All Chapters of Married To My Ex-Husband's Uncle: Chapter 121 - Chapter 130

Xena."Nobody's mowed this lawn in months," Dante said, cutting the engine at the end of the long gravel drive, "but somebody's been walking on it recently."I followed his eyes to the grass along the walkway — flattened in a narrow path, not overgrown the way the rest of the yard was, the kind of trail a person leaves when they've come and gone the same route enough times to wear it down without meaning to."Recently as in today?""Recently as in within the week." He got out first, scanning the property with the same quiet thoroughness Axel brought to everything, and reached back for my hand before I'd even opened my door. "Stay close. If anyone's inside, I want to see them before they see us."The house itself was smaller than I'd expected for someone Elias Cross had trusted with a piece of a federal secret — a modest colonial, white paint gone gray at the edges, shutters hanging slightly off true on the upstairs windows. It looked like the kind of house that had been beautiful onc

Xena."She doesn't want the documents released," Foster said. "That's the part everybody keeps getting wrong about her."We'd taken him to Dante's house because it was the only place any of us trusted, and he sat at the kitchen table where my father had died with a cup of coffee he hadn't touched, talking like a man who'd been holding his breath for six years and had finally been given permission to exhale."Victor thinks she's waiting to move," I said. "Gerald thought she'd move the second Victor's control broke.""They both think she's them." Foster's mouth twisted. "That's the mistake. Victor's spent forty years terrified of what he might do with what he has. Gerald spent his life assuming everyone was playing the same game he was. My mother isn't playing that game. She never was."Dante leaned against the counter, arms folded, watching him carefully. "Then what does she want?""She wants it buried. Permanently." Foster finally looked up. "Elias gave Victor the originals and gave h

Xena."Somebody stood in those trees and watched a man dig for six hours," Dante said, both hands on the wheel, not looking at me. "And then went home and filed paperwork.""Don't.""I'm not trying to frighten you. I'm trying to say it out loud so it stops being something we're both thinking separately."I pressed my palms against my eyes until the pressure did something. "Then say the rest of it.""If she had someone on that property nine days ago, she has someone on us now." He took the turn onto the expressway too fast. "Kenilworth. The vault. Lake Forest. We walked into her house and took her ledger off her desk, Xena. It was sitting square in the middle of it."I dropped my hands. "You think she left it.""I think a woman who has stayed invisible for forty years does not leave a private diary on an open desk in an unlocked house by accident."She wanted me to read it. She wrote three months of entries about me and left them where I'd find them. The thought had been sitting somewh

Xena.Cassandra Byrne started to laugh.It wasn't much of a laugh but it went on longer than was comfortable, and none of us said anything until she finished."Oh, that's very good," she said. "Victor, she got there in eleven seconds. It took your grandfather three days.""Whose grandfather," I said."Hers." Victor's hand hadn't moved off the envelope. "Elias. She means Elias.""I mean Elias." Cassandra pulled her coat straighter across her shoulders. "Sit back down, dear, you've gone white and I'd rather not explain a fainting girl to anyone.""Tell me what's in the envelope.""Paper. Correct weight, correct age, correct three sheets." She said it without a flicker. "Nothing written on any of them. I had it made in four hours and it cost less than dinner.Dante's voice came out very flat. "Where are the real ones?""With Judge Osei, exactly where the girl sent them. I didn't intercept the courier, I intercepted the manifest — there's a difference and only one of them is a felony." A

Xena.The row filled up by eight-forty.Diana came first, in a coat Hannah must have bought her, sitting down without a word and folding her hands in her lap. Then Adrian, who took the aisle seat and kept his eyes on the door. Then Foster Byrne, which nobody had expected, least of all me."He asked to come," Adrian said, without turning around. "He called Hannah at six this morning."Foster sat at the end of the row, three feet from anyone, hands on his knees.Axel arrived last, stood at the back for a moment counting exits out of habit, then came down and dropped into the seat beside Dante.Herald came out at nine with a court officer on each side.He'd been in the county for three weeks. It showed in the way the suit hung on him — his own suit, sent over by someone, and now a size too generous through the shoulders. He looked at the gallery once on his way to the table.He stopped walking.The officer beside him touched his elbow and he started again, and he sat down, and he didn't