…stems, letting the rhythmic snip-snip of the shears act as a steady metronome against her arrogance.
“Did you hear me?” Misty snapped, crossing her arms. The massive diamond on her finger—the one my ex-husband, Greg, bought with the money he drained from our joint savings before the divorce—caught the afternoon sun. “Greg was like a son to him. You were just the disappointment who couldn’t keep her marriage together. He knew who really deserved this estate.”
I carefully pruned a dead head off the Juliet rose bush, my father’s absolute favorite. “The will reading is tomorrow at noon, Misty,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. “Until then, you are trespassing.”
“Oh, please,” she laughed, a shrill sound that sent a pair of robins scattering from the oak tree. “It’s already ours. Greg made sure of it.”
That’s when she made her fatal error. Impatient with my calm demeanor, Misty leaned in, her cloying perfume overpowering the scent of the damp earth, and decided to gloat.
“We’ve been planning this since the cancer spread to his brain,” she sneered, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial, vicious pitch. “Greg went to the hospice center on Tuesday night. He brought a private notary. Your old man was so looped up on morphine he didn’t even know his own name, let alone what he was looking at. He signed the updated will leaving the entire estate, the business, and this house to Greg. So, like I said. Pack. Your. Bags.”
She smiled, looking triumphant, expecting me to break down into tears. She expected me to scream, to throw down my shears, to shatter under the weight of Greg’s final, ultimate betrayal.
Instead, I took a slow, deep breath, enjoying the cool autumn air. I pulled off my gardening gloves and set them neatly on the stone wall.
“Tuesday night?” I asked, looking her dead in the eye.
“Tuesday night,” she confirmed smugly. “It’s airtight.”
“That is a very interesting timeline, Misty,” I said. I turned my head toward the shaded sunroom attached to the back of the house. The French doors were wide open to let in the breeze. “Did you get all of that, Arthur?”
Misty’s smug smile faltered. She spun around on her ruined stilettos just as Arthur Vance, my father’s estate attorney of thirty years, stepped out of the shadows of the sunroom. In his hand, he held his smartphone, the screen brightly displaying an active voice recording. He tapped the red button to stop it.
“Loud and clear, Eleanor,” Arthur said, his voice cold and professional. He adjusted his glasses and looked at Misty, who had suddenly gone as pale as the white roses surrounding her. “I believe that is a textbook confession to elder fraud, coercion, and the forgery of legal documents by a notary public. All felonies, Mrs. Davis.”
Misty opened her mouth, but no sound came out. She looked like a fish gasping for air.
“But—no, wait—I didn’t mean—”
“Furthermore,” Arthur continued, stepping down onto the patio, “your husband’s fraudulent little document is entirely useless, regardless of the morphine. You see, Richard didn’t own this property anymore.”
Misty blinked, her eyes darting between me and the lawyer. “What?”
“Dad transferred the deed of this house into my name five years ago, right after my divorce,” I said, finally allowing myself a cold, hard smile. “He knew exactly what kind of vulture Greg was. He lived here as my tenant. The business was liquidated and put into an airtight trust for his grandchildren three months ago. The only thing my father owned when he died was his life insurance policy.”
“Which,” Arthur added, slipping his phone into his breast pocket, “named Eleanor as the sole beneficiary.”
Misty took a step back, her heel catching on a root, sending her stumbling into the dirt. The pristine white fabric of her designer pants was instantly stained with dark, wet mud.
“I suggest you be the one to start packing, Misty,” I said, picking up my shears and turning back to my father’s beautiful, thriving roses. “Arthur will be forwarding that recording to the district attorney within the hour. Tell Greg I’ll see him in court.”
