Chapter 1 - The Woman in the Red Dress
“You’d better start packing now, because once they read the will tomorrow, this house will belong to us.”
Tabitha’s voice carried across the white rose bushes before I even bothered to raise my head.
I was kneeling in the garden of the house where I had grown up, holding a pair of pruning shears in one hand and the stem of a white rose in the other.
Three weeks earlier, I had buried my father.
Now my ex-husband’s new wife had apparently come to bury the rest of my life.
I continued trimming.
Snip.
A dead branch dropped into the soil.
Tabitha’s silver heels clicked against the stone walkway as she came closer.
She was wearing a deep burgundy dress that probably cost more than I spent on clothes in six months. Diamonds glittered at her throat. Her blonde hair was perfect despite the morning breeze.
She looked dressed for a gala.
I was wearing an old gardening apron stained with dirt.
That probably made her feel powerful.
She had always confused appearance with power.
“Did you hear me, Paige?”
Snip.
Another dead branch.
“I heard you.”
Her heels stopped.
“Then why are you still gardening?”
I looked at the rose in my hand.
“Because the roses need trimming.”
She laughed.
Not because anything was funny.
Tabitha laughed whenever she wanted someone to know she considered them beneath her.
“These roses aren’t going to matter much longer.”
That made me look up.
Behind her stood the Mediterranean-style house my father, Everett Morgan, had spent most of his adult life building.
Cream walls.
Terracotta roof.
Tall cypress trees.
Stone arches overlooking the garden.
When I was eight years old, the property had been little more than dirt, construction equipment, and my father’s impossible dream.
He had designed much of it himself.
Every year, he added something.
A fountain.
An orchard.
A stone terrace.
And when I married Calvin fifteen years earlier, Dad planted two long rows of white roses along the garden path.
“White means new beginnings,” he had told me.
At the time, I thought he was blessing my marriage.
Years later, I wondered whether he had been warning me that every beginning eventually leads somewhere you cannot predict.
Calvin and I had been married for fifteen years.
Then I discovered that my husband had been sleeping with his assistant.
Tabitha.
The woman standing in my father’s garden now.
Within eighteen months of our divorce, she had become Mrs. Calvin Reeves.
And apparently that wasn’t enough.
Now she wanted my father’s home too.
“Good morning, Tabitha,” I said.
Her lips tightened.
“Everett’s will is being read tomorrow.”
“I’m aware.”
“Calvin and I thought it would be better to have a civilized conversation beforehand.”
I glanced at her pointed finger.
“Is this what civilized looks like?”
She lowered her hand.
“Don’t make this difficult.”
“I’m pruning roses.”
“You know exactly what I mean.”
I stood slowly.
I was taller than Tabitha even when she wore heels.
That had always bothered her.
“There’s nothing to discuss,” I said. “This is my father’s home.”
“Your father’s estate,” she corrected. “There’s a difference.”
“Not to me.”
“Well, fortunately, inheritance law doesn’t depend on your feelings.”
Something about the confidence in her voice bothered me.
Not the arrogance.
I knew Tabitha was arrogant.
This was different.
She sounded certain.
Too certain.
She stepped closer.
“Calvin was practically a son to Everett.”
“The same Calvin who cheated on Everett’s daughter?”
“Oh, Paige.”
She rolled her eyes.
“That happened years ago.”
“Four years.”
“Exactly. Ancient history.”
I stared at her.
She continued.
“Everett forgave him. Calvin and your father still went to the club together.”
That was true.
And I had never understood it.
After the divorce, Dad had told me he was furious with Calvin.
Yet months later, I learned they had resumed their Sunday golf games.
When I confronted him, Dad simply said:
“Some doors are useful when left open.”
I thought it was another one of his strange sayings.
Now I wasn’t so sure.
Tabitha smiled.
“Maybe your father understood Calvin better than you did.”
“My father understood people very well.”
“Then perhaps you should prepare yourself for tomorrow.”
I set the pruning shears on the stone ledge.
“What exactly are you expecting tomorrow?”
For the first time, she hesitated.
Barely.
But I saw it.
Then she smiled again.
“Kyle understands.”
My stomach tightened.
“My brother?”
“Yes.”
“What does Kyle have to do with this?”
Tabitha inspected one perfectly manicured fingernail.
“Your brother spent a lot of time with Everett during his final months.”
“So did I.”
“Not the same kind of time.”
I stared at her.
Eight months earlier, Dad had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.
By the time the doctors discovered it, there was little they could do.
During those months, I practically lived at the house.
I cooked.
I drove Dad to appointments.
I sat beside him when the pain became unbearable.
Kyle visited too.
But gradually something changed.
He began holding private conversations with Dad.
Then with Calvin.
Whenever I entered a room, conversations stopped.
I told myself grief was making me suspicious.
Now Tabitha was standing in front of me suggesting otherwise.
“What did Kyle tell you?”
She smiled.
“Enough.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning tomorrow might not go the way you expect.”
A cold feeling moved through me.
“You’ve been discussing Dad’s will with Kyle?”
“Maybe.”
“Before the reading?”
“Maybe Kyle simply understands reality better than you do.”
She looked around the property.
“This place is worth at least twelve million dollars now.”
There it was.
Money.
Tabitha could stand among flowers my father planted, beneath trees he had watered with his own hands, and see nothing but numbers.
“This isn’t about money,” I said.
“Everything is about money.”
“No. Everything is about money to you.”
Her expression hardened.
“You’ve always had everything handed to you.”
I nearly laughed.
“Is that what Calvin told you?”
“You grew up here. Private schools. Vacations. A wealthy father.”
“And you think that means I never worked?”
“I think you never learned what it’s like to want something badly enough.”
The words were revealing.
Not need.
Want.
“What exactly do you want, Tabitha?”
She looked directly at the house.
“That.”
I followed her gaze.
“My father’s home.”
“Our home soon.”
“You seem very sure.”
“I am.”
“Why?”
She smiled.
And then she made her mistake.
“Kyle doesn’t think Everett was mentally capable of making good decisions near the end.”
My body went still.
Tabitha seemed to realize she had said too much.
But only for a second.
Then arrogance rescued her.
“Cancer medication can affect people, Paige. Everyone knows that.”
My voice dropped.
“Are you planning to challenge my father’s will?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t need to.”
She shrugged.
“Maybe there won’t be anything to challenge.”
That was when I understood.
They had a plan.
Calvin.
Tabitha.
And somehow my brother Kyle was involved.
But they didn’t know what Dad had told me six weeks before he died.
He had been lying in his bedroom, weak but completely lucid.
He squeezed my hand and said:
“Paige, after I’m gone, people will tell you things about me. Don’t believe words. Believe patterns.”
At the time, I thought he was talking about grief.
Now I wondered whether he had been preparing me for this.
“Get out of my house,” I said.
Tabitha laughed.
“Your house?”
“Yes.”
“For another day, perhaps.”
She turned.
Then stopped.
“Oh, Paige?”
I didn’t answer.
“When Calvin and I move in, we’re renovating.”
I stared at her back.
“We’ll probably redo the west wing first.”
She glanced toward the roses.
“And these have to go.”
Something inside me hardened.
“What?”
“The roses. They’re terribly dated.”
She waved dismissively at the bushes.
“We’ll replace them with something modern.”
I thought of Dad kneeling beside me twenty years earlier.
Keep your hand steady, daughter.
Never hurt the healthy branch just because the dead one is easier to reach.
“Leave,” I said.
Tabitha smiled.
“Start packing.”
Then she walked away.
I listened until the click of her heels disappeared beyond the garden gate.
For several seconds, I didn’t move.
Then I reached for my phone.
There was only one person I wanted to speak to.
Penelope Grant had been my father’s attorney for twenty-seven years.
She answered on the second ring.
“Paige?”
“Tabitha was here.”
Silence.
“What did she say?”
I told her.
Everything.
When I repeated the part about Kyle and Dad’s mental capacity, Penelope’s voice changed.
“Did she use those exact words?”
“Yes.”
“Paige, listen carefully. Don’t confront Kyle. Don’t call Calvin.”
“Why?”
“Because your father anticipated something like this.”
My heart skipped.
“What does that mean?”
“I’ll explain when I arrive.”
“You’re coming here?”
“I’m leaving now.”
She paused.
“And Paige?”
“Yes?”
“Don’t let anyone into Everett’s study.”
I looked toward the house.
“Why?”
But before Penelope could answer, something pale beneath the nearest rose bush caught my attention.
An envelope.
I crouched.
It was tucked deep beneath the leaves where nobody would see it unless they were tending the roses exactly the way Dad had taught me.
The paper was damp with morning dew.
My hands started trembling before I even touched it.
Because I recognized the handwriting.
Dad’s handwriting.
Across the front were three words.
For my Paige.
“Penelope,” I whispered.
“What?”
“I found something.”
“What did you find?”
I carefully lifted the envelope.
There was something solid inside.
Not merely paper.
A small metal object shifted beneath my fingers.
“A letter from Dad.”
Penelope stopped breathing for a second.
“Where?”
“Under the white roses.”
Another silence.
Then she said something that sent a chill through me.
“Don’t open it until I get there.”
“Why?”
“Because, Paige…”
Her voice became very quiet.
“I think your father just made his first move.”
And suddenly I realized tomorrow’s will reading might not be the beginning of this fight.
May you like
My father may have started it months ago.
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