The slap left a ringing in my ears that had nothing to do with sound.
I was on the ground. Grass under my palms. The taste of copper in my mouth. Tyler stood over me, his hand still raised, his face twisted into something I'd never seen before. Or maybe I had. Maybe I'd just been too afraid to look.
Behind him, Waverly held Biscuit's little urn like a trophy. The workers with the shovels had gone very still.
I touched my lip. My fingers came away red.
For a long moment, nobody moved. Tyler's chest was heaving. He was waiting for me to cry. To scream. To collapse the way I had the night my father died.
I didn't.
I got up slowly. My knees were shaking but I locked them. I picked up my father's urn from where I'd set it beside the headstone. The polished wood was cool against my palms. Real. Solid.
I looked at Tyler. At Waverly. At the half-dug earth around my father's grave.
Then I turned and walked away.
"Evelyn!" Tyler called after me. "Don't be dramatic. We can talk about this."
I kept walking.
The memorial garden gate was a hundred yards. Then fifty. Then I was through it and on the street and a cab was pulling over because I had my hand up and my face must have looked like something that needed saving.
I climbed in. I gave Sophie's address in the West Village. The driver pulled away from the curb.
For exactly one city block, I cried.
It came out of me in ugly, choking sobs that hurt my ribs. I pressed my father's urn to my chest and bent over it and let everything I'd been holding break open. The driver didn't say anything. He just turned up the radio a little and kept driving.
By the time we hit the second block, I was done.
I wiped my face with my sleeve. I pulled out my phone. My hands were steadier than I expected.
Sophie answered on the first ring.
"I need you," I said. "I'm ready."
"Where are you?"
"In a cab. Heading to the Village."
"I'll meet you at Birch Street Coffee," Sophie said. "Twenty minutes."
She hung up before I could say thank you.
I paid the driver and walked into the coffee shop. It was small and warm and smelled like espresso and old wood. I sat in the back corner with my father's urn on the table in front of me.
Sophie arrived in eighteen minutes. She was wearing jeans and a Columbia Architecture sweatshirt I recognized from sophomore year. She looked at my face. At the urn. At the blood I hadn't quite wiped away.
She sat down across from me and said, "Tell me."
So I did.
I told her about the garage. The two hours. The keys that weren't there and then were. The mirrors. The texts. The Porsche I saw that same night with Waverly laughing in the passenger seat. The divorce papers Tyler tore up. Gloria demanding the deed and the necklace. The grave. The slap.
I laid it all out in a flat, clear voice that didn't sound like mine.
Sophie listened without interrupting. She ordered us both black coffee when the waiter came by. She didn't touch hers.
When I finished, she leaned back in her chair and said, "I never liked him."
"I know."
"I didn't say anything because you seemed happy. Or I thought you did." She paused. "I was wrong to stay quiet."
"It wouldn't have mattered," I said. "I wouldn't have listened."
"Maybe." Sophie pushed her untouched coffee toward me. "What do you need?"
"A place to stay. A lawyer. Someone who won't tell me to calm down."
Sophie reached into her pocket and pulled out a key. She slid it across the table.
"My apartment. Top floor. The couch pulls out. Stay as long as you need." She pulled out her phone. "And I know a lawyer. Marcus Webb. He's a shark. He handled my aunt's divorce. The ex-husband tried to hide assets in the Caymans. Marcus found every cent."
"Can you send me his number?"
"I'll do better. I'll call him tonight. Tell him to expect you tomorrow."
I picked up the key. It was warm from her pocket.
"Thank you," I said.
Sophie reached across the table and squeezed my hand. "You're going to destroy him, Evie. And I'm going to help."
---
Marcus Webb's office was in Midtown, on the forty-third floor of a building with too much glass. I arrived at nine in the morning with a manila folder and my father's urn because I didn't trust leaving it anywhere.
The receptionist showed me into a conference room. Marcus was already there. He was younger than I expected. Maybe forty. Sharp suit. Sharper eyes.
He stood when I came in. "Ms. Richardson. Please, sit."
I sat. I put the folder on the table between us.
"Sophie spoke highly of you," I said.
"Sophie's aunt speaks highly of me too. Her ex-husband less so." He opened the folder. "Walk me through what you have."
I did. The disability insurance filings showing Tyler claimed total night blindness. The financial records showing systematic transfers from Richardson accounts into Castillo Group. The dashcam footage from the penthouse cloud server, timestamped 2:17 AM the night my father died, showing Tyler's Porsche doing sixty through a red light on Fifth Avenue.
Marcus reviewed each document without expression. He played the dashcam clip twice.
Then he looked up.
"This is a very good start," he said. "Now don't touch anything joint and don't say another word to him without me present."
"I'm not going back to the penthouse," I said.
"Good. Do you have access to any other documentation? Bank statements, emails, texts?"
"I have the passwords to our shared accounts. And his laptop is still synced to the home network."
Marcus smiled. It wasn't a nice smile.
"Ms. Richardson," he said, "I think we're going to get along just fine."
