Chapter 3 - The Things Sophie Had Seen
Adrian put down the knife.
“What do you mean?”
Sophie’s eyes went immediately toward Noah.
He sat at the island eating apple slices from a clean plate.
Adrian lowered his voice.
“Come with me.”
They stepped into the pantry.
Through the open doorway, Adrian could still see Noah.
Sophie hugged her arms against herself.
“Grandma fell near the stairs last Tuesday.”
“I know.”
“You said she tripped.”
“That’s what Celine told me.”
Sophie looked at him.
“She didn’t trip.”
Adrian felt the room narrow.
“What happened?”
“Celine took her walker.”
“Why?”
“She said Grandma was pretending she needed help.”
Adrian stared at his daughter.
“Sophie.”
“I saw it.”
“Tell me exactly what you saw.”
Sophie swallowed.
“Grandma wanted to go outside. Celine told her she couldn’t because her therapist said she should rest.”
“Her therapist?”
“Grandma said that wasn’t true. Then Celine got mad.”
“What did she do?”
“She rolled the walker across the room.”
“Did she push Grandma?”
“No.”
The immediate answer mattered.
Adrian forced himself not to add anything.
“What happened then?”
“Grandma tried to reach the couch. Her foot slipped.”
“And she fell?”
Sophie nodded.
“I helped her.”
“Where was Celine?”
“She was standing there.”
Adrian struggled to keep his voice steady.
“Did she help?”
“After.”
“What did she say?”
Sophie looked down.
“She told Grandma that if she kept acting helpless, you’d put her in a nursing home.”
Adrian closed his eyes.
He had never threatened that.
Not once.
When Eleanor fractured her hip slipping on ice, Adrian had been the one insisting she stay with them during rehabilitation.
Celine had agreed.
More than agreed.
She had seemed generous.
“She shouldn’t be alone,” she had told him.
Now Adrian wondered what that generosity had been designed to accomplish.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Sophie’s eyes filled.
“I tried.”
“When?”
“Thursday.”
Adrian remembered Thursday.
He had arrived home after nine.
Sophie had waited near his office door.
He had kissed her forehead and said, “Tomorrow, okay? I have to get on a call.”
He felt sick.
“What else?”
Sophie wiped her eyes.
“Celine takes Grandma’s phone sometimes.”
“Why?”
“She says Grandma calls people when she gets confused.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“Anything else?”
Sophie hesitated.
Adrian recognized the hesitation.
“What?”
“She gets different with Noah when you’re not here.”
His chest tightened.
“Different how?”
“Mean.”
“What does she do?”
Sophie looked toward the kitchen.
“She makes him sit alone when he cries. Sometimes she takes his dinner away.”
“How many times?”
“I don’t know.”
“Has she hit him?”
“No.”
Again, immediate.
Adrian felt relief and anger simultaneously.
“She calls him a baby. She says he’s manipulative.”
Noah was seven.
“What about you?”
Sophie shrugged.
“She mostly tells me I’m trying to replace Mom.”
Adrian went still.
Their mother, Laura, had died six years earlier.
Sophie had been six.
Noah barely one.
Celine entered their lives two years later and married Adrian after eighteen months.
She had never replaced Laura.
No one had asked her to.
But Adrian had believed she cared for the children.
“Has she said that often?”
“Whenever I disagree with her.”
Adrian leaned against the pantry shelf.
Every memory from the previous year seemed to rearrange itself.
Noah’s recent stomachaches before school.
Sophie spending longer hours at friends’ houses.
Eleanor insisting Adrian stop working so late.
Celine complaining the children had become disrespectful.
He had accepted explanations separately.
Like the district in Malik’s story? No irrelevant. Need stay current.
He had failed to connect them.
“I need you to do something.”
Sophie looked frightened.
“Am I in trouble?”
“No.”
He hated that she asked.
“I need you to stay with Noah while I make some calls.”
“Are you sending Celine away?”
“I don’t know yet.”
Sophie’s shoulders dropped.
She had wanted a stronger answer.
Adrian understood.
“I am not leaving you alone with her tonight.”
That helped.
“Okay.”
He returned to the kitchen.
Celine was gone.
Eleanor remained in her bedroom.
Adrian checked the garage.
Celine’s SUV was still there.
He climbed the stairs.
The master bedroom door was closed.
He opened it.
Celine was packing a suitcase.
“What are you doing?”
She did not turn around.
“Going to a hotel.”
“Why?”
“You clearly don’t want me here.”
“I want you to answer questions.”
“And I want an attorney before you decide everything I’ve ever done is abuse and fraud.”
Adrian stared.
“You’re the one using those words.”
“You’re thinking them.”
“I’m thinking my mother says you forged her signature.”
Celine zipped the suitcase.
“I didn’t.”
“My daughter says you took away her walker.”
“That child has hated me since the day I married you.”
Adrian’s expression hardened.
“Do not talk about Sophie that way.”
“You always take her side.”
“She is twelve.”
“And she knows exactly how to manipulate you.”
“Stop.”
Celine lifted the suitcase.
“I’m leaving.”
Adrian moved away from the doorway.
He did not stop her.
But before she passed him, he said, “Leave your house key.”
Celine froze.
“This is my home.”
“Then we can have attorneys discuss access tomorrow.”
“You can’t throw me out of my own house.”
“I’m asking you to leave voluntarily because you packed a suitcase and announced you were leaving.”
Her nostrils flared.
“Fine.”
She removed the key from her ring and placed it on the dresser.
Then she looked at him.
“You’re going to regret believing everyone except your wife.”
Adrian’s voice was quiet.
“I’m regretting how long I believed you without checking.”
Celine picked up her suitcase.
She left.
Adrian watched from the upstairs landing as she crossed the foyer.
Noah appeared near the kitchen.
Celine didn’t say goodbye to him.
That hurt Adrian more than he expected.
The front door closed.
Ten minutes later, Adrian called Eleanor’s bank.
The fraud department confirmed the pending transfer had been frozen.
They also revealed something Eleanor had not yet known.
There had been two earlier transactions.
$18,500.
Then $24,000.
Both transferred into CJM Property Holdings.
Eleanor sat beside him at the kitchen table.
Her face went white.
“That’s forty-two thousand five hundred dollars.”
“Yes.”
“I never approved it.”
Adrian wrote down the dates.
The first had occurred six weeks earlier.
The second eighteen days ago.
He called Margaret Hale, Eleanor’s attorney.
She answered from home.
“I’ve been expecting this call.”
“What do we do?”
“First, preserve everything.”
“Then?”
“Tomorrow morning we revoke the fraudulent power of attorney formally, notify every financial institution and file a fraud report.”
“Police?”
“If Eleanor wants to.”
Eleanor spoke before Adrian could answer.
“I do.”
Margaret heard her.
“Then we’ll discuss that too.”
Adrian rubbed his forehead.
Margaret continued.
“There is another issue.”
“What?”
“The forged power of attorney was not the first unusual document I found.”
Adrian straightened.
“What else?”
“Three weeks ago, someone contacted my office asking for a copy of Eleanor’s trust.”
“Who?”
“They claimed to be calling on Eleanor’s behalf.”
Eleanor shook her head.
“I didn’t.”
“Did they identify themselves?”
“Yes.”
Adrian waited.
Margaret’s answer was worse than he expected.
May you like
“They said they were Adrian Mercer.”
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