressed his foot against mine beneath the table: a warning not to disagree. She had been close enough to see my face the whole time.

She told me Marcus had moved into Arthur's office after the hearing. He'd been feeding papers into the fireplace and screaming at his father. Arthur had tried to stop him. Marcus shoved him into a bookcase.

"Is Arthur hurt?"

"Just his pride, he says. But he's frightened. I haven't seen him frightened of his own son before."

I thought of Eleanor's cold face at breakfast. "Why are you telling me?"

"Because he's looking for a blue folder that belonged to your mother. He thinks Arthur kept it."

I stared at the wall. "What blue folder?"

"I don't know. But June came to this house the week before she died. She made Arthur promise something. I heard them arguing through the library door."

Dani pulled out a chair and quietly sat beside me.

"If you want me to believe you've changed," I said, "don't hide another thing for him."

Eleanor breathed unsteadily. "There's a key under the bottom drawer of Arthur's desk. I put it there years ago."

"Eleanor, don't go searching alone. Let my lawyer handle it."

"I know," she said. "I only wanted you to know it exists."

Then I heard Marcus in the background.

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"Mom? Who are you talking to?"

The call ended with the sound of something hitting a wall.