I went home. I laid my clothes out on the bed for the next morning. I chose a black blazer, sharp and tailored. I chose a white shirt, crisp and clean. It was armor. I picked up the sealed envelope Grandpa had given me. It was sitting on my dresser. I ran my thumb over the wax seal on the back. Do not open until he is confident.
Derek rolled his eyes. “Howard, tell her to sit down so we can sign the papers.”
“You stated that Walter Bennett died owning the properties in the portfolio,” Howard said. “That is factually incorrect.”
Derek fumbled with his own briefcase. He ripped the zipper open, tearing the leather. He frantically dug through papers, throwing slide printouts and spreadsheets onto the floor until he found what he was looking for. He pulled out a single crumpled envelope.
“Here!” Derek yelled, waving a piece of paper in the air. “I didn’t want to bring this out because I wanted to keep things friendly. I wanted to do this the easy way. But you forced my hand, Ivy.” He threw the paper onto the table. It slid toward Howard. “That is a power of attorney and a management directive,” Derek declared, his chest heaving. “Signed by Grandpa two weeks ago. Two weeks before he died. It grants me full retroactive authority to manage all assets and revokes all prior arrangements. It supersedes your little shell company.”
Howard Klein did not wait for the forensic expert. He did not need one. He looked at the document Derek had thrown on the table with the kind of scrutiny a jeweler gives a diamond he knows is glass. He adjusted his spectacles, leaned in, and then looked up at my brother with a gaze so withering it could have killed a houseplant.
“It is a legal disaster,” Howard corrected. He turned the paper around so the room could see it. “Let us put aside the signature issues Ivy just pointed out. Let us look at the notarization. You have a stamp here from a notary public named Sarah Jenkins.” Howard pointed a manicured finger at the bottom of the page. “The commission expiration date on this stamp is November of last year. This document is dated January 15th of this year. You used an invalid stamp, Derek. And unless Sarah Jenkins is in the habit of committing felonies to help you backdate paperwork, I suspect she was not actually present when this was signed.”
I sat in the chair closest to the heavy oak door. This was my designated spot in the family geography: the seat for the stragglers, the latecomers, or the irrelevant. It was the position of the person who might need to slip out early to take a phone call that no one else considered important. To them, I was just Ivy the dreamer, the freelance commercial photographer who spent her days adjusting lighting rigs and editing shadows at Ridgeway Creative House. They saw my job as a cute hobby that somehow paid rent, not a career that required a forensic level of observation. That was their mistake. Photography had taught me how to look at a scene and see the cracks in the foundation, the forced smiles, and the tension held in a jawline. And right now, looking through my mental lens, the composition of this room was screaming with deceit.
To his right sat my mother, Elaine Bennett. She was looking up at him with an expression that bordered on religious adoration. In her eyes, Derek could do no wrong. He was the validation of her parenting, the proof that she had raised a success. She wore black, of course—a tasteful, expensive mourning dress that she had bought specifically for this week. But her grief seemed performative, a necessary accessory to the main event, which was the transference of power. She did not look at me. She rarely did when Derek was performing. I was the background noise; Derek was the symphony.
