Richard noticed.
“Don’t,” he said.
Diane’s eyebrows rose.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t involve yourself in something you don’t understand.”
She looked at the papers.
“I remember Mother complaining that you wouldn’t stop bringing up that trust.”
Richard’s face flushed.
There it was.
The first witness.
He hadn’t expected opposition from his own side of the table.
“I was trying to protect her estate,” he said.
“She didn’t think so,” I replied.
“And we’re supposed to believe you because you brought a folder?”
I looked at the deed in Margaret’s hands.
“You don’t have to believe me.
The property records don’t need your approval.”
He looked toward the doorway, perhaps expecting someone to rescue him from the conversation.
A server stood there holding a tray, visibly trying to decide whether entering the room would make things worse.
Richard waved him away.
The door closed.
For once, there would be no audience except family.
That somehow made the humiliation sharper.
Margaret was still reading.
“Three years,” she whispered.
I knew what she meant.
“Yes.”
Her face changed.
“The maintenance requests.”
I nodded.
Bree slowly covered her mouth.
I could almost see the memories arriving one by one.
Margaret demanding that the guest bath be fixed because the water pressure was “peasant-level.”
Richard complaining that the landscaping crew had left visible clippings near the west terrace.
Bree insisting that the upstairs air-conditioning needed attention before a summer party.
Every request had gone to Bluebird.
Every request had eventually crossed my desk.
“You read those?” Margaret asked.
“I approved the plumbing invoice from my apartment.”
Tyler stared at the table.
Bree looked embarrassed for the first time all night.
Richard was not embarrassed.
He was furious.
“So this entire time you’ve been spying on us?”
“Reading maintenance requests sent to the property owner isn’t spying.
It’s property management.”
That sentence landed harder than I expected.
Maybe because earlier he had laughed when I told him I managed properties.
So you answer phones for landlords.
I watched him remember saying it.
His face tightened again.
“You deliberately hid this.”
“Grandmother Ruth wanted privacy around the sale.
After she died, you were given the documents governing your occupancy.
You chose not to ask questions.”
“Because normal people don’t assume their niece secretly owns their family home.”
