My mother had installed a small recorder after becoming suspicious.
Garrett and Sienna apparently believed she was asleep upstairs when they spoke in the room below.
Sienna was crying.
“David wasn’t supposed to die.”
I stopped breathing.
Garrett answered with terrifying calm.
“Keep your voice down.”
“He wasn’t supposed to die,” she repeated.
“And repeating that changes what?”
“You said you were going to scare him.”
“I said I would deal with him.”
My chair scraped backward.
Harrison caught my arm before I stood completely.
“There is more.”
“I don’t want more.”
But I did.
Because for eight months I had woken in the dark wondering whether David had been tired, distracted, unlucky, whether one different decision could have brought him home.
Now the shape of my grief was changing.
I pressed play myself.
Sienna said, “If Eliza ever finds out—”
Garrett cut her off.
“She won’t.
She trusts people she loves.
That’s her weakness.”
“Margaret doesn’t trust you.”
“Margaret is dying.”
Silence followed.
Then Garrett said, “And when she’s gone, Eliza gets everything.”
The recording ended.
I sat perfectly still.
He had known.
Long before the will was read, Garrett had expected my mother’s fortune to become mine.
Harrison laid one final set of papers in front of me.
My mother had changed the inheritance structure during her illness.
The assets passed to me, but access to the core trust required protections that Garrett didn’t know existed.
He could not simply become owner because he was my husband.
He could not move vineyard assets by persuading me over breakfast.
Large transfers required independent review.
Margaret had anticipated coercion.
“That’s why he needs your signature,” Harrison said.
“He’ll try to get himself added to accounts or authority structures he currently cannot touch.”
The courtyard conversation replayed in my mind.
She’ll sign whatever I put in front of her.
Give me two weeks.
“So we let him try,” I said.
Harrison studied me.
“Your mother specifically told you not to confront them alone.”
“I’m not confronting them.”
I placed my phone on his desk and played the recording I’d made the night before.
Garrett’s voice emerged clearly.
Once I get access to those accounts, we’re set.
Then the worst line.
After that, Eliza won’t be a problem.
Harrison’s expression hardened.
“Make copies of everything,” I said.
“Already done.”
