The restaurant Sarah chose was quiet and expensive — the kind of place where she and Greg had never been able to afford to eat.

She was already seated when I arrived, wearing a blazer I hadn't seen before, her hair done carefully.

She looked composed.

Rehearsed.

Greg was not with her.

Neither was D.

Mercer.

But there was a third chair at the table.

"I hope you don't mind," Sarah said as I sat down.

"I asked someone to join us.

Someone who knew Dad."

Before I could respond, a man appeared from the direction of the restrooms and took the empty chair.

Late forties.

Dark jacket.

He set a leather notebook on the edge of the table.

"Mrs.

Hartley," he said.

"I'm Daniel Mercer.

I've been helping Sarah understand her options."

I looked at him for a moment.

Then at Sarah.

"You told me just the two of us," I said.

"I said somewhere neutral." Sarah's composure held.

"Daniel is here as a resource.

Not an adversary."

"He visited my attorney's office last Friday and asked how to contest your father's will."

Mercer didn't flinch.

"Sarah has legitimate questions about the estate.

That's not unusual when a will is updated significantly close to the time of passing."

"Richard updated his will eight months before he died.

He was not impaired.

He was not pressured.

He made a decision."

"That may be," Mercer said, "but decisions made under emotional circumstances — grief, illness, family tension — can sometimes be revisited."

"Richard wasn't grieving.

He wasn't ill.

He was careful and deliberate, and he had very specific reasons for what he chose."

"What reasons?" Sarah asked.

Her voice had an edge now, the rehearsed calm starting to thin.

"He never told me.

You never told me.

I found out from Aunt Carol that he changed everything, and nobody thought I deserved to know?"

"You weren't supposed to know until the time was right."

"When was the right time going to be, Mom?

After you'd already given everything away?"

I reached into my bag and set my phone on the table, face up.

The recording app was running.

I had started it in the car.

"Sarah," I said quietly, "what do you think the will says?"

She hesitated.

Mercer's hand moved slightly toward his notebook.

"We believe," he said carefully, "that the cottage and a significant portion of the estate were redirected away from Sarah without her knowledge or consent."

"Redirected to whom?"

Another hesitation.

Longer.

"We were hoping you'd tell us," Sarah said.

And there it was.

They didn't actually know.

They had the date of the update, the rough value, the renovation timeline — but they didn't know what Richard had changed it to.

They had been fishing.

The entire performance — the office visit, the temp, the ambush lunch — had been designed to get me to fill in the blank they couldn't find.

I picked up my phone and dropped it back into my bag.

"I think we're done here," I said.

"Mom—"

"You brought a consultant to a lunch you told me would be just the two of us.

You've been building a case against your father's final wishes for months.

And you still don't know what you're actually fighting." I stood up.

"When you're ready to have an honest conversation — without Daniel, without a notebook, without a strategy — you know where I live."

I left forty dollars on the table for the coffee I hadn't touched and walked out.

Behind me, I heard Mercer say something low and quick.

Then Sarah's voice, sharp and frustrated: "She's recording.

She was recording the whole time."

I didn't look back.

But I did smile.

Just once.

Before I reached the door.