Chapter 16: Midnight

"Don't say later," I told Elias.

We were still in the atrium elevator, and my father's note shook in my hand.

"I won't," he said. "He signed Desmond's copy. I don't know why."

He kept his eyes on the numbers over the door.

"But he hid the real will. A man who sells out his daughter doesn't hide the real one."

I wanted so badly to believe that.

Bea took the note out of my fingers and photographed it.

"It's twelve years old," she said. "If you're wrong, it's his confession. If you're right, it's your best proof."

On Tuesday night, at ten minutes to midnight, we sat in the trustee's office.

It was on the forty-first floor of an old brick tower, and the trustee was a small, nervous man in his seventies.

He had agreed to open at midnight only because Elias's lawyer had explained, politely, what the newspapers would say if he refused.

The original will lay on his desk with its gold seal.

He had a magnifying glass, and he was breathing through his mouth.

Bea stood in the hall with her phone, live on three accounts, and two reporters she had invited stood beside her.

Elias leaned against the far wall with his hands in his pockets.

He had not touched me in five days.

I could feel exactly where he was in the room.

"The handwriting is Mr. Doheny's," the trustee said at last. "And the seal is the notary's, from the bank. It's dated nine days after the copy."

"The later paper controls," I said.

"The later paper controls," he agreed.

The door banged open.

Desmond came in with his lawyer behind him, in a long black coat, and his face was the color of paper.

"Stop this," he said.

"Mr. Langston," the trustee said weakly. "You're not on the appointment."

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