Then her tone sharpened instantly.
“You think this is funny?”
“No,” I said quietly. “I think it’s going to become very expensive for you.”
I hung up before she could answer.
Inside the office, my receptionist looked up immediately.
“You okay?”
“Fine,” I said.
For illustrative purposes only
But my pulse hadn’t slowed.
I locked myself in my office, shut the blinds halfway, and called the one person my father trusted more than anyone else in the world.
Thomas Reardon.
His estate attorney.
The man who knew exactly what my father had prepared before he died.
And the man who was about to turn Camille’s triumph into a catastrophe.
Thomas answered on the second ring.
When I explained what Camille had done, he didn’t sound shocked.
He sounded tired.
“Well,” he sighed, “that took longer than I expected.”
That sentence steadied me more than reassurance ever could.
Because it confirmed the thought that had flashed through my mind the instant Camille made her announcement:
Dad knew she would eventually try something like this.
Six weeks before cancer finally overtook him, my father asked me to drive him to Thomas’s office in Charlottesville.
I still remember how frail he looked that day.
