4. The Other Apartment
THE OTHER APARTMENT
Lila Bowles arrived at six with takeout, a laptop, and the expression she used when she had already decided not to be gentle.
"Tell me everything in order," she said.
Katherine almost smiled. Lila had inherited Philip's dark eyes and Katherine's intolerance for messy files. At thirty, she had learned to ask for order before comfort because comfort without facts was just noise.
They sat at the dining table. Katherine put the Eastbank folder between them. She started with the household card portal, then the invoice, then the phone call, then Philip in the kitchen, then Otto Greer and the moving inventory.
Lila did not interrupt until Katherine read the line about the silver chest.
"Grandma Emily's silver?"
"Yes."
"He moved Grandma Emily's silver with Brenna Dacey?"
"The inventory lists Philip as client and Brenna as secondary contact."
"That's not an answer."
"No," Katherine said. "It isn't."
Lila pushed the noodles aside and opened her laptop. "What does Brenna show online?"
"I haven't looked."
"Good. Then we look together."
Katherine expected a business website. She expected the cream sweater version of Brenna, all neutral rooms and phrasing about intentional space. She did not expect Lila to find a personal portfolio page labeled Brenna's apartment refresh, with a familiar blue chair by a tall window.
Lila stopped breathing for a second.
Katherine leaned closer.
The caption read: My private residence refresh. Mixing heritage warmth with modern discipline.
"Heritage warmth," Lila said.
Katherine stared at the chair. Brenna had added a white throw, a brass floor lamp, and a little stack of art books. The chair looked smaller in the photo, tamed by someone else's caption.
"Open the next one," Katherine said.
Lila clicked.
The silver chest sat on a sideboard beneath an abstract painting. Emily's monogram was visible if you knew where to look. E.M.B. A little blurred, but there.
Katherine put one hand flat on the table.
Lila's voice went low. "Mom."
"Keep going."
The two garden watercolors appeared in a hallway shot. Brenna had captioned them: client-owned vintage works, reframed for relevance.
"They were not reframed," Katherine said.
"No. And client-owned by whom?"
"Save the page."
Lila took screenshots, downloaded the images, and copied the URLs into a document. Katherine pulled down family albums from the lower cabinet and opened one to the year her mother moved into the smaller house after Katherine's father died.
There was Emily, standing beside the blue chair with Lila as a toddler in her lap. There was the silver chest on Emily's sideboard. There were the watercolors in the guest room where Katherine had slept the week after the funeral.
Lila pulled the laptop closer. "We need the dates."
"The dates?"
"When she posted these. If Dad moved the pieces before she posted them, that's one thing. If she posted them while you were being told the house was too crowded for the tour, that's another."
Katherine hated how quickly her daughter had learned the shape of the problem. She also loved it. Lila had grown up watching her mother turn panic into lists, and now she was doing the same thing with betrayal.
The portfolio page showed a date stamp from three weeks earlier.
Three weeks earlier, Katherine had been at the linen closet with Brenna, listening to her say the blue chair made the music room feel heavy. Philip had stood behind Brenna with his hands in his pockets, nodding as if the house itself had complained.
Katherine found the memory and held it still.
"That was before the inventory," Lila said.
"Before I knew about the inventory."
"But not before they moved it."
Katherine looked from the laptop to the family album. The old photograph had Emily's handwriting on the back. Christmas, blue chair, Lila almost asleep. Katherine had kept the note because her mother labeled photos as if future grief might need help finding its way.
"Take a picture of the back too," Katherine said.
Lila did.
The second portfolio image had a closer shot of the silver chest. Brenna had placed a glass bowl on top of it and filled the bowl with white stones. The monogram sat below the bowl's shadow, half-hidden but legible.
"She covered the initials," Lila said.
"No," Katherine said, surprising herself with the steadiness of her voice. "She used them. She wanted the old money look without the old woman attached to it."
Lila looked at her mother then, not at the screen.
Katherine felt the look and kept going because stopping would make the hurt bigger.
"Your grandmother polished that chest every Christmas Eve. She said silver was dramatic because it punished neglect. I used to think that was funny."
"It is funny."
"Not today."
The old photos made the new photos worse. Not because Brenna had taken objects. Because she had taken context, stripped it off, and used the result to advertise her taste.
"How long?" Lila asked.
"The storage account started six months ago."
"I mean them."
Katherine looked at her daughter.
Lila's eyes were wet and angry. "Don't make me be careful because you're being careful. Is Dad sleeping with her?"
Katherine wanted to say she did not know.
Technically, that was true. She did not have a photo of Philip and Brenna in bed.
She did not have texts. She had an invoice, a moving inventory, six months of secret access, and portfolio photos showing Brenna had used Katherine's family pieces in her private apartment.
"I don't have proof of that yet," Katherine said.
"You have proof he's building her a life with your things."
Katherine looked down at the family album. In one photo, Philip stood beside Katherine's mother, Emily, at Christmas, holding a glass of wine and smiling at the camera. Katherine remembered taking that picture. She had thought, then, that she was documenting love.
Maybe she had documented access.
Lila reached across the table and covered Katherine's hand.
"I'm sorry," she said.
Katherine closed the album.
"I don't want you to hate your father because of me."
"Mom." Lila's voice sharpened. "He did not accidentally let Brenna stage Grandma's chair in her apartment and call it hers."
The sentence worked because it was not elegant. It was useful.
Katherine nodded once.
Her phone buzzed. A message from Philip.
Dinner at club. Don't wait. Brenna says tomorrow walkthrough at two. Please be civil.
Lila read it over her shoulder and made a sound that was almost a laugh.
"He is not subtle."
"He never had to be."
"What are you going to do?"
Katherine opened a new email to herself and attached the portfolio screenshots, URLs, and family photos. She wrote a short note:
These appear to match the inventory. My daughter can authenticate the family photos. Please advise next step.
She copied Lila with permission, then sent it.
"I am going to stop being the person who makes his version easy," Katherine said.
Lila sat back.
"Good."
The dining table still held donor packets. Katherine gathered them into a neat stack and moved them to the sideboard. Then she placed the Eastbank folder in the center of the table where the seating chart had been.
For the first time all day, the room looked honest.