Do Not Let Them Pay You

"What does that mean?" Nora asked.

Lila did not answer the question. "Is anyone with you?"

"My daughter."

"Anyone adult?"

"The investigator just left."

A soft curse moved through the phone. "Harbor Union sent SIU already?"

Nora turned away from Sophie. "You know their process?"

"I know what happens when they pretend process is protection."

On the sofa, Sophie laughed at something in her headphones, a tiny normal sound in a room filling with impossible facts. Nora gripped the phone until her knuckles paled.

"Were you his wife?"

"On paper."

"Did you collect money when he died?"

"On paper."

"Stop saying that."

Lila went quiet. She was in a car, Nora thought. There was road noise, a turn signal, the faint tremble of a woman checking mirrors. Lila knew fear like a route she had driven too often.

"Miles was trying to fix what he helped start," Lila said. "If Harbor Union pays you now, the file closes around you. If they deny you, they investigate you. Either way, somebody gets to decide what kind of widow you are."

"He is dead."

"I believe you."

The two words nearly broke Nora because Brooke had not said them. Judith had not said them. Everyone had asked for proof, forms, dates, a better version of Nora's grief.

"Then help me."

"I tried helping once. It made me a corpse in three databases."

A vehicle horn blared on Lila's end. She sucked in air.

"Lila?"

"Someone is behind me."

"Where are you?"

"Don't call this number again. Look for Kind Harbor assignments. Not claims. Assignments. Miles kept the first list because he didn't trust Brooke's department."

"Brooke?"

"She may be clean. That does not mean her files are."

The call ended.

Nora lowered the phone. Her hands shook now, not from weakness but from too many directions of danger.

Sophie pulled off one headphone. "Was that Grandma?"

The doorbell rang again.

This time, the person outside did not wait. Judith Vale opened the unlocked door with a casserole dish in her hands and lilies pinned to her coat.