I opened the windows despite the cold. I swept the sand from the kitchen floor. I carried the stray towels to the laundry, remade the bed, and put the cushions back on the wicker chairs.
Then I went to the reading corner, sat down, pulled my legs beneath me the way I had done a thousand times with Winston on rainy afternoons, and looked out at the gray water beyond the dunes.
The lavender in the garden had not been touched. It was still there, small and silver-green and slightly battered from the January wind, exactly as stubborn as I had planted it to be.
The legal process took months. The forged deed was invalidated. The equity line was never funded. Ruiz’s inquiry went where it needed to go.
Peter, for reasons he could explain to his own attorney, accepted a settlement that required him to relinquish any claim to the property and repay specific expenses. Tiffany’s cousin the notary had his own separate conversation with authorities about the limits of professional judgment.
