“Uh oh.” He bolted out of the driver’s side door.
I was a little slower to follow since I still had my seatbelt on. But as I opened my door, I heard more angry shouts.
“She’s just as responsible as he was,” a voice I recognized as belonging to Nancy Danvish hollered over the others. “And we’re here to see that we get our land back, our money back, like shoulda happened last year.”
Coming around the car, I stopped dead in my tracks, struggling to comprehend the scene. Everyone was there—not everyone who hated my father, but a lot of them—all the suspects on the list Jackson had given to Ashley, plus Richard Badcock and Old Man Blount. They blocked the elevator, barring Elena’s entry, all enraged faces and unveiled aggression.
“You signed over that land. We bought it fair and square, Nancy.” Elena’s typically timid tones had adopted an edge of hysteria, and she flinched away as Cletus stepped between her and the crowd. “Don’t you touch me, or you’ll be sorry.”
Cletus held his hands up. “I have no wish to ever sully myself thus, Ms. Wilkinson.” Then to the crowd he lifted his hands higher in the universal gesture for settle down. “Y’all shouldn’t be here.”
“We know y’all are meeting with the attorney, it’s public record. We want assurances y’all are going to do the right thing and sign our farms back over to us. Where’s Jennifer?” Vanessa Romero stepped forward, pointing an accusing finger at both Elena and Cletus.
“And I demand the restitution for my bees! Kip dragged his feet long enough to die, don’t think I’m letting his estate off the hook for what’s due me.” Old Man Blount might as well have been holding up a pitchfork.
I clicked my tongue, my heart aching. I felt so sorry for these folks. Nancy Danvish, Nikki Becker, Vanessa Romero, and Kenneth Miller as the farm investors, but also Roger Gangersworth and Posey Lamont for the chunk of their savings they’d poured into the failed farm stay venture. They’d made the mistake of believing my father, and now they were paying too big a price.
Of course, Old Man Blount and Richard Badcock had their claims too. The civil cases against my father hadn’t yet been settled, he owed them payment for damages, and he’d died before justice could be served.
“God love you, since He’s the only one who can,” spat Nikki, shaking her head. “You and Jenn need to do the right thing, Cletus, if you still know how.”
“Nikki Becker. Jenn and I have nothing to do with it.” Cletus sounded entirely reasonable. He glanced over his shoulder. I could tell he searched for me, likely to make sure I was safe.
Another vehicle pulled up just then, stopping between where I stood at a distance and the ruckus. Billy’s truck idled as he jumped out. “What do you think you’re doing? This isn’t how to behave.”
“You’ll make sure they do what’s right, won’t you Billy?” Nancy appealed to Cletus’s brother. “You’ll make sure that woman does what’s right?”
Elena, unmoved, crossed her arms, staring each of them down in turn—
Wait. No. Not all of them.
Yes, her eyes, fierce and hateful, had settled on each face with disgust until she’d reached the back row of the mob—Roger Gangersworth, Kenneth Miller, and Old Man Blount—at which point her glare dropped and she seemed to recoil. Almost like . . .
Like she’s afraid.
But which one? Which one had inspired the fear?
I studied each man in turn and, honestly, I had no idea. All three looked equally irate, ready to do the woman—and Cletus—harm, just like everyone else gathered. Yet Elena’s reaction had been real and swift.
Why would she fear one of them but none of the others?
“I realize this here is an atypical request, but I sure do appreciate y’all making time.” Luis Leeward, perched at the head of the conference table, turned a friendly—but also somehow condescending—smile to Isaac and me. “As you know, I was a good friend of your father’s. I know you kids sometimes had a contentious relationship, but I hope you know he only wanted the best for you both.”
We were all gathered in a conference room—Cletus, Billy, Elena, me, Isaac, and my father’s lawyer—seven floors above street level with windows that might’ve had a view forty years ago, but which now just looked into a taller building.
After Billy arrived and dispelled the crowd through whatever magic he inherently possessed to persuade folks against their own worst impulses, Elena had taken the elevator with us and selected the chair directly across from mine. The woman was, as Cletus had said, two drumsticks short of a picnic.
Other than the dark wood table and matching chairs, a coffee station sat along the wall closest to the entrance. A few plastic-wrapped danishes rested on a tray lined with a paper doily that sat in the center of the table.
The carpet was dark blue, the walls were beige, the curtains bracketing the windows were red and gold damask, and the entire office smelled faintly of parmesan cheese and air freshener.
Isaac’s eyes seemed to narrow by degrees with every word out of the lawyer’s mouth until his clear blue irises were hidden behind slits. “My father’s intentions for me and for my—for her, are irrelevant. He’s dead.” Isaac picked a piece of lint off his pants. “We can dispense with any additional commentary, Mr. Leeward. Read the will.”
My brother had arrived last and five minutes late. He hadn’t looked my way since strolling into the room, and I tried not to notice he’d taken the chair farthest from mine. But I did notice, and I also noticed how Elena seemed to shrink as he’d entered, her gaze never straying in his direction.
She still didn’t look at him now as she said, “This is what he had to deal with, from his own children. Such ingratitude, such disrespect.” Elena lifted a hand and then let it fall to her thigh. “Unbelievable.”
I’m not an angry person. I do not thrive on whatever part of the brain seemed to derive pleasure from rage. That was not me. But in this moment, listening to the woman who I suspected had killed my father reprimand me for my treatment of him made me want to—
“Don’t do it.” Cletus said under his breath, snagging my attention. His gaze held compassion but also recognition, like he could read the violence in mine. I gathered a deep breath and released it slowly, working to find the lid for my temper.
I shouldn’t have come. Clearly, Isaac didn’t care to speak to me, and Elena hoped to piss me off. This had been a mistake.
Leeward cleared his throat in what I suspected was a nervous habit. He’d cleared his throat when we’d arrived, he’d cleared his throat when Isaac entered, and he cleared his throat now. “This letter was written two months ago, when your father updated his will.”
“He—Kip did what?” Elena’s question was both breathless and sharp.
“He updated the will.” Luis Leeward repeated, not quite making eye contact with Elena. “Now that we’re all here and settled, let’s get started. ‘Elena, Billy, Diane, and my dear children. If Luis is reading this letter, it means I have departed this earth and am watching you from heaven.’”
I shut my eyes, lowered my chin, and pressed a palm to my forehead. Perspective, personal truth, relative reality, how strange the nature of the human experience. My father never saw his own faults. Indeed, to him, he had none. Everything he’d done, all the choices he’d made, had been justified by the lens through which he viewed this world. We all sit in judgment of each other, the bad decisions and evil deeds others make. Perhaps the most difficult of all truths is that no one can ever know, or understand, or share your own. What a lonely journey life was.