Chapter 15 - The Second Card
The second memory card contained twelve audio files.
Harrison listened to them in the motel room while Sloan sat on the edge of the bed with both hands locked together.
Most were recent calls between Sloan and Richard.
At first they sounded like ordinary family conversations.
Then the pressure appeared.
You need to get Eleanor to sign the conservatorship papers.
She won’t.
Then make Harrison believe she’s slipping.
She isn’t slipping.
Everyone slips at seventy.
Harrison paused the file.
His face changed.
“What conservatorship papers?”
Sloan looked at the carpet.
“My father wanted control of your mother’s trust if the banking investigation became public.”
“You were going to have her declared incompetent?”
“I didn’t do it.”
“You discussed it.”
“Yes.”
He resumed playback.
Richard instructed Sloan to create examples of “confusion”: duplicate purchases, missed appointments, misplaced jewelry. Some of those incidents had happened. Eleanor had spent months wondering whether grief was affecting her memory.
Now Harrison understood why.
Sloan had moved things.
She had changed calendar entries.
She had ordered items on Eleanor’s account and then acted surprised when they arrived.
Harrison shut the laptop.
“My mother thought she was losing her mind.”
Sloan whispered, “I know.”
“You watched that happen.”
“I stopped.”
“When?”
“Two months ago.”
“Why?”
Sloan looked up.
“Because she asked me to sit with her one night after everyone left. She told me she was scared. She said she didn’t want you to spend the next ten years becoming her nurse.”
Sloan covered her mouth.
“I went home and threw up.”
Harrison looked away.
That did not erase what she had done.
But it complicated the shape of the monster he wanted her to be.
“Why destroy the cake?” he asked.
Sloan stared at him.
He waited.
Finally she said, “Because she told me yesterday that Daniel had found the auction request. She gave me one chance to tell you myself.”
“And you didn’t.”
“No.”
“So you humiliated her instead.”
“I wanted everyone to think she was overreacting when she confronted me.”
Harrison closed his eyes.
The cruelty had not been impulsive.
It had been strategy.
His phone rang.
Daniel.
Harrison answered.
May you like
Daniel did not say hello.
“Get back here. Your mother just collapsed.”
