Vivian's Phone

Vivian's house had been sealed after the crash, then unsealed by grief, then sealed again by suspicion.

Roslyn took Elise there at dawn because the KLINE_NOTARY video showed Vivian's study clock: 10:11 p.m. the night she died. The official crash report said Vivian had been dead for almost an hour by then.

The house sat above the harbor, all glass and stone and punishment. Elise had grown up inside it learning that silence could be furniture.

Claire waited in the driveway with June. Maribel had allowed June to remain with Claire under supervision, which meant a county employee sat in a sedan across the road pretending not to watch everyone cry.

"I do not want June inside," Claire said.

"I am not a package," June said.

Elise looked at Roslyn.

Roslyn sighed. "No one touches anything. No one wanders. No one tells me the law as they remember it from television."

The study smelled faintly of smoke from old fireplace ash. Vivian's desk was empty. Too empty.

Elise stood where Martin had stood in June's video. She looked at the blotter, the window, the framed photo of Vivian with all three children from a Christmas none of them remembered happily.

Theo entered last, carrying a small signal scanner from the bank's fraud kit. "I am officially fired."

Elise turned. "What?"

"Suspended became terminated. Unauthorized access, conflict, pending investigation."

"Theo."

"Later. Your mother's house is broadcasting."

He held the scanner near the bookcase. It chirped near a row of estate law volumes no one had opened since Vivian bought them by color.

Roslyn removed the books. Behind them was a pinhole camera and a dead battery pack.

"Mara's video angle," Theo said.

Elise reached behind the shelf and found a second compartment.

Inside lay Vivian's phone.

Not a copy. Not a spoof.

The real phone, wrapped in a silk scarf Claire had given her for Mother's Day.

On the screen was one unsent message to Elise.

I should have loved you before I needed you.