Audrey crossed her arms.
“You can’t just walk in here and threaten us. We live here.”
Naomi looked at her.
“No, you don’t.”
Audrey blinked.
My mother’s mouth flattened.
Naomi pulled out another document and laid it on the dresser.
“Temporary occupancy agreement. Signed by Eleanor Hayes. Permission to reside in the guest suite during Lucas Hayes’s deployment. Revocable immediately upon violence, criminal activity, financial abuse, or endangerment of a child.”
Audrey laughed once.
A sharp, nervous sound.
“That’s not real.”
Naomi slid the page closer.
“It is notarized.”
My mother did not look at it.
That told me she already knew.
Years earlier, after my grandfather died, he left me enough money to buy the house outright through a military family trust. He had not left it to my mother. He had not left it to Audrey.
He had left it to me because he knew exactly what they were.
