True Heiress Never Lies! novel · Chapter 10 of 24

Chapter 10: Maggie

The doctor went out to make her call.

The lawyer went with her, talking fast.

Estelle took the chair by my bed and crossed her ankles.

"You've made your point," she said quietly, so that only my father and I could hear. "Now let's go home like a family."

"No," I said.

"I haven't asked you anything."

"The answer is still no."

My father said, "Estelle, you should wait in the car."

"Gordon."

"The car."

For a second I thought she would argue.

Then she stood and smoothed her coat and walked out.

Her heels clicked all the way down the hall.

In the hush after she left, my father sat on the end of the bed with his elbows on his knees.

"What do you need?" he asked. "Anything."

"My phone," I said.

"You don't have a phone."

"The nurse's. Or yours."

He handed it over.

There was only one number I had ever known by heart besides our own.

It was the old landline in a yellow kitchen in Sandusky.

I hadn't dialed it in three years.

Estelle had told me the number was disconnected.

She had said my grandmother didn't want to hear from us.

It rang twice.

"Hello?" said a sleepy, sharp voice.

"Grandma," I said.

There was silence on the line.

Then I heard a chair scrape and a hard breath.

"Sonia?"

"It's me."

"Oh, my girl. Oh, my girl. Where are you?"

"Fairview Hospital, in Westlake. I'm okay, Grandma. I'm out."

"What do you mean, out? Out of what? Your father said you were away at a school."

"He told you that?"

"Estelle told me. Every time I called. A very expensive school, in Switzerland, she said, and not allowed visitors, and the letters took months."

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