Chapter 2 — One Phone Call! My hands were shaking so hard I could barely work the phone. But my mind, for the first time in three weeks of fog, had gone perfectly clear and cold. I did not call for an ambulance first.
I know how that sounds. I pulled out my phone, sitting there on the wet concrete with a contraction building low in my back, and I called Miriam Whitlock, who had been my husband’s estate attorney and one of the few people he trusted without reservation.
She answered on the second ring.“Adeline. Is everything all right?” “My father is inside my house,” I said, keeping my voice as level as I could. “He just put his hands on me. My water broke on the porch. And I think he’s trying to take the property.”
Whatever softness had been in Miriam’s voice went out of it at once, and something precise and hard came in behind it. There was no gasp, no oh honey, no wasted second. “Listen to me,” she said.
“Do not go back into that house under any circumstances. Hang up, call 911 right now, then call me straight back. While you do that, I am sending a clerk to the county recorder’s office and I am personally calling the bank.”
“What bank?” I asked. “Miriam, what bank?” “The one holding the trust account Declan set up to protect you,” she said.
“Which your father seems not to know exists.”
