“His housekeeper,” Martin said. “Agnes Boyle. She worked for him for eighteen years. She was the one who called emergency services when he passed. He trusted her with specific instructions—to contact you if she believed you were in immediate proximity to your mother and brother and at risk of being manipulated before the estate could reach you. She learned you were in Hilton Head through a news mention of a tech summit you attended in Charleston. It wasn’t a stretch to connect the dots.”

Agnes Boyle. A stranger who might have just prevented me from signing away a large piece of my future.

“Can I see him?” I asked, though that wasn’t exactly what I meant. I meant: Can I see where he lived? Can I understand who he was? Is it possible to grieve someone you never knew?

Martin seemed to understand anyway. “Of course. The house is secured. I can take you there whenever you’re ready.”

We drove to Simsbury in his car, one officer following behind in an unmarked vehicle. The Connecticut landscape was shifting into autumn—trees just beginning to turn, the air crisp and clean in a way that felt worlds apart from the humidity of Hilton Head. I watched it all pass by, trying to hold everything together in my head without letting it overwhelm me.

Raymond Holt’s home was a white colonial on a quiet, tree-lined street. Large, but understated. It felt lived in, not displayed. The lawn was neatly kept, bird feeders hung in the yard, and a stone path led to a side entrance where a woman stood waiting.

She looked to be in her sixties, wrapped in a cardigan, her expression calm but expectant—as if she had been preparing for this exact moment.

Agnes Boyle had short silver hair, glasses hanging from a cord, and a face shaped by years of quiet kindness. She looked at me with recognition, like she already knew me.

“You have his eyes,” she said softly. “He used to say that.”

Agnes led me inside.

The house carried the warm scent of woodsmoke, old books, and something faintly floral—maybe a candle, maybe the garden drifting in. Every room felt intentional but lived-in, nothing staged. Shelves lined with books that had actually been read, pages marked and corners turned. A chessboard sat mid-game on a side table, two chairs facing each other like a paused argument.

In the kitchen, Agnes poured tea and sat across from me.