Chapter 3 - THE NINETY-DAY RULE
Linda did not ring the bell. She entered using an old brass key.
Emily met her in the foyer. “How do you have that?”
“Helen gave it to family.”
The name confirmed what Emily had begun to suspect.
Linda Thompson had been born Linda Maren. She was Helen’s younger sister.
Helen spoke rarely about her family. She once said a person could share your blood and still spend a lifetime measuring how to profit from it. Emily had assumed the remark referred to distant cousins.
There had been signs she failed to connect. Helen removed a framed photograph whenever repair crews came from Linda’s neighborhood. She refused to attend Thompson family charity events despite receiving invitations. On the day Emily mentioned dating Daniel, Helen asked his mother’s maiden name, then became quiet when Emily did not know it.
Helen died before Emily and Daniel became engaged. Emily had sometimes wondered whether her mentor would have approved of him. The visitor ledger now answered a harsher question: Helen had known enough to be afraid of why he entered Emily’s life.
Linda held up the trust copy. “You manipulated a sick woman into giving you control of her home.”
“Helen created a charitable trust. I am its trustee, not its owner.”
“Don’t hide behind words. You live here.”
“You knew that when you demanded rent.”
Linda’s mouth tightened.
She claimed she only learned of Emily’s role after the wedding, when Daniel mentioned the blue key tag. That was impossible. Her old key had not worked since Helen changed the locks three years earlier. Yet Linda entered the new system without forcing it.
“Who reactivated your access?” Emily asked.
Daniel appeared in the doorway.
His arrival supplied the answer.
“I thought you two should talk,” he said.
Emily looked between them. “How long have you known Helen was her sister?”
Daniel rubbed his hands together. “Since after we got engaged.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Mom was embarrassed about the estrangement.”
Linda interrupted. “Helen was unstable. She excluded her family because that girl encouraged her paranoia.”
She placed a formal notice on the entry table. As alternate family representative, she was petitioning the probate court to review Emily’s trusteeship for abandonment of the residence and undue influence over Helen.
“You have been gone eighty-eight days,” Linda said. “Two more and this trust is reviewed.”
“I am here now.”
Linda smiled. “Are you?”
Daniel produced a copy of their marriage license. Emily’s residential address had been entered as Linda’s suburban home, not the Malibu villa.
Emily had signed the license before the final address block was completed.
Daniel filled it in afterward.
“A government record says you moved,” Linda said. “A new husband says you moved. Your belongings are at my house. You agreed to pay rent.”
“I agreed to nothing.”
Linda pointed to a document beneath the notice.
May you like
It was a rental agreement bearing Emily’s electronic signature.
The date was their wedding day.
