Chapter 2 - What Vivian Had Been Saying About the Dead
Claire shut the drawer.
Vivian looked almost relieved.
Almost.
“Ellie,” Claire said, “go sit in the sunroom where I can see you.”
“I don’t want to leave you.”
“You aren’t leaving me.”
Claire pointed through the wide doorway. The glass-walled sunroom was twenty feet away, bright enough that Ellie would remain visible.
“Take the pieces of your box.”
Vivian started to object.
Claire looked at her.
Vivian stopped.
Ellie collected the cracked walnut pieces carefully, avoiding a splintered edge, and carried them to the window seat.
Only after she was settled did Claire turn back to her mother.
“Open the drawer.”
Vivian folded her arms.
“You’re in my house.”
“Then you should have no trouble opening your own desk.”
“What are you accusing me of?”
“I haven’t accused you of anything.”
“That’s worse.”
Claire almost laughed.
Seven months earlier, after her husband’s highway accident, Vivian had moved into Claire’s orbit with terrifying efficiency.
She handled condolence calls.
She arranged food.
She dealt with the funeral home when Claire could barely remember what day it was.
When Claire discovered she was pregnant six weeks after the funeral, Vivian reorganized her medical appointments.
When Claire broke her ankle in February, Vivian insisted Claire and Ellie stay at her Ridgewood house “until you can function again.”
Claire had mistaken control for care because, at the time, control had felt like relief.
Then came the financial warnings.
The company had cash-flow problems.
Her husband had supposedly taken advances.
The home-equity line had grown.
Vendor accounts were behind.
There would be no meaningful estate for Ellie.
Vivian always delivered each fact with the same exhausted expression.
I’m cleaning up what he left you.
Claire had believed parts of it because there had been evidence.
Her husband had become secretive during the last six months of his life.
He stayed late at Hayes House.
He canceled a family trip to Cape May, claiming money was tight.
He argued with Vivian behind closed doors.
He once moved eighteen thousand dollars from their personal savings without telling Claire.
When she confronted him, he had said, “Give me a week.”
He died four days later.
Claire never got the explanation.
Vivian walked to the desk now.
“There are company records in there.”
“So?”
“They’re confidential.”
“I own sixty percent of Hayes House.”
“On paper.”
Claire stared at her.
Vivian seemed to realize what she had said.
“Excuse me?”
“You haven’t worked there full-time since Ellie was born.”
“That doesn’t change ownership.”
“No, but it changes what you understand.”
Claire felt anger move through her with unusual steadiness.
“That sounds like something you’ve been waiting years to tell me.”
Vivian looked away.
On the window seat, Ellie was trying to fit the music-box lid back into place.
Claire watched her for a moment.
Then she said, “What did he do with the money?”
Vivian turned.
“You’ve seen the statements.”
“I’ve seen summaries you gave me.”
“They came from the accountant.”
“Which accountant?”
Vivian hesitated.
It was tiny.
But Claire saw it.
Hayes House had used the same outside accounting firm for eleven years. After the funeral, Vivian had told Claire their longtime CPA, Susan Pike, was “too overwhelmed” and had assigned the work to someone junior.
Claire had never questioned it.
“Why hasn’t Susan called me once since he died?” Claire asked.
“Because I asked her not to bother you.”
“Why?”
“You were grieving.”
“And now?”
“You’re pregnant and injured.”
“So when exactly do I become an adult again?”
Vivian’s jaw flexed.
Claire rolled to the desk and pulled the drawer fully open.
Vivian stepped forward.
“Don’t.”
Claire stopped.
Not because of the warning.
Because of the binder.
The dark-green cover bore her husband’s handwriting.
HAYES HOUSE — V RECONCILIATION.
Under it was a date.
September through January.
His final five months alive.
Claire lifted the binder.
Beneath it lay a stack of deposit slips held together by a fading rubber band.
The receiving account was not Hayes House.
It belonged to another company Claire recognized.
VHC Design Holdings.
Vivian’s private company.
Claire looked up.
Her mother had gone completely still.
“How much?”
Vivian said nothing.
“How much Hayes House money went into this account?”
“Put that back.”
Claire opened the binder.
On the first page was her husband’s neat handwriting.
$27,500 — transferred 9/14.
$16,000 — transferred 10/02.
$31,200 — transferred 10/29.
There were more.
Beside several entries was a single letter.
V.
Claire heard the wheels of her chair creak as her grip tightened.
Vivian spoke carefully.
“You do not understand what you’re looking at.”
Claire looked at the total written at the bottom of the page.
$118,700.
Then she looked toward Ellie.
Her daughter was pressing a broken wooden corner together with both thumbs.
“You’ve spent seven months telling me her father emptied our company.”
Vivian’s silence answered before her words did.
Claire closed the binder.
“Call Susan Pike.”
“Claire—”
“Call her.”
Vivian’s face hardened.
“No.”
That was when Claire understood something even more disturbing than the ledger.
May you like
Her mother was not surprised the records existed.
She had known exactly where they were.
