“What was she doing with Peter?”
He stared at the screen.
“I don’t know.”
This time I believed him, which didn’t make me feel any better.
When we returned, several guests had quietly left. Madison was still sitting at the table, drinking champagne as if she were waiting for us to finish embarrassing ourselves.
I sat across from her.
“Peter Lang.”
Her glass stopped halfway to her mouth.
Richard remained standing.
“What were you doing with him upstairs?”
Madison put the glass down carefully.
“He’s Dad’s broker. Why does that matter?”
“Because Dad didn’t know you were meeting him.”
Her eyes moved toward Richard.
That tiny movement answered more than she did.
I opened the envelope.
Inside was a quitclaim deed.
I read the first page twice.
The document described Richard’s waterfront property and stated that I was voluntarily relinquishing any present or future interest I might have in it.
There was a yellow tab beside the signature line.
My name had already been typed beneath it.
Madison leaned toward me.
“It just clarifies things.”
“Things?”
“The house belonged to my mother and father before you came along.”
Richard pulled out the chair beside me.
“Madison, where did you get this?”
She ignored him.
“You have your own retirement money, Evelyn. You’re not being thrown into the street.”
I looked at Richard.
“Why would I have an interest to relinquish?”
He closed his eyes for a moment.
That was when I remembered the attorney’s question.
Did Richard tell you he changed the ownership structure of the house?
“Richard.”
He sat down.
“Last year, after my surgery, I changed the deed.”
Madison’s face tightened.
He continued more quietly.
“I added you.”
I stared at him.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I knew what this would become.”
Madison pushed back from the table.
“You had no right.”
Richard looked at her. “It’s my house.”
“It was Mom’s house too.”
“And your mother has been dead fourteen years.”
Madison flinched.
Richard immediately looked tired rather than victorious.
Nobody had won anything with that sentence.
I turned back to the document.
Something still didn’t make sense.
If Richard had legally added me to the title, Madison couldn’t simply make that disappear because she disliked me. She needed my signature.
Which explained the envelope.
It did not explain Peter.
I called Richard’s estate attorney from the hallway.
He answered on the second ring.
When I told him what was inside the envelope, he became very quiet.
“Do not sign it.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“Take pictures of every page.”
I did.
Then I mentioned Peter Lang.
The attorney interrupted me.
“Peter is involved?”
“You know him?”
“I know Richard terminated him six months ago.”
I looked through the glass doors toward the dining room.
Madison was arguing with her father now.
“Why?”
“Richard discovered Peter had been discussing the property with a developer without authorization.”
My hand tightened around the phone.
“What developer?”
Another pause.
“The group trying to assemble the waterfront parcels along that section of the creek.”
I looked at the ruined cake.
This wasn’t about Madison wanting her childhood home protected.
It might have been how she justified it to herself, but somebody was trying to move the property.
I photographed the remaining pages.
Near the back was a cover sheet I almost skipped.
It contained an email address for returning the executed deed.
The address belonged to Peter.
Underneath it was a handwritten note.
Closing dependent on clean title. Friday.
Friday was three days away.
When I returned to the table, I placed the document in front of Madison.
“Who’s buying the house?”
Richard turned toward her.
Madison’s face changed.
Not dramatically. She simply stopped pretending to be angry.
“You don’t understand what Dad was offered.”
Richard picked up the document.
“Offered?”
She looked at him.
For the first time that evening, she seemed unsure of herself.
“It’s more money than this place will ever be worth again.”
“I’m not selling.”
“You said that before you saw the number.”
“I said I’m not selling.”
Madison looked at me then.
There was resentment in her face, but underneath it was something else.
Desperation.
That was when I understood there was still a piece missing.
She hadn’t arranged all of this simply because she wanted an inheritance someday.
She needed a sale now.
I asked one question.
“How much do you owe?”
Richard slowly turned toward his daughter.
Madison didn’t answer.
She reached for her purse.
A folded sheet slipped out and landed beneath the table.
Richard picked it up before she could.
I watched him read it.
His expression changed.
“What did you do?”
Madison said nothing.
He placed the paper in front of me.
It was a loan agreement.
The amount was $280,000.
And listed under collateral was an ownership interest Madison did not actually possess.
The waterfront house.
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Part 3:
Richard read the loan agreement again before asking Madison to sit down.
She didn’t.
“I can explain.”
“Then explain the collateral.”
Madison glanced at me as though I were responsible for the paper being in his hand.
Peter had approached her almost a year earlier, she said. A development company had been buying older waterfront properties in the area and believed Richard’s parcel was essential because of its position along the creek.
The first offer had been substantial.
Richard rejected it.
Peter apparently didn’t.
He stayed in contact with the developer after Richard stopped working with him, and sometime afterward he began talking directly to Madison.
She had been having financial problems.
Richard knew about some of them. None of us knew how bad they had become.
Her interior design business had lost two major clients. She had borrowed against her condo, run up business credit, and then taken money from a private lender while trying to keep everything afloat.
