Chapter 2 - The Call Declan Had Prepared For
I read Courtney’s name twice.
Then a paramedic knelt beside me and the entire world became hands, questions, blankets, and instructions.
“Ma’am, can you tell me how many weeks pregnant you are?”
“Thirty-four.”
“Any bleeding?”
“No.”
“Contractions?”
“Yes.”
“How far apart?”
“I don’t know.”
Another emergency responder draped a thermal blanket around my shoulders.
The front door opened.
Gerald stepped outside.
“Everything is fine,” he announced.
The paramedic did not even look at him.
“Sir, stay back.”
“This is my daughter.”
I almost laughed.
The word daughter sounded obscene in his mouth.
A sheriff’s deputy came up the walkway behind the ambulance crew.
Gerald changed immediately.
His shoulders relaxed.
His expression softened.
That was my father’s real talent.
Not anger.
Transformation.
He could become reasonable faster than anyone I had ever known.
“This is a family misunderstanding,” he said.
The deputy looked at me.
“Ma’am?”
“He dragged me out.”
Gerald sighed.
“She’s grieving.”
I saw the strategy before he finished speaking.
Grieving.
Pregnant.
Emotional.
Unstable.
Everything in his fake evaluation.
The deputy’s eyes went to the wet fabric of my maternity dress, then to the marks already forming on my arm.
“Did he put his hands on you?”
“Yes.”
Gerald spoke quickly.
“She became hysterical.”
“Sir, I asked her.”
Courtney appeared behind him.
“She tripped.”
I looked at her.
She had stopped smiling.
“Courtney watched him.”
Her face tightened.
“I didn’t see everything.”
“You laughed.”
“I was nervous.”
“You laughed while I was on the ground.”
Gerald stepped between us.
“Enough.”
The deputy raised one hand.
“Sir, inside.”
“This is my property.”
“No,” I said.
Everyone looked at me.
I pointed to the house.
“My house.”
Gerald’s jaw moved.
The paramedics lifted me carefully onto a stretcher.
Another contraction tightened through my abdomen.
I gasped.
The deputy stepped closer to Gerald.
“You need to remain here while we sort out what happened.”
“My daughter needs me.”
“No,” I said.
It came out stronger than I expected.
“No, I don’t.”
For the first time, Gerald looked directly at me.
Something passed through his face.
Not regret.
Hatred.
He hated losing control in front of witnesses.
I had seen that look throughout my childhood.
When I was fourteen and told my teacher Gerald had thrown my backpack into the driveway.
When I was seventeen and refused to cancel a school trip because he wanted me home.
When I was twenty-one and moved out after graduation instead of taking the job he arranged.
Every time, his anger was worse after other people saw him fail.
Declan had noticed it immediately.
The first Thanksgiving they met, Gerald criticized the car Declan drove.
“It’s five years old.”
Declan smiled.
“So am I, emotionally.”
I laughed.
Gerald didn’t.
Later that night Declan said, “Your dad doesn’t like jokes he can’t control.”
I thought it was funny.
He had been diagnosing my father.
The ambulance doors closed.
I called Miriam again.
She answered before the first ring seemed complete.
“Are you with paramedics?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
“What was that email?”
“We’ll discuss it once your doctor says you’re stable.”
“Miriam.”
“Adeline.”
“You sound like Declan.”
“That is either the nicest or most irritating thing anyone has said to me today.”
Despite everything, I almost smiled.
“What was the call Gerald received?”
“A notification from Fidelity Forensic Services.”
“What is that?”
“A private compliance firm.”
“Why were they calling him?”
“Because the document he submitted contained a traceable validation code.”
I stared at the ambulance ceiling.
“What?”
“Declan created legitimate powers of attorney for very limited circumstances. Each authentic copy had a validation identifier registered with our office.”
“So Gerald’s was fake.”
“Yes.”
“Then why did it have a code?”
“He copied one.”
“From where?”
“That is what we intend to find out.”
I felt Maeve move.
Small.
Strong.
Relief flooded me.
Miriam continued.
“When Gerald submitted the document, he included a code attached to a revoked draft.”
“A draft for whom?”
“You.”
I went still.
“Declan once considered giving you a springing power of attorney in case he became incapacitated. He changed the document before signing.”
“How would my father know that?”
“He should not.”
The ambulance turned.
My hand tightened around the phone.
“That means he saw Declan’s private files.”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“What happened after he submitted it?”
“The validation system flagged it.”
“And that triggered the switch?”
“Part of it.”
“You keep saying part.”
“Because Declan built layers.”
Of course he did.
Declan labeled kitchen shelves.
He made backup copies of backup copies.
He had once created a spreadsheet to compare diaper brands.
He believed planning was how you protected people from chaos.
I had teased him endlessly.
Apparently, after he died, that habit was protecting me.
“What happens now?”
“Certain estate accounts require enhanced verification. Records are preserved. Access logs are copied. My office is notified. The trustee is notified.”
“There’s a trustee?”
“For a trust you haven’t needed to use.”
My head hurt.
“What trust?”
“Later.”
“Miriam.”
“You are in an ambulance because your father physically removed you from your home while you were in late pregnancy. I am not going to explain fifty-seven pages of estate planning while you’re contracting.”
Fifty-seven pages.
“Declan wrote fifty-seven pages about my father?”
“Technically, about hostile estate interference.”
“That sounds exactly like fifty-seven pages about my father.”
Miriam became quiet.
“Yes.”
At Upstate University Hospital, everything happened fast.
Monitors.
Blood pressure cuff.
Questions.
An obstetrician I had met twice before entered with a nurse.
“Adeline, your water has ruptured, but the baby’s heart rate is reassuring.”
“Is she coming?”
“Possibly. We’re going to watch closely.”
“Is she okay?”
“At this moment, yes.”
That sentence became the only thing that mattered.
At this moment.
Yes.
I held onto it.
Miriam arrived forty minutes later.
She wore a navy coat and carried a leather briefcase.
She did not hug people often.
She hugged me.
Then she stepped back.
“Where’s Gerald?”
“Still at the house, I think.”
“No.”
Something in her voice changed.
“What?”
“He left.”
“How?”
“The deputy briefly allowed him to collect identification from inside. Courtney drove away before they finished taking statements.”
My stomach dropped.
“Why would he leave?”
“Because he knows the switch activated.”
“What does he think it does?”
“That depends on what Declan told him.”
“Declan confronted him?”
“I believe so.”
“You believe?”
Miriam pulled a chair close.
“Six months ago, Declan called me after finding an unauthorized login attempt on your home equity account.”
“We don’t have a home equity account.”
“He knew.”
“What was someone trying to do?”
“Open one.”
I stared at her.
“With our house?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“The application was never completed.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“No.”
“Who?”
“The device used to initiate it had previously logged into a financial portal belonging to Gerald Baldwin.”
I felt cold despite the blanket.
“Why didn’t Declan tell me?”
“He wanted proof.”
“He should have told me.”
“Yes.”
The answer surprised me.
Miriam looked tired.
“I told him that.”
“What did he say?”
“That you were eight months away from becoming a mother and he wasn’t going to blow up your relationship with your father over circumstantial evidence.”
“I wasn’t pregnant six months ago.”
“You were trying.”
That shut me up.
Declan and I had struggled for two years before Maeve.
Doctor visits.
Tests.
Two early losses.
Months when the sight of a pregnancy announcement could ruin my entire day and then make me hate myself for being jealous.
Declan knew how badly I wanted peace.
Perhaps he thought protecting me meant withholding conflict.
I understood why.
I was still angry.
“What else?”
Miriam opened her briefcase.
She removed a folder.
“Courtney contacted a title company four months ago.”
“For my house?”
“Yes.”
“What did she ask?”
“Whether property owned before marriage but later retitled jointly would automatically transfer after one spouse died.”
I stared at her.
“She was checking what happened if Declan died?”
“We cannot prove that was the reason for the question.”
My pulse climbed.
Miriam noticed.
“I am not suggesting she had anything to do with the accident.”
“Then don’t say things that make me think it.”
“I’m telling you what we know. Nothing more.”
I breathed slowly.
“Declan died in an accident.”
“Yes.”
“Police said the truck crossed the median.”
“Yes.”
“There was another driver.”
“Yes.”
“Then this is about money.”
“As far as we know.”
The nurse entered.
She adjusted the monitor.
Maeve’s heartbeat filled the room.
Strong.
Fast.
Beautiful.
For several minutes, Miriam and I said nothing.
When the nurse left, I whispered, “What does Gerald want?”
“The house is worth approximately six hundred thousand dollars.”
“He knows that.”
“Your life insurance proceeds are considerably more.”
“My what?”
“Declan had a substantial policy.”
“He told me about insurance.”
“Did he tell you the amount?”
“No.”
Miriam slid a document toward me.
I saw the number.
I thought I had misread it.
“Two million?”
“Two point four.”
I stared.
“Why?”
“Mortgage protection, income replacement, Maeve’s education, and because Declan worried something might happen while you weren’t working.”
I covered my mouth.
Declan had known I planned to stay home with Maeve for at least a year.
He had planned around me.
Around us.
Around a future he would never see.
I started crying.
Not because of the money.
Because I could hear him.
Don’t worry. I’ve got it.
He said that all the time.
Broken dishwasher.
Flat tire.
Tax mistake.
Pregnancy fear.
Don’t worry.
I’ve got it.
Even dead, he was still trying to keep that promise.
Miriam let me cry.
When I stopped, she said, “Gerald knows there is insurance.”
“How?”
“He referenced it yesterday.”
“How could he know?”
“That’s another question.”
“Courtney?”
“Possibly.”
“Who told them?”
“We’re investigating.”
I looked at the folder.
“So the house and insurance.”
“And your retirement accounts.”
“He can’t touch those.”
“Not legally.”
“Declan’s investments?”
“Protected.”
“Maeve’s trust?”
Miriam paused.
“What?”
“You know about a college account.”
“Yes.”
“That isn’t the trust I mean.”
There it was again.
Another secret.
“What trust?”
Before Miriam could answer, her phone vibrated.
She checked the screen.
Her face changed.
“What?”
She stood.
“Miriam?”
“Gerald just attempted to access a safe-deposit box.”
“What box?”
“Declan’s.”
“Where?”
“First Central Bank.”
“How?”
“He presented another document.”
“What document?”
Miriam grabbed her coat.
“A court-certified copy of something that should not exist.”
My heart began pounding.
“What?”
She turned the phone toward me.
A scanned document appeared on the screen.
At the top were the words:
TEMPORARY GUARDIANSHIP PETITION — UNBORN CHILD OF ADELINE GALLAGHER.
At the bottom was my signature.
May you like
I had never signed it.
And Gerald had just taken it to a bank.
