The drive to Raleigh took just under three hours.

Andre left early, before his mother was up.

He left a note on the kitchen counter — *Back Sunday.

Don't worry.* — and pulled out of the driveway while the street was still gray.

He had Walter's address on his phone.

A house on the east side of the city, in a neighborhood of small yards and older trees.

He found it without trouble and sat in the car for a moment before going in.

The man who opened the door was tall, thinner than Andre had imagined, with close-cropped gray hair and eyes that were immediately, unmistakably familiar.

Andre had seen those eyes every morning in the mirror for twenty-six years without knowing where they came from.

Neither of them said anything for a second.

Then Walter stepped back and held the door open.

"Come in," he said.

The house was modest and clean.

Books on shelves.

A few framed photographs.

A hospital-grade pill organizer on the kitchen counter that Walter didn't try to hide or explain.

They sat at the kitchen table with coffee and spent the first twenty minutes in the careful, circling way of two people who have a great deal to say and no established language for saying it.

Walter asked about Andre's work.

Andre asked about Walter's health — directly, because there was no point pretending the pill organizer wasn't there.

"Kidney disease," Walter said.

"Manageable for now.

Less manageable than it was a year ago."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry.

It's what pushed me to finally send the letter." He wrapped both hands around his mug.

"I'd written it four times before.

Never sent it.

Told myself your mother had made her choice and I had to respect it." He paused.

"Then I found Eunice, and I thought — if not now, when?"

"Tell me about Eunice," Andre said.

Walter set down his mug.

"We're going to see her this afternoon.

But I want you to understand what she's agreeing to first.

She's eighty-one.

She has a daughter who doesn't know she's doing this.

She is scared — she has been scared for thirty years — and she is doing it anyway because she is a woman of conscience." He looked at Andre steadily.

"When we walk in there, you let her set the pace.

You don't push.

You don't ask about details she doesn't offer.

You just let her see that the person she's protecting is real."

"Understood."

"Good."

They drove to the care facility in Walter's car.

It was a clean, quiet building on the edge of a residential area — not luxurious, but well-kept.

A nurse at the front desk recognized Walter and waved them through.

Eunice was in a room near the end of the east corridor.

She was small and white-haired, sitting upright in a chair by the window with a Bible open on her lap that she wasn't reading.

She looked at Andre when he walked in and her expression did something complicated.

"You look like Rose," she said.

"Around the eyes."

Andre sat in the chair across from her.

"I never got to meet her."

"No." Eunice closed the Bible.

"That was a cruelty, what happened to that woman.

A plain cruelty."

"Can you tell me what you saw?" Andre said.

"When the will was signed?"

Eunice looked at Walter.

Walter nodded.

She turned back to Andre.

"Harold — your grandfather — was not himself in those last weeks.

The medication made him confused.

Some days he knew exactly where he was and who was in the room.

Other days he thought it was 1987." She folded her hands over the Bible.

"The day Clifton came with the lawyer, Harold was having a bad day.

I told Clifton that.

I said, *he's not clear today, this should wait.* Clifton looked at me and said, *it can't wait.*"

"And the lawyer signed off on it anyway," Andre said.

"The lawyer barely looked at Harold.

He put the paper in front of him and guided his hand to the signature line." Her voice was steady, but her knuckles had gone pale.

"I was standing right there.

I saw it."

"Would you testify to that?"

"That's why I'm still here," Eunice said.

"That's the only reason I agreed to be still here."

Andre leaned forward slightly.

"Eunice, I want you to know — whatever happens with the estate, whatever the court decides — what you're doing matters.

Not just for the money.

For Rose."

The old woman looked at him for a long moment.

"She used to talk about you," Eunice said quietly.

"Before she passed.

She knew about you — Walter had told her.

She used to say she hoped you were being raised right." A small pause.

"I think she would be glad you came."

On the drive back, Andre and Walter didn't talk much.

The city moved past the windows in the late afternoon light.

They were two blocks from Walter's house when Andre's phone buzzed.

An unknown number.

He almost let it go to voicemail.

He answered.

"Is this Andre Robinson?" The voice was smooth, professional, and completely cold.

"Who's asking?"

"My name is Marcus Greer.

I think it's time we had a conversation before this goes any further."