Chapter 17: The Offer

Conway's POV

I went up the Harcourt drive at ten on Sunday morning, alone, as I had promised.

Annalise had wanted to come.

I told her no.

She looked at me for a long moment.

"Then I'll be in the truck at the gate with my phone on," she said.

I loved her for that, and I did not say so.

The housekeeper opened the door before I knocked.

She did not look at the floor this time.

She looked at my face, and then she stepped back and said, "Mr. Harcourt."

I said, "Redfern."

"Yes, sir," she said.

Eleanor sat in the morning room in a gray cardigan with no pearls.

She looked ten years older than she had at the party.

On the table in front of her was a rusted tin with a faded lid.

"Sit," she said.

I stayed standing.

"I had it taken Saturday night," she said. "I told the man to find the bracelet. It wasn't in there."

"I have the bracelet."

"I thought you might."

She opened the tin with a shaking hand.

Inside was a knitted baby cap, yellow with age, and a single folded note.

"Your father wrote that to your mother the week after," she said. "I never read it. I couldn't."

I picked up the note.

It said, in the slanted hand of Conway's father: "Thank you for loving him. I will never be able to say it to him."

I read it twice, put it in my pocket and did not look at her.

"What do you want, Eleanor?"

"I want to make you an offer."

"Go on."

"I will withdraw the contest," she said. "Today."

"The firm is yours, in full, with the name."

"Tobias will leave town for a year and sign whatever you put in front of him."

"Your mother's care is paid for the rest of her life."

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