‘You and your uncle didn’t discuss any of this?’ she said.
I shook my head. I could feel my eyes growing abnormally wide. ‘I thought he was gay,’ I said. It occurred to me just how stunningly underqualified I was to execute anybody’s will, much less something complex with a lot of paperwork.
The lawyer sat back in her seat, considering me like I had just appeared and she was maybe not so impressed with what she saw.
‘Your uncle was a very rich man,’ she said. ‘He left all his assets specifically and exclusively to you. And you had no idea that was his intention?’
‘We didn’t talk much,’ I said. ‘He left it to me? Are you sure? I mean, thanks, but are you sure?’
‘The majority of his titles are already jointly in your names. And you’re certain he never mentioned this?’
‘Never.’
The lawyer sighed.
‘Ms. Heller,’ she said. ‘You are a very rich young woman.’
I blinked.
‘Um,’ I said. ‘Okay. What scale are we talking about here?’
She told me: total worth, liquid assets, property.
‘Well,’ I said, putting the mug down. ‘Holy shit.’
I think lottery winners must feel the same way. I followed everything the lawyer said, but about half of it washed right back out of my mind. The world and everything in it had taken on a kind of unreality. I wanted to laugh or cry or curl up in a ball and hug myself. I didn’t—did not—want to wake up and find out it had all been a dream.
We talked for about two hours. We made a list of things I needed to do, and she loaned me six hundred dollars—‘to keep me in shoes’—until I could get to the bank and jump through the hoops that would give me access to enough money to do pretty much anything I wanted. She left a listing of Eric’s assets about a half inch thick, and keys to the other Denver properties: two storage facilities and an apartment in what she told me was a hip and happening neighborhood.
I closed the door behind her when she left and sank down to the floor. The atrium tiles were cold against my palms. Eric Alexander Heller, my guardian uncle, left me more than I’d dreamed of. Money, security, any number of places that I could live in if I wanted to.
Everything, in fact, but an explanation.
I took myself back to the kitchen table and read the will. Legal jargon wasn’t my strong suit, but from what I could tell, it was just what the lawyer had said. Everything he had owned was mine. No one else’s. No discussion. Now that I was alone and starting to get my bearings, about a thousand questions presented themselves. Why leave everything to me? Why hadn’t he told me about any of it? How had he made all this money?
And, top of the list, what was someone worth as much as a small nation doing in a bar in the shitty part of Denver, and did all the money that had just dropped into my lap have anything to do with why he’d been killed?
I took out the keys she’d left me. A single house key shared a ring with a green plastic tag with an address on Inca Street. Two storage keys for two different companies.
If I’d had anyone to talk to, I’d have called them. My parents, a friend, a boyfriend, anyone. A year ago, I would have had a list half as long as my arm. The world changes a lot in a year. Sometimes it changes a lot in a day.
I walked back to the bedroom and looked at my clothes, the ghost of my discomfort with the lawyer still haunting me. If I was going to go face Christ only knew what, I wasn’t going in a T-shirt. I took one of the white shirts out of the closet, held it close to my face, and breathed in. It didn’t smell like anything at all. I stripped off my shirt, found a simple white tee in Eric’s dresser, and put myself together in a good white men’s button-down. It classed up the jeans, and if it was a little too big, I could roll up the sleeves and still look more confident than I did in my own clothes. More confident than I felt.
I felt a little weird, wearing a dead man’s shirt. But it was mine now. He’d given it to me. I had the ultimate hand-me-down life. The thought brought a lump to my throat.
‘Come on, little tomato,’ I told the key ring. ‘You and me against the world.’
I called a taxi service, went out to the curb to wait, and inside forty-five minutes I was on Inca Street, standing in front of the mysterious apartment.
2
In the middle of the afternoon there wasn’t much foot traffic. The address was a warehouse complex converted into living space for the Brie and wine set. Five stories of redbrick with balconies at each level. Tasteful plants filled the three feet between the knee-high wrought iron fence and the walls. According to the paperwork, the apartment Eric owned—the one I owned—was valued at half a million.