Chapter 6 - What the Other Woman Knew
Brooke called from a pharmacy pay phone at seven the next morning. Evelyn did not ask how she had found the number. She simply put Elena on the call.
“I signed a statement,” Brooke said. Her voice trembled. “Adrian said if I didn’t, he’d tell the police I stole from his company.”
“Did you steal from his company?” Elena asked.
“I processed property transactions. He told me everything had board approval. I stopped believing him when I saw the Hawthorne signatures.”
“Why didn’t you come forward?”
“He kept my passport in his office safe. He said I’d be blamed for the paperwork if the bank asked questions. I believed him.”
Evelyn stared at the scars left by pins on her cutting table. “You were in my house. You knew Maggie.”
“I know.” Brooke’s breath caught. “I’m not asking you to forgive me.”
“Then what are you asking?”
“To speak to the detective before he knows I’ve called.”
Elena arranged a meeting with Detective Ramirez. She explained to Brooke that an attorney representing Evelyn could not protect Brooke’s own legal interests and urged her to obtain independent counsel. Brooke agreed. Evelyn did not attend the interview.
By lunchtime, Brooke had corrected her account of the bedroom incident. She told Ramirez that Adrian struck her, kicked Evelyn, and instructed her to lie. She also identified herself as the transaction coordinator who had uploaded the disputed Hawthorne documents to a title-company portal.
Brooke’s correction did not make her trustworthy overnight. It did give investigators a person whose account could be checked against server logs.
Evelyn found out about the corrected statement when Ramirez called to update her. She went to the little washroom behind the shop and stood in front of a mirror, studying the yellowing edge of the bruise at her neckline. Part of her wanted to thank Brooke. Another part wanted to ask why it took a threat to Brooke's passport for her to remember the truth.
She dialed Elena instead.
“Am I supposed to feel relieved?”
“There's no correct way to feel,” Elena said. “You don't have to speak to her. What matters legally is what can be independently established.”
Evelyn rinsed her hands, returned to the counter, and finished pinning a customer's sleeve. She had decided not to let Brooke set the schedule for her recovery.
Meanwhile, Elena obtained a copy of the original trust from the attorney who had taken over Martin Keene’s records. Rose’s instructions were clearer than Evelyn remembered. Evelyn served as trustee. Maggie held a future beneficial interest. A sale of Hawthorne House required strict conditions, including independent legal review and protections for existing tenants. The supposed amendment giving Adrian authority did not appear in the firm’s records.
“Can we stop the closing?” Evelyn asked.
“We’ve notified the title insurer and filed our petition. There’s still a hearing. But the discrepancies are substantial, and the bank has maintained its hold.”
When Evelyn told Frank, he let out a breath that sounded like a tire losing air. “We’ll keep the heat running, then.”
“Why wouldn’t it run?”
Frank glanced toward the stairwell where Mrs. Donnelly was balancing a basket of laundry.
“We promised Rose we'd look after people,” he said. “Mrs. Donnelly's husband used to shovel the front walk before I got hired. Last winter she bought me gloves even though she barely had money for groceries. I've got to make sure her apartment stays warm.”
“You don't have to pay for twelve apartments yourself.”
“Neither do you.”
“We'll split the problem until Elena finds a way to unlock the right account.”
He hesitated. “Building supply account got declined this morning. I paid the oil service with my own card.”
Evelyn looked at the statement. The account had been frozen because Adrian’s company had disputed payments, claiming the building was under new management. It was not a formal transfer, merely an administrative mess that could still hurt everyone inside.
She paid Frank back from her shop’s emergency savings and arranged for Elena to contact the bank. Frank protested until she reminded him of all the coats her mother had mended for him.
That evening Maggie sat on Jo’s kitchen floor making paper chains for Thanksgiving. She made one link for everyone she wanted at dinner.
“You, me, Aunt Jo, Mr. Frank, Mrs. Donnelly,” she said, counting. “Can Daddy come if he promises to be nice?”
Evelyn knelt beside her. “Daddy has to work through some grown-up problems. You can love him, and you don’t have to fix things for him.”
Maggie turned a strip of orange paper between her fingers. “He says if I tell people he yelled at me, they’ll take him away.”
“When did he tell you that?”
“In the car after my birthday. I said I didn’t like how he shouted at the waiter.”
Evelyn kept her voice steady. “You’re allowed to tell the truth about what you see and how you feel. You’re not responsible for what grown-ups decide.”
Maggie pressed a finished paper loop into her mother’s palm. “Can we make one for Grandma Rose?”
“Of course.”
They hung Rose’s chain above the doorway, where it moved whenever somebody walked through.
Later, Elena called again. Brooke had turned over a list of transaction identifiers and a receipt for a courier delivery. One package had been sent to a private office in Connecticut the week before Rose’s fatal car accident.
The recipient was listed only as R. HART.
“That could be my mother,” Evelyn said.
“It could. Brooke says Adrian told her it was a routine document delivery. We haven’t verified the recipient.”
Evelyn found the old police report in her files. Rose had supposedly lost control of her car on a rain-slick bridge. The vehicle burned after hitting the barrier. Identification had relied on belongings recovered near the scene and records supplied to investigators. The family had been advised against viewing the remains.
She had never questioned the report. Grief had seemed like a sufficient explanation for everything she could not understand.
May you like
Now she looked at the photograph of her mother tucked inside her wallet. Rose smiled in her blue cardigan, holding Maggie on the Hawthorne stoop.
“Mom,” Evelyn whispered, “what were you trying to tell me?”
