Chapter 3
I took the seat directly across from her. "He's with me."
Her smile moved fractionally. Just a millimeter. But I had been watching Olivia's face across dinner tables for thirty-two years and I knew exactly what that millimeter meant.
Jonathan opened the file. He walked through the standard language, the distribution framework, the charitable allocations, the specific provisions for the secondary properties in Spokane and Olympia, the liquidation timeline for the commercial holdings. My mother sat forward. My father put down his coffee. Olivia's hand found Marcus's forearm.
Marcus, with the patience of a man who views legal proceedings as his natural environment, asked a question about the trust structure that was phrased as clarification but functioned as the first move in a negotiation he was already running. He used the specific vocabulary of someone who has been in courtrooms long enough that legal language comes out of him automatically, even when he is simply waiting to find out where the money is.
Patricia let him finish.
Then she answered in one sentence.
"The chief trustee of Anderson Holdings LLC is Emma Grace Anderson."
My father opened his mouth. The words did not arrive. He closed it.
My mother turned toward me with the expression she had worn at my high school graduation when I told her I had been offered a partial scholarship to UW instead of the full ride at a school she had preferred, except this time the calculation behind her eyes was moving in the opposite direction.
May you like
Olivia gave a soft, brief laugh that was the laugh of someone who has just heard something implausible. "That's not possible."
Marcus settled back in his chair the way judges settle back when they intend to resolve something. "I think we may need to review the circumstances under which these documents were prepared," he said, and then he said the thing. Calmly. With the specific precision of a man who believed he was doing everyone a service. He said he had concerns about whether my grandmother had fully understood the instruments she had executed, given that, as far as he was aware, I held an entry-level position in the finance industry.
