Chapter 74
The morning light filtered through the tall windows of the Des Moines airport, a flat, tree-spiked green expanse outside, corridors of gray carpeting and white-stanchioned waiting areas inside.
The last thing Tessa had heard from that woman was a cheerful “talk to you soon!” As if she were simply some accommodating friend making an airport run.
On an ordinary day, Tessa would have been looking forward to a packed bookstore in Philadelphia, then settling into another hotel with a cozy bathrobe and bad TV.
And, along with her loyal Team Tessa, trying not to fret about whether she’d make the Times bestseller list.
But it hit her, hard, with the leaden weight of inevitability. She would never have another ordinary day. Never.
Choosing a molded plastic seat close to the window of her gate, she jabbed her charger into the wall plug. She’d looked up the phone number last night. Added it to her contacts. And now, turning her back to the airport concourse, she hit Call.
“Whittaker Law,” a voice answered. “How may I direct you?”
“Bernard Whittaker, please,” Tessa said.
“Are you a client?”
“My mother was. Savannah Mattigan. Um, Danforth. Savannah Danforth.”
“One moment, please.”
Tessa had searched Bernard Whittaker last night, calculating how old he must be. Over seventy, but still practicing trust and estates law. Luckily for her. She hoped.
“This is Bernard Whittaker.”
“Mr. Whittaker,” Tessa began. “This is—”
“I’ve been waiting for this call,” the lawyer cut her off. “I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do.”
Tessa blinked, trying to understand. “Nothing about what? Waiting… why?”
“The funds have been exhausted. The disbursements have stopped. Whatever you were doing with that money, there is no more.”
“Oh. Mr. Whittaker, no. I mean, no. The money wasn’t— I wasn’t getting the money.
I’m her daughter, Theresa Savannah Mattigan.
I mean, she changed it to Tessa Danforth, and now I’m married, Tessa Calloway.
I’ve seen the will now. She didn’t leave anything to me.
Isn’t that correct? That’s what you, or someone in your office, told me? Back then.”
Tessa heard silence on the other end of the line. Then tapping, maybe the lawyer getting into his computer.
“Ms. Danforth? Yes. Calloway. I see. Your mother told me if you ever called, I should ask you a question to confirm you were who you said you were. I have to say, she told me she hoped you would never call.”
“I understand,” Tessa said. “What question?”
“One moment,” he said. “Let me open the file to make it official.”
Behind her, the airport commotion that had become so familiar. An infant crying, the laugh of a child, the rumble of roller bag wheels. Muffled announcements from across the concourse. The real world. Not hers.
“Are you there?” Whittaker’s voice sounded gruff, and wary.
“I’m here.” What question could her mother have relied on her to answer? They had never discussed this. They had never discussed anything. Tessa had gone to college, and the next thing she knew, her mother was dead.
“The question,” he said, “is, ‘What kind of animal was it?’”
“A deer,” she said, without even thinking.
Tessa felt the atmosphere change.
“How may I help you, Ms. Calloway?”
Tessa explained, as quickly as she could, that she had gotten a copy of the will, and seen the payments to the Acadia Road Trust. “What is that? Who is behind that?” She paused, hesitant to ask something incriminating. “Did she tell you why those payments were being made?”
“Why? No. I thought you were the beneficiary, frankly. But in that type of trust, the beneficiaries are sealed. Secret. That’s the point.”
“No,” Tessa said. “It’s not me. I never got—”
“Your mother said the opposite, Ms. Calloway. Your mother indicated it was for your benefit. I asked about bequests to her children, and she told me this was for her sole child. That is you, correct? She and your father divorced at some point, and he is deceased as well. Correct?”
“So can I—can I find out where that money went?”
“I’m afraid not.”
Tessa gazed out the window across the wide swath of grass and past the row of trees and into the blue Iowa sky. She’d thought calling her mother’s lawyer would reveal who was behind this scheme. But it was another dead end. Everything was a dead end.
“I know this month is the anniversary of her death,” he went on, “so I understand it’s top of mind.
But your mother loved you very much, Ms. Calloway.
” His voice had softened. “If I may tell you that. Even after all this time, it can be reassuring to hear. And I am sorry for your loss. I’m sure she told you of her… issues.”
She heard the cautiousness in the lawyer’s voice.
“Issues?”
“Your mother’s illness. Chronic heart disease.”
She had not thought her own heart could be any more deeply broken, but apparently sorrow and regret had no boundaries. Her life had been a complete fiction. Her personal history infinitely false. Her own mother, with “issues” she knew nothing about.
“I was dismayed, though, when the police called about the heart attack,” the lawyer was saying. “One of those unforeseen things, supremely bad luck.”
“Not suicide.”
“Sui—no. There was no evidence of that whatsoever. Why would you think that?”
“Well, I…” She could not answer that.
“Tessa? If I may call you that? Every record of every unattended death is public. It’s kept in the municipality where the death occurred.
But you don’t need to go into that. As executor of the will, I dealt with it at the time.
It was a heart attack. I was fond of her, and I know how much she loved you.
That’s why I assumed that the trust was for you.
‘This will take care of my daughter for as long as I can,’ she told me. ”
“Take care of me,” Tessa said.
“That’s all she was concerned about, Tessa. She wanted you to be free to follow your dreams.”