Chapter 4 - THEY HAD ALREADY REHEARSED MY DINNER
The Claire recording did not show me.
It showed everyone else.
Charles.
Eleanor.
Adrian.
Lucas.
Family attorney Martin Bellamy.
Five people sitting in the basement discussing how to get my condo.
Charles began.
“She will say no.”
Eleanor responded.
“She always says no when she thinks something is hers alone.”
Something is hers alone.
My condo was mine alone.
I had purchased it before marrying Adrian.
My mother helped with the down payment.
I paid off the mortgage myself.
But to Eleanor, legal ownership was attitude.
Bellamy opened a folder.
“If Claire signs a transfer or grants Eleanor a life estate, we control occupancy immediately.”
Adrian asked.
“And if she refuses?”
Bellamy answered.
“We continue with the incapacity route only if necessary.”
My breath stopped.
Incapacity.
The same kind of language coercive families always reach for when a woman becomes difficult to control.
Then Charles said.
“She doesn’t need to be declared incompetent.”
“We only need enough evidence of volatility to challenge any emergency injunction.”
Eleanor smiled.
“The dinner will give us that.”
I stared at the screen.
The dinner.
They had planned the audience.
The relatives.
The pressure.
The comments about my income.
The demands.
They expected me to become emotional.
Then Adrian spoke.
“What if she stays calm?”
Charles looked directly at him.
“Then make her understand.”
Adrian did not ask what that meant.
He only nodded.
I stopped the recording.
Naomi Bennett, my attorney, sat beside me.
She was not related despite the surname.
She had represented my design firm for nine years.
“What do you want to do?”
I looked at her.
“Everything.”
She nodded.
“Good.”
We requested an emergency protective order.
Exclusive access to my condo.
A freeze on any property filing involving my name.
A forensic review of documents prepared by Bellamy.
Then Naomi asked a practical question.
“Why do they want your condo specifically?”
“They said Eleanor needs somewhere safe.”
Naomi almost laughed.
“She owns three homes.”
“I know.”
“So that story is nonsense.”
“Yes.”
She opened county property records.
Then stared at the screen.
“Claire.”
“What?”
“Your family did not tell you something.”
Three of the four units inside my Pacific Heights building had been purchased during the previous eighteen months.
Different LLC names.
Different mailing addresses.
But all three traced back to one entity.
Harrington Development Partners.
Charles’s company.
My condo was the fourth unit.
The only one they did not control.
Naomi looked at me.
May you like
“They don’t want Eleanor to live there.”
“They want the building.”
