Chapter 3 - The Maine Secret
I landed back home at 10 a.m., my suitcase empty except for a few of Robert’s old flannel shirts I’d found in the farmhouse closet, and a jar of wild blueberry jam Tom had pressed into my hands. The PI was waiting for me at the airport, his black SUV parked by the baggage claim, and I pretended not to see him, stopping at a coffee shop to cry into a latte for ten minutes, loud enough that anyone watching would think I was falling apart.
By the time I got home, Mark was there, his BMW parked in the driveway, his crisp navy suit looking wildly out of place next to my overgrown rose bushes. He ran over to hug me before I was even out of the car, his cologne sharp and expensive, his embrace stiff and performative. “Mom, thank God you’re back,” he said, pulling back to look at me, his eyes glistening with fake tears. “We were so worried. Where did you go?”
“Just driving,” I lied, letting my voice crack. “I couldn’t breathe in this house without your dad. I ended up in a motel by the highway. I’m so sorry I worried you.”
He herded me inside, making a big show of fixing me a glass of iced tea, rubbing my back like I was a fragile child. “Don’t apologize, Mom. It’s been hard on all of us. Lucas is on his way. We want to talk about the house. The bank called us yesterday—said they’re foreclosing in two weeks. We have a plan.”
I sat down on the couch, my hands folded in my lap, looking up at him with wide, trusting eyes. “A plan?”
“Lucas has a friend who buys distressed properties,” he said, sitting down next to me, leaning in like he was sharing a secret. “He’ll pay $200k for the house. Cash. It’s way below market, but it’s enough to pay off the worst of the debt and get you into a nice little apartment. We’ll even let you stay in the guest house at my place for a few weeks, for free. No rent. Whatever you need.”
I almost laughed. The house was worth $1.2M. He was offering me a sixth of its value, planning to flip it and pocket the rest, all while acting like he was doing me a favor. I bit my lip, letting a few tears fall. “That’s so generous, baby. I don’t know what I’d do without you and your brother.”
Just then, Lucas walked in, his real estate agent blazer unbuttoned, holding a stack of papers tied with a ribbon—like he was presenting me with a gift, not a scam. “Mom!” he said, leaning down to kiss my cheek, his breath smelling like expensive whiskey. “We’ve got this. All you have to do is sign these papers tomorrow, and all your problems go away. No more debt, no more stress. Just you, relaxing, like you deserve.”
I spent the next three hours playing the part. I let them explain the “complicated” paperwork to me like I was five, nodding along, asking stupid questions, pretending I couldn’t understand what a quitclaim deed was. All the while, the recorders I’d planted were humming away, capturing every fake word, every eye roll they thought I couldn’t see, every snide comment they made under their breath about how “thank God she’s too dumb to know she’s getting screwed.”
When they left, I pulled out the recorder from the living room plant and listened back, my jaw tight. As soon as they were in the car, Mark had said, “She’s buying it. Tomorrow we get the house, then we start digging for whatever Bob hid. He had to have left something. No way he died with only debt.” Lucas had laughed. “Once we get the house, we’ll get the doctor to sign the incompetency papers. She’ll be in a home by Christmas, and we’ll be in Cabo by New Year’s.”
I sent the audio file to Arthur, along with a text: They’re moving fast. What’s next?
He wrote back ten minutes later: Go to Mark’s house when he invites you. Plant a recorder in his office. I’ll bet they’ve got the original forged documents there—we get those, we’ve got them cold. Also, the tech company sent over the formal offer. $19.5M, they upped it. Close in two weeks. I’ll send the papers to your PO box.
Nineteen and a half million. I leaned back in my chair, staring at Robert’s photo on the mantel. He’d always been the smart one, the planner, the one who thought three steps ahead. But for the first time in my life, I felt like I was keeping up with him.
The next day, I signed the fake quitclaim deed—Arthur had told me to, that it was worthless without a proper notary, which Lucas had “forgotten” to bring, making the whole thing void. Then I let Mark drive me to his house, a $2M McMansion in the fancy part of town, with a three-car garage and a pool that looked like it belonged in a resort. His wife, Sarah, was there, her smile tight, her diamond earrings glinting as she kissed my cheek. “Eleanor! So good to have you. The guest house is all set up—fresh sheets, a TV, whatever you need.”
The guest house was a tiny studio above the garage, with a view of the pool and a lock on the outside of the door. I pretended not to notice, thanking her profusely, unpacking my suitcase like I was thrilled to be there. That night, when Mark, Sarah, and Lucas went out to dinner to “celebrate solving Mom’s problems,” I slipped into the main house through the unlocked back door, the small recorder Arthur had sent me tucked in my pocket.
Mark’s home office was on the second floor, the door locked. I jiggled the handle, then remembered—Robert had taught me how to pick a lock when we were 19, on a dare, using a bobby pin and a paperclip. I pulled a bobby pin from my hair, bent it into shape, and had the door open in thirty seconds.
The office was exactly what I’d expected: leather furniture, a giant TV, shelves full of fake law books Mark had never read. I found what I was looking for in the back of his bottom desk drawer, locked in a small metal file box: the original forged vendor contracts, the fake loan documents with Robert’s signature traced over in blue pen, and a letter from a doctor Mark had paid $5,000 to diagnose me with “advanced dementia and generalized anxiety disorder, unfit to manage her own affairs.”
I took photos of every page with my burner phone, then tucked the recorder under the desk, behind the computer tower, where it would pick up every conversation in the room. I was just closing the drawer when I heard the front door open, Sarah’s laugh echoing up the stairs.
I froze, then slipped out of the office, closing the door behind me, and ducked into the linen closet at the end of the hall. I held my breath as Mark and Lucas walked past, arguing about the Maine property.
“The PI found an old tax record,” Mark said, his voice low. “Bob owned forty acres up there. Never sold it. It’s not on any of the corporate docs.”
“Maine?” Lucas said, scoffing. “What’s that worth, a hundred grand? Waste of time.”
“Shut up,” Mark snapped. “The tech company that’s been buying up land up there? They paid $18M for a parcel half that size last month. If Bob’s got forty acres, that’s our ticket out. We just have to get Mom to sign over the rights before she figures out what it is.”
They walked down the stairs, and I waited another five minutes before I slipped out of the closet and back to the guest house, my hands shaking. They knew about Maine. They were moving faster than I’d thought.
I called Arthur that night, my voice urgent. “They know about the property. We have to close the deal next week. No delays.”
“Done,” he said. “I’ll push the tech company. But Ellie—if they know about Maine, they’re gonna get desperate. Be careful. Desperate people do stupid things.”
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I hung up, staring out the guest house window at the pool. Stupid things, I thought. Like threatening to lock their own mother in a nursing home. Like stealing $6.2M from their father. Like thinking they could get away with it.
I was ready for them.
