Nora pieced the rest together from Hartley’s narrative. Hartley had hesitated and warned Peel about Eleanor’s claim Peel rejected it vehemently. Like his predecessors, he dismissed the claim as an undocumented ghost, ordering the firm to bury the will and proceed with the transfer.
When Hartley pushed back—noting that the will was a primary legal document—Peel had used the oldest weapon in the legal arsenal: the threat of financial ruin. He had reminded Hartley exactly who signed his checks. The transaction had been forced through, but Hartley hadn’t destroyed the evidence like Peel wanted.
In a moment of silent rebellion, he had found and hidden the original will in his private desk drawer. He had also made a handwritten note—a reference to a sealed letter Frances Calloway had once lodged with the estate, naming Eleanor’s descendants. He had locked both away. He told himself it was just a “precautionary filing,” but as Nora read his frantic, scrawled notes on the margins, she saw the truth. It wasn’t about the law anymore. It was about guilt. Hartley had been waiting for someone to find what he was too terrified to reveal.