“Of course you can.”
He led me inside, past the beer coolers and snack aisles, to the small office behind the counter.
“Take your time,” he said.
I didn’t call any of my quilting friends, as Brandon had suggested. I called Vincent Hargrove, our family lawyer of thirty years.
“Naomi, I tried reaching you yesterday,” he said. “I was surprised not to see you at the reading.”
My hand tightened on the receiver.
“What reading?”
Vincent was silent for a moment. “The will reading. Your son presented a document, but I had concerns. I’ve been trying to contact you.”
“I’ve been indisposed,” I said, my voice steady despite the rage building inside me. “Vincent, I need your help, and I need discretion.”
“You have both. My office. One hour.”
“I’ll be there.”
I bought a cheap prepaid phone with cash I kept hidden in a compartment of my purse—emergency money Nicholas had insisted we both carry after getting stranded with a flat tire years ago. I also purchased a bottle of water and a sandwich I had no appetite for. Ray refused to take my money.
“On the house, Naomi. You need anything else, you just ask.”
His kindness nearly broke me. Nearly. But I hadn’t cried when they lowered Nicholas into the ground, and I wouldn’t cry now.
Vincent’s law office occupies the second floor of a Victorian on Main Street, above a stationery store and across from the town hall where we’d attended more than one zoning meeting about agricultural land use. When his secretary saw me, her eyes widened.
“Mrs. Canton, Mr. Hargrove is expecting you.” She hurried from behind her desk. “Can I get you anything? Water? Coffee?”
“I’m fine, Helen. Thank you.”
Vincent met me at his office door, his tall frame a bit stooped with age but his eyes sharp as ever. He’d been a year behind Nicholas in school, had handled our business incorporation, our wills—everything legal in our lives.
“Naomi.” He guided me to a leather chair, then sat not behind his desk, but in the chair beside me. “Tell me what’s happening.”
So I did. The conversation after the funeral. The suspicious will. The drive and abandonment. With each detail, Vincent’s expression darkened.
“The will they showed you,” he said when I finished, “was not the will Nicholas and I prepared last year. Their document is a forgery. I suspected as much.”
I opened my purse and removed the fireproof box. From it, I withdrew the deed to the original twenty acres.
“They don’t know about this.”
Vincent examined the deed, nodding slowly. “Smart. Very smart. You two were always thinking ahead.”
“Nicholas suggested putting this portion in my maiden name when we first expanded,” I said. “Insurance, he called it, in case the business ever failed.”
“And now it’s insurance of another kind.”
Vincent placed the deed carefully on his desk.
“What do you want to do, Naomi?”
I met his eyes.
