“My cousin?” I asked.

“Yes,” Arthur said. “And she has hated this family for thirty years.”

“And she has hated this family for thirty years.”

My breath caught in my throat.

The old study felt suddenly smaller, the shadows stretching long across the Persian rug.

“Why did she hate Eleanor?” I asked.

Arthur rubbed his temples, his fingers trembling slightly.

“It wasn’t Eleanor she hated,” he said. “It was what the family did to her mother.”

He looked toward the window, where the first drops of rain were tapping against the glass.

“They cut her out of the estate,” he whispered. “Your grandfather did it, and Eleanor couldn’t stop him.”

I looked down at the glowing screen of my phone.

Marisol Keene was now the lead representative for Cypress Meridian.

“She wants the land,” I said. “Not just for the money, but to take it away from us.”

“Yes,” Arthur said. “And if Graham sells it to her, she wins.”

I stood up from the desk, my chair scraping loudly against the wooden floorboards.

“We need to get to that stone wall,” I said.