I looked at her—really looked—for the first time that morning. Without the filter of social media, without the glow of a carefully curated photo, she looked younger. The eyeliner she usually wore so precisely smudged faintly under her eyes. Her mouth was set, but there was uncertainty lurking there now.
Officer Martinez closed the folder. “I’m going to have to ask everyone to keep things civil,” he said. “Legally, the situation is clear. This is Miss Parker’s property. If there is any dispute about previous paperwork, that will have to be handled between lawyers. For now, no one has the right to prevent Miss Parker from entering, staying at, or managing this property. Understood?”
My father nodded slowly. Lily looked at the ground.
Victoria glared at him, mouth twisted. “Say something,” she demanded.
He looked at her for a long time. Then he looked back at the house, at the porch, at the roses along the walkway—some of them clearly recently disturbed, their soil dark and freshly turned, as if someone had started digging them up and then stopped.
Finally, he turned to me.
“Is it true?” he asked, almost in a whisper. “That your mother… protected the house? That she—”
“She put it in the trust three months before she died,” I said. “You were there when she signed the papers, Dad. You probably didn’t want to think about what it meant at the time, but you were there.”
His shoulders sagged.“I didn’t understand,” he murmured. “I just… I didn’t want to think about losing her. And later, when Victoria told me we needed to deal with the property, I… I trusted her. I thought she was just trying to help.”
Victoria made a choking sound. “So now I’m the villain?” she demanded. “After everything I’ve done for this family? After all the years I’ve—”
“Mrs. Harrison,” Officer Martinez cut in, a hint of steel in his voice now, “if you continue to raise your voice, I’ll have to ask you to step back from the property until you’ve spoken to your lawyer.”
Her jaw clenched.
A second car pulled into the driveway then—sleek, dark, unmarked. A man in a suit stepped out, briefcase in hand. Victoria’s lawyer, judging by the way she whirled toward him like he was reinforcements arriving on a battlefield.