Smoothing It Over
Chapter 05 - Smoothing It Over
Robert Hartley had spent forty years building a reputation as a man who solved problems quietly, and by nine the next morning he was on the phone with anyone who'd been standing close enough on that dock to matter.
"A misunderstanding," he told his golf partner. "You know how emotional weddings get. Medications, probably, for the leg."
"Overwhelmed," he told a business associate. "The poor girl's been through a lot overseas. We're just glad she's home safe."
Diane worked a different angle entirely, calling three of her closest friends before noon, voice already rehearsed into something soft and wounded.
"She's always been the difficult one," Diane said, twisting her pearls the way she did when she needed her hands to do something other than shake. "Ever since she enlisted against our wishes. We've tried so hard to reach her."
None of it was true, but truth had never been the point of damage control. The point was speed, and by early afternoon, three separate versions of the dock scene were circulating among their social circle, none of them mentioning a yacht or five thousand dollars, all of them mentioning how emotional and unstable poor Emily had seemed.
Emily heard about it from Nia, who'd heard about it from a cousin still on Diane's book club group chat by pure accident of not having been removed yet.
"They're calling you unstable," Nia said, showing Emily her phone screen. "Three different people have used that exact word today."
Emily read the messages twice, feeling something colder than anger settle into her chest.
"Of course they are," she said. "It's easier to make me the problem than to explain a boat."
"You want to respond?"
"Not yet," Emily said. "Let them keep talking. Every version they tell is one more thing Pearce can compare against what actually happened when we sit down with him."
She called the estate attorney's office at ten that morning exactly as planned, and Frank Pearce, a soft spoken man in his seventies who'd known both Hartley sisters since they were in grade school, agreed to meet within the week.
"I've been wondering when one of you would call," he said, something careful in his tone that made Emily's stomach tighten before he even explained why. "There've been some inquiries about that trust over the past year I wasn't entirely comfortable with."
"What kind of inquiries," Emily asked.
"The kind I'd rather explain in person," Pearce said. "Bring your sister, if she's willing. This concerns both of you."
Emily hung up and looked at Daniel, who was watching her face carefully from across the hotel room.
"He wants Madison there too," she said.
"You trust her enough for that yet?"
Emily thought about the tent, about Madison's face when she said Grandpa Ellis's trust, about the uncertainty that had crossed her sister's expression that hadn't looked like performance.
"I don't know if I trust her," Emily said. "But I think she got lied to the same way I did. Just a different flavor of it."
May you like
She texted Madison that afternoon, a single line: Meeting with Pearce Thursday. You should come.
Madison responded within the minute. I'll be there.
