Gilded Revenge: The Ex-Wife's Billion-Dollar Empire novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Dead on Paper

Lucinda walks into the probate hearing alive in front of the room and strips the petition from Gordon and Pierce. Gordon hugs her for the cameras, and Eleanor's voicemail begs her not to face the board alone.

The probate courtroom was full by ten to nine.

Lucinda waited in the corridor outside with the lawyer at her shoulder.

She had borrowed a navy suit from the lawyer's daughter and tied her hair back.

She looked like what she was: a woman who had slept two hours in an office chair.

Through the door's narrow window she could see the front bench.

Her uncle sat there in a charcoal suit with a black armband on his sleeve.

Gordon Throckmorton had a kind, weathered face and silver hair, and he was wiping his eyes with a folded handkerchief.

Beside him sat Pierce, her cousin, texting under the rail.

Behind them sat a row of reporters.

Her uncle had invited the press to his niece's funeral hearing.

"Ready?" the lawyer whispered.

"No."

"Good. Neither was your father the day he built the company."

The bailiff called the case.

The judge was a round man with a red nose, and he did not bother to look up.

"In re the estate of Lucinda Anne Throckmorton. Counsel for the petitioner."

Gordon's lawyer stood.

"Your Honor, three years ago my client's niece was lost in a fire on Hollis Hill Road. The family has grieved in private. Today they ask only for closure."

Gordon's shoulders shook.

A reporter in the second row lowered her camera in sympathy.

"She was a quiet girl," Gordon said, his voice cracking. "She loved her father. I only want to lay her to rest."

"Any objection?" the judge asked the empty room.

Lucinda pushed open the door.

"Yes," she said.

Every head turned.

She walked down the center aisle in the borrowed suit, with her father's lawyer behind her.

Her heels were loud on the floor.

Gordon's handkerchief stopped halfway to his face.

For one second she saw his real expression.

It had no grief in it at all.

It had only the flat shock of a man who had just watched the dead walk in.

Pierce stopped texting.

His phone slipped out of his hand and hit the floor.

"Who is this?" the judge asked.

"Lucinda Anne Throckmorton," she said. "I'm the girl you were about to declare dead."

A reporter said, "Oh my God," out loud.

Camera shutters began going off all over the room.

"Order," the judge said, not very firmly. "Young woman, do you have identification?"

"I do."

The lawyer handed up her passport, her birth certificate and a fingerprint card from the state nursing board.

"Her prints match the ones taken at her birth hospital and the license she holds now," he said. "She has been alive and working for three years."

The judge looked at the documents for a long moment.

Then he looked at Gordon.

"Mr. Throckmorton, your petition says you saw the remains."

"I saw a burned car," Gordon said smoothly. He had found his voice. "Your Honor, I am overjoyed. Of course I am. I had only grieved."

"You grieved so hard you filed the petition on the exact day her divorce hit the county record," the lawyer said.

"I don't understand."

"Neither do I," Lucinda said. "Uncle Gordon, how did you know where to look?"

The courtroom went still.

Gordon's lawyer sat down and began very quickly packing his briefcase.

"The petition is dismissed," the judge said. "With costs to the petitioner."

He didn't say anything else.

Lucinda turned and walked out.

She had barely reached the corridor when she heard quick steps behind her.

Gordon came out with his arms already open.

"Lucinda. Oh, sweetheart."

He caught her in a hug before she could step back.

He smelled of the same cedar cologne he had worn at her mother's funeral.

Cameras flashed at the courtroom door.

"I thought I had lost you," he said into her hair, loud enough for the reporters. "I never stopped looking."

She stood still in his arms and did not hug him back.

Only she could hear what he said next.

"Where have you been hiding, little girl?"

His voice was gentle.

His hand on her back pressed hard, once, to hold her still.

She stepped out of the hug and smiled for the cameras.

"I've been working, Uncle," she said. "Nursing. I'll see you at the board."

Pierce stood a few feet behind him, his face pale.

He didn't smile this time.

Lucinda walked out through the courthouse doors and down the steps with her father's lawyer beside her.

On the sidewalk she took out the old phone.

She had silenced it before the hearing.

Now the screen showed forty-one missed calls.

Every one of them was from Eleanor Ferrars.

There was one voicemail.

She pressed play.

"Lucinda." Eleanor's voice was low and hard and shaking. "Whatever my son told you, whatever you decide to do, do not go to that board alone. Come to my house first. Please."

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