And he was pleasant in the way that men are pleasant when they believe they have already won. "Mrs. Voss," he said, reading her name from a paper he produced from his coat. I understand you are currently employed here. You should know the terms of your engagement may become irrelevant.
The Callaway note comes due in 60 days. I am here to make a preliminary inventory of the property assets. "Mr. Callaway is not home," she said. "That is not strictly necessary for a preliminary."
"It is necessary for any person to enter this property," she said. "Come back when he is here." Dunmore's pleasant expression thinned slightly. "There is also the matter of Mrs. Callaway's estate, which was held in a separate—" "Good afternoon, Mr.
Dunmore." She closed the kitchen door. She stood at the counter for a moment after, listening to the sound of his boots on the porch steps, and then the creak of a carriage moving away down the drive. Her hands were very steady. She had learned that her hands were always steadiest when she was most afraid.
She got out paper and a pencil and began to write down everything she remembered him saying. That evening, she put the notes on the table beside Eli Callaway's plate. He read them without speaking. She watched his jaw tighten once, twice, a third time. The boys were still at the table, and the younger ones had gone quiet in that particular way children do when they sense weather coming.
"Wyatt," he said, "take the boys outside." Wyatt looked at his father. He looked at Nora. He stood and moved his brothers out without ceremony, with the kind of quiet efficiency she had come to expect from him, and the door shut behind them. "He mentioned your wife's estate," she said.
"She had a separate holding." "Land her father left her." "I never touched it." He set down the paper. "It's in her name still.
I could not bring myself to transfer it after." He stopped. "It may be what they're actually after. If her estate was not properly probated, a creditor could make an argument." "You know probate law?"