I turned my phone off because I didn’t want to see the dozens of messages from Harrison’s family or his business associates. For the first time in a very long time, I did not owe a single person an explanation for my existence.
Simon called me late that night to tell me that the Miller Manor properties were already being flagged for a legal hold. He also mentioned that the judge had a personal reason for remembering my mother’s name from years ago.
Before he was a judge, he had been a young lawyer representing a tenant who lived in one of my mother’s small apartment buildings. My mother had refused to evict the woman while she was going through a difficult medical crisis, and he had never forgotten that act of grace.
The next morning, I returned to the estate with two police officers and Megan to collect my belongings and secure the house. I walked into the nursery and saw that Tiffany had already replaced my favorite curtains with something cold and modern.
She had even moved my mother’s old wooden rocking chair into the dark corner of the garage. We found it behind a stack of empty boxes, and although it was dusty and scratched, it was still solid and whole.