“Don’t you worry about the numbers,” she hissed. “Just make sure your bags are packed and you are out by next Friday. Leave the keys on the kitchen island. The new owners are eager to start their demolition.”
“Thanks for the heads-up,” I said. “Goodbye, Eleanor.”
When I hung up, I set the phone down and let out a laugh that echoed off the high ceilings. It wasn’t a humorous laugh. It was the sound of a perfectly designed trap snapping shut. Eleanor believed quiet always meant surrender. She never understood that some of us go still not because we are beaten, but because we are calculating the exact angle to slip the knife.
I picked up my phone and dialed Benjamin Vance. He answered on the second ring, his voice warm, rich, and entirely unhurried, as though he had been sitting at his desk waiting for this specific call all morning.
“Harper,” Benjamin said. “I was beginning to wonder how long her patience would hold out.”
“She did it,” I told him, looking out the window at my father’s prized rose garden. “She actually signed papers to sell the house.”
A small note of dry, professional amusement entered his voice. “Did she now? Well, the audacity is almost commendable. Shall we set the dominoes in motion?”
“Yes, please,” I said. “And Benjamin? Make sure the buyers’ attorney understands exactly what happened. I don’t want innocent people losing their escrow money caught in Eleanor’s web.”
“Already planned,” he assured me. “I’ll contact their representation immediately. Give it a few hours.”
I hung up, feeling a strange mixture of triumph and profound sorrow. I stood up and began to walk through the house. My fingertips drifted over walls my father had plastered himself, over the built-in library shelves he had reinforced because he knew I would collect too many heavy, hardback books.
Every room held his ghost. But as I reached the top of the stairs, a heavy, rhythmic knocking suddenly echoed from the solid oak of the front door. It was too soon for it to be Eleanor. It was too aggressive to be a delivery.
I walked back down the stairs, my heart suddenly accelerating. Through the frosted glass of the sidelights, I could see the silhouette of a man in a dark suit. I unlocked the deadbolt and pulled the door open.
It was a process server. He held out a thick manila envelope. “Harper Sterling? You’ve been served.”
I took the envelope, tearing it open as he walked away. It wasn’t about the sale of the house. It was a petition filed by Eleanor to freeze all of my personal bank accounts, claiming I was embezzling from the estate. She wasn’t just trying to take the house; she was trying to financially suffocate me before I could fight back.
The war hadn’t just started. It had escalated.
The rest of the morning was spent in Dad’s study, surrounded by the scent of old paper and cedar. I ignored the frozen bank accounts for the moment—Benjamin would handle that judicial overreach by the afternoon—and focused on sorting through old photographs.
