Part One
“Your grandfather left you his entire estate. Four point seven million dollars in assets, including a house, investment accounts, and a small business. But there is one condition.”
I stared at the man in the expensive suit, certain I was hallucinating.
I hadn’t eaten in two days. I’d been sleeping in my car for nine nights. I had just spent the last hour digging through a dumpster behind a strip‑mall restaurant somewhere in the United States, looking for anything edible that hadn’t completely spoiled.
And now this lawyer, this pristine man with his leather briefcase and his silk tie, was telling me I had inherited millions from a grandfather I never knew existed. “I’m sorry,” I said, my voice cracking from disuse. “I think you have the wrong person.”
“Are you Nathan James Brooks, born March fifteenth, son of David Brooks and the late Michelle Brooks?”
“Yes, but—”
“Then I have the right person.”
He smiled, but it was a professional smile, the kind that didn’t reach his eyes.
“My name is Richard Hartwell. I represent the estate of your grandfather, James Brooks. He passed away three weeks ago and named you as his sole heir.”
“I don’t have a grandfather.
I mean, I did, but my father said he died before I was born.”
“Your father lied.” Richard said it simply, without judgment, like he was stating the weather. “James Brooks was very much alive until twenty‑three days ago. He spent the last fifteen years of his life trying to find you.
When he finally did, six months ago, he immediately changed his will.”
My head was spinning. None of this made sense. I was standing in a parking lot behind a strip mall, wearing clothes I hadn’t washed in over a week, talking to a lawyer about millions of dollars I had supposedly inherited.
“Why would he leave everything to me?” I asked. “He didn’t even know me.”
“That is precisely why he left it to you,” Richard said. “Because he wanted to know you, and he never got the chance.”
He gestured toward a black sedan parked nearby.
“Perhaps we should continue this conversation somewhere more comfortable. You look like you could use a meal and a shower.”
I should have been suspicious. I should have questioned everything.
The story doesn’t end here –
it continues on the next page.
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