254. 🕰️ THE WATCH IN THE RABBIT

Chapter 11 - The Last Meeting

I took the morning off work for the first time in twenty-nine years without asking permission. Nobody at the Romano house objected. I had begun to suspect they were afraid I might ask what else they had forgotten to tell me.

The courthouse smelled of wet coats and old coffee. Ada wore a navy skirt she'd bought for church twenty years earlier. Bernice had pinned a small yellow rose to her lapel. Hannah sat between us, turning a pen over and over in her fingers.

Damian arrived carrying a folder, not a phone. Luca stayed outside. For once, the room contained no bodyguards or expensive cars to tell people who mattered.

Rebecca's application asked the court to pause the sale of Saint Agnes Row while the trust's records were examined. She didn't claim we had proved every crime, and she did not need to. She presented the signed charter, the inconsistent amendments, the alleged votes by deceased residents, and the affidavits from people who said they had never attended those meetings.

Vincent's attorney argued that delaying the sale would cause financial harm. He said Damian had signed voluntarily and that the objecting residents were being manipulated by a disgruntled former employee.

That was me.

For a moment I saw the old version of myself standing behind a dining-room chair, waiting to remove plates before dessert. I was frightened in precisely the same way I'd been frightened when Anthony told me not to make trouble.

Then Rebecca called my name.

I told the judge what I remembered about signing the original charter. I told her about the winter-heating papers. I showed her the odd staple holes and acknowledged that I'd signed documents without reading all the pages. I also told her I had never attended the trust meetings claimed in the recent records.

Vincent's attorney asked whether I had once had a relationship with Vittorio Romano.

“Yes,” I said.

“Did that relationship affect your judgment?”

“Very much. That's why I'm here telling you about it.”

He paused. I could hear someone behind me shift in a wooden seat.

“I trusted people I shouldn't have,” I continued. “I can say that without giving those people permission to forge a dead man's name or take someone's home.”

The judge asked us to stick to the factual issues. I was grateful. I had not come to turn my private life into a speech.

Ada testified next. She brought her husband's photograph and the missing-person report she'd filed eighteen years earlier. She answered each question carefully, even when Vincent's attorney tried to suggest that John might still be alive.

“I would be glad to see him,” she said. “But your client can't produce him. He can only produce his signature.”

Hannah testified about the records she'd found and how her access to Anthony's files had been revoked after she questioned the payments. The attorney suggested she had taken money.

“Did you?” the judge asked.

“No,” Hannah said. “And I'd like the accounts investigated by someone who hasn't been paid by the trust.”

Damian stood when called. He acknowledged signing the preliminary agreement and accepted that he had failed to review the trust's governance closely enough. He also confirmed his withdrawal of support and offered to preserve the assets while independent experts examined the books.

I watched the judge listen to him. She did not appear charmed by his name. I was grateful for that too.

The hearing lasted longer than expected. At one point we waited in a corridor while lawyers argued over the wording of an order. Bernice passed around peppermints from her purse. Ada ate two without noticing. Hannah asked me whether I'd packed a sweater for Mia, and I said Rosa had done it.

“Of course she did,” Hannah said, smiling a little.

When we were called back, the judge granted a temporary injunction preventing the closing while the disputed approvals and trust records were examined. She ordered the parties to preserve records and set another hearing. Damian agreed to the required security, and Rebecca promised to file a fuller accounting request.

It was not a final victory. Nobody was suddenly going to prison, and no money had been returned. But the houses would not be sold on Friday.

Bernice began to cry very quietly. Ada put an arm around her shoulders. I had known these women for most of my life and had never seen them embrace before.

Outside the courthouse, Vincent approached Damian on the steps. He looked furious enough to forget the people watching.

“You've destroyed a profitable deal over a bunch of old houses,” he said.

Damian replied, “Those houses have people in them.”

“Don't pretend you're different from us.”

“I'm not pretending. I'm trying to be.”

Vincent looked at Hannah, then at me, with an expression I had seen on men who believed a woman's age made her harmless.

“Enjoy your little victory,” he said. “The audit will take months. Longer if I can help it.”

“Then we'll be here for months,” Bernice said from behind my shoulder.

He walked away without answering. It was probably the first time Bernice had ever won an argument with him, and she seemed delighted.

That evening Rebecca called to say the district attorney had opened a formal investigation into the trust's transactions and the 2008 death records. Vittorio was cooperating through his own attorney. Vincent and Anthony had retained separate counsel. Rebecca reminded us, gently, that investigations could take time, and no one should mistake a temporary order for a verdict.

I appreciated the warning. For the first time, I was willing to wait for a truth that would stand up after everyone stopped talking.

Hannah brought Mia to my little house on the edge of town that night. I hadn't been there much in recent days. The porch rail needed painting, and the mailbox leaned sideways. But the front hall still smelled of lavender soap, and the old photographs were where I'd left them.

Mia looked at the framed picture of Hannah in her graduation gown. “Mama was a baby?”

“Almost,” I said.

She looked offended. “That's a big baby.”

We made grilled cheese sandwiches and ate them on trays in the living room. Hannah sat with her legs curled beneath her. She asked whether we might come again on Sunday. I tried not to answer too quickly.

“Yes,” I said. “I'd like that.”

Later, Damian called. I thought he wanted news about the hearing, but he was standing outside the old family cemetery with Ada Weaver and a representative from the district attorney's office. The investigators had begun the legal process of identifying the remains in Vittorio's grave.

“We may be able to give John his name back,” Damian said.