Chapter 11: The Trust

Elliot's POV

My stepmother's kitchen smelled like lemon polish and coffee she did not drink.

I let myself in with the key I had carried since I was twenty.

She sat at the table with the Sunday paper and a pot of tea.

She did not look up.

"You should have called," she said.

"I wasn't going to."

"Sit down, Elliot. You look tired."

"I'll stand. What did Posy sign?"

She turned a page.

"Whatever she signed, she signed freely."

"What was in the folder, Constance?"

"A transfer of her half of the house to the family trust." She said it in the voice she used for the weather.

"It protects her. It protects the baby. A twenty-two-year-old should not own a house outright."

"You told her it was for the hospital."

"I told her it was for the baby. That is true."

I put my hand flat on the table, and the teacups rattled.

"Dalton listed a house bought with a stolen down payment.

"You had his other wife sign her half over to you on Tuesday, three days after the luncheon."

"I did it while she was frightened," she said calmly. "Before she had time to think."

"You knew she would stop trusting you."

"I knew she would leave." She folded the paper at last and looked up.

"Do you know what I've spent twenty years building?"

"I know what it cost me."

"Your father's trust." She said the words slowly.

"It pays out to the first grandchild born to a married Lowell. A married couple, Elliot."

Keep reading free with an account. Start He Said It Was Just Paper. I Left. from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.