Page 5 of The Manor of Dreams

“There’s also an autopsy report with a toxicology component,” Lucille cut in before Madeline could ask another question. “We won’t get finalized reports for months, but the preliminary results should be in soon.”

She had ordered it as an errant precaution. The doctor said it was a heart attack. But Lucille had a feeling. When Ma hadn’t been answering her repeated calls in late July, she had reached out to the nursing agency. It was then that Lucille found out that Ma had fired her nurse several weeks ago. Lucille had hired a new nurse, only for the nurse to go to their house and call Lucille, shrieking, that their mother was collapsed on the back terrace. Her body was long cold and stiff. Already in the stages of decomposition.

Lucille had ordered the toxicology report because of a gut feeling. She didn’t trust that old nurse. Maybe something—wrong medication, some kind of neglect—had led to her mother’s death. But now Lucille thought about Elaine in the dining room, successfully having swept their inheritance out from under them.

Now she had a new gut feeling. No—something more certain than that.

“So,” Rennie said slowly, “if Elaine were involved…”

“Then it would be a murder case,” Lucille said. Madeline’s eyes widened. Lucille tried to keep her voice steady. “We take this to court. She no longer is a beneficiary of the will. There’s a term for it. The slayer statute, I think.”

Rennie shuddered at the phrase. “That’s dramatic.”

Lucille considered her younger sister. It was strange, seeing her age. Even with the emerging wrinkles around her eyes, she still had this lost dreaminess to her, something Lucille had come to resent over the years. Rennie had always been the softer one. Too willing to believe people at their best. Lucille felt both irritation and pity. Her voice hardened. “So, what? We lose the house and let her get away with this?” She paused. “Just wait until the autopsy report comes in. Okay? Trust me. I know something’s wrong here.”

Rennie shrank and crossed her arms. “Okay. Okay. I trust you.”

There was a knock on the door. They turned.

“What do we do now?” Madeline whispered. “What do we say to them?”

“We should leave,” Rennie insisted. “We can figure this out outside the house.”

“We can’t,” Lucille said tightly. “They’ll never let us back in. They’ll change the locks on us. We need to stay here or we’ll be shut out.” She stared her sister down. Rennie had to see that there was no other way.

Her sister didn’t say anything for a long moment. “Fine,” she said faintly. “How do we do that?”

Of course now it would come down to Lucille to scrape things together. She was always the one to be there for Rennie when she crashed and burned, to hire nurses and staff for Ma in her aging years. And now she was the only one who could contest the will. She wasn’t an estate lawyer, but she was a lawyer. She could investigate the circumstances of her mother’s death. She had to step up. Within seconds she pieced together a plan. She steadied herself against the table for a moment and then faced her family.

“We need to buy time. We’re going to go out there and say that we need a few days in the house to sort through our mother’s things. The preliminary autopsy should come in the next few days. And during that time, I’ll figure out what happened between Elaine and Ma before her death. If Elaine did indeed have something to do with it—” Her voice dropped. “We get justice for ourselves. And for Ma.”

NORAwatched Vivian’s family file into the dining room. They sat back down in their chairs quietly.

“All right,” the lawyer said, his dark eyes settling on each person around the table in turn. “Should we proceed? Are there any further questions?”

“Reid, we’d like to make a request,” one of the women spoke. The pushy one with the sharp suit jacket. Lucille. “There was no specification as to whom the tangible property in the house belongs to. Which means that by California probate code, it de facto belongs to us. The surviving relatives.”

Legal jargon. Nora exchanged a look with her mother.

“Come on,” the other woman—Renata?—said. She leaned in and searched their gazes with doe-like, brown eyes. “You don’t want my mother’s old clothes, do you?”

She was the one who acted weirdly, pointed at Nora’s mother, and ran out. She seemed a little… scattered. But earnest. Her hands were shaking. Nora actually felt a pang of sympathy for her.

“No,” her mother conceded, though Nora could tell she was irritated. “You can have that.”

“Thank you,” Lucille said. “Can we have a few days to collect her belongings? There are…” She looked around the dining room. “Many things of hers. We’d like time to process.”

A long moment passed. Reid, the lawyer, looked to her mother. Nora did too.

Her mother took a deep breath and nodded. “Just a few days.”

“Okay,” Lucille said. “We’ll stay here, then.”

Ma stiffened at Lucille’s statement. “As will we.”

Lucille set her jaw. Reid glanced around uncertainly. “Well,” he said.“In that case, if everyone has reached an agreement, I will leave it at that. A copy of the will has been forwarded to your emails. If you have any more questions, here is my business card.” He stood and shuffled the files into a manila folder. Nora saw him glance at Lucille one last time before he gathered his things and hurried out.

Nora watched the Yin family leave the room and go upstairs. The daughter looked over her shoulder and met Nora’s eyes for a fraction of a second. She looked just like Lucille. Beautiful and brittle, with full lips and rounded cheekbones. She wore pearl earrings, and Nora thought she saw the glimmer of gold rings on her fingers. She’d said virtually nothing. But her calm gaze had needled into everything. Private school pedigree, some Ivy probably, Nora assumed. Not that it mattered. They would never cross paths again after this.

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