left instructions.”
“They had to be delivered face-to-face, with his children present.”
“Tomorrow morning,” he continued. “My office. Nine o’clock.”
Then his voice softened.
“He asked me to repeat his last instruction. Trust him.”
The cold of the funeral still clung to my skin when I sat in the lawyer’s office the next morning.
Marlene and her brothers were already there, arranged like a jury.
She crossed her legs and tilted her head at me.
“How generous of you to come,” Marlene said. “When do you plan to leave our
