That he didn't fully understand what he was signing."
Ryan's hand tightened on the phone.
"That email," he said.
"Was it real?"
"Your father didn't use email.
He never had an account.
We always communicated by phone and in person.
I told the court that.
But the filing created a delay." Daniel's voice was careful.
"If she had access to your laptop, to your accounts, to your father's personal files that you stored there — she could have fabricated that correspondence.
She could have created it herself."
Ryan leaned against the hospital corridor wall.
"She wasn't just trying to take Noah," he said.
"No," Daniel said.
"I don't think she was."
"She was trying to overturn the trust.
Get back what my father deliberately left to me and Maya."
"And if she succeeded in a guardianship claim — if she could establish that Maya was unfit and that you were too compromised to act in Noah's best interest — she would have had grounds to argue that the trust assets should be managed under her oversight.
For Noah's benefit." Daniel paused.
"It was a long game, Ryan.
A very long game."
Ryan looked back through the glass door at Maya sitting in the hospital bed.
"She's been planning this for two years," he said.
"Possibly longer."
"What do I do?"
"You don't do anything tonight," Daniel said.
"Tonight, you stay with your wife and your son.
Tomorrow morning, you and I sit down with the police detective on the case and we go through every document, every file, every piece of footage.
And then we let the law do what it does."
"And the estate petition?"
"With evidence of fabricated correspondence and unauthorized access to your private files?" A brief silence.
"It won't survive the week."
---
Evelyn was still at the house when the detective arrived.
She had refused to leave voluntarily, and Ryan had not asked her again.
He had simply told the officer at the scene that she was a person of interest and that nothing in the house should be touched.
Detective Carol Simms was fifty-three, small, and moved through the nursery like she had all the time in the world.
She looked at the documents on the floor.
She looked at the camera mount.
She looked at Evelyn.
"Mrs.
Evelyn Hartley?" she said.
"Yes." Evelyn's voice was composed.
She was seated on the hallway bench now, handbag on her knees, spine straight.
"I'd like to ask you a few questions."
"Of course." Evelyn smiled faintly.
"I have nothing to hide."
"That's good to hear." Detective Simms sat down across from her.
"Can you tell me when you first accessed the nursery camera system?"
A beat.
"I don't know what you mean."
"The camera inside the nursery.
The one in the stuffed bear on the third shelf.
Can you tell me when you installed it?"
"I didn't install anything."
"We have your fingerprints on the mount."
Evelyn's smile didn't disappear.
But it stopped moving.
It became fixed.
"I may have touched it," she said.