My hand tightened around the phone. “Opportunity for what?”
“For control,” he said. “Access. Possibly leverage over you while grieving.”
I closed my eyes.
“He made inquiries through intermediaries about medical capacity and power-of-attorney procedures. Nothing was successfully filed. Your father was lucid when he changed the will. We made certain of that. But your husband appears to have been exploring ways to accelerate financial access in the event of incapacity.”
“He tried to go around me.”
“Yes.”
I looked at the blank forms again, at the neat margins, the polite language. So much damage always wore such tidy clothes.
“And the email subject line?”
“Likely shorthand,” Blackwood said. “Not proof in itself. But in context, ugly enough to matter.”
I swallowed against a fresh wave of nausea.
“There’s more,” he added. “The forensic accountant believes Grant has been using joint household accounts to support the affair, and there are discrepancies in a business investment presentation tied to your family assets. I didn’t want to bury you in everything today.”
The laugh that came out of me sounded thin and tired. “A thoughtful choice, given the funeral fireworks.”
“I try to pace trauma.”