Nineteen Days
Chapter 02 - Nineteen Days
Eleanor told the story in pieces, her voice thin and hoarse from weeks of limited water and no one to talk to except the man who brought her food once a day without ever fully showing his face.
"Marcus Webb," she said, when Sophie asked who had done this. "The estate manager. He's worked for this family for eleven years, Sophie. I trusted him completely."
Sophie felt sick. She knew Marcus, vaguely, a quiet, careful man who attended family gatherings occasionally, always professionally composed, always slightly apart from the actual family in a way nobody had ever thought to question.
"Why," Sophie asked. "Why would he do this."
"The will," Eleanor said. "I changed my will six weeks ago. I removed your mother from the primary inheritance and redirected everything to you directly. Marcus found out, somehow, before the new will was even filed."
"Why would you remove Mom," Sophie asked, confusion layering over the fear still sitting heavy in her chest.
Eleanor's expression shifted, something old and guarded moving behind her exhausted eyes. "Because I discovered something about your mother that changed everything I believed about her. Something Marcus apparently already knew."
"What did you discover," Sophie asked.
Eleanor was quiet a long moment, weighing how much truth her granddaughter could hold in a locked room with no clear way out.
"Your mother has been working with Marcus for years," Eleanor said finally. "Quietly, carefully, diverting money from the estate's accounts into arrangements I was never told about. I found the records six weeks ago, completely by accident, going through old tax documents Marcus had always handled on my behalf."
Sophie felt the floor tilt beneath her. "Mom's involved in this."
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"I don't know how deeply," Eleanor admitted. "I only know the financial records show her signature on transfers I never authorized, routed through accounts Marcus controlled. When I confronted him directly, this is what happened instead of an explanation."
Sophie sat with that revelation in the dark, locked room, understanding that the danger surrounding her was considerably more complicated, and considerably closer to her own family, than she'd imagined driving out to this empty house three hours earlier.
