Thanks, Dad.
Finding out about the old man’s deathvia a news article online wasn’t that big of a surprise. It had been ages since he’d checked his ancient email address, and that was the only way his asshole father’s asshole lawyer at the office of Ernest B. Harper, Esquire had to get in touch with him. He’d kept his name change private from both bloodsuckers, and he’d long since tossed Milt Devonshire Junior’s cell phone number into the trash with the rest of his former life.
Indeed, after leaving Emily’s, he’d checked via his phone and found an email—just one, no two. The first announced his father’s death and the plan for the old man’s body to be cremated... which according to Harper had happened just a few hours after the lawyer had sent Mick the email.Since I feel certain you would not wish to be here, I’ll proceed as planned despite not having heard from you.
Well, shit, Ernie. How was he supposed to know that his father had died, since it wasn’t exactly a major news story—not with all of the other crap happening in the country.
But the lawyer wasn’t wrong. Mick would not have wanted to have been there.
But oh, look, there was actually an email dated earlier than Harper’sHe’s dead, Jimsubject header. From someone named Rene with a Devonshire.Estate email address. She was presumably the new housekeeper—Mick had heard that Helen, who’d been there for his entire childhood had... maybe retired? He wasn’t sure and he didn’t really care. Helen had been on Team Dad in thinking that Milt Junior was the devil incarnate.
But this new housekeeper, Rene, had emailed him about a week before Harper with a brief message.I’m afraid your father’s health is fading quickly. I know you’re estranged, but if you want to see him again, time’s running out.
She’d included her phone number and a P.S.Reach out to me, not Mr. Harper.
No shit, Rene. It was kind of her even though there was no chance in hell, even if he’d received her email on the day it was sent, that he’d rush to the motherfucker’s side—good word, Carlotta.
It was the second email from Ernie Harper that required action.Please contact me ASAP about your father’s estate.
Best to getthatshit over with.
Mick had bought a burner phone on his way home to pack for Palm Springs, and he used it now to call the lawyer on the man’s private cell, after texting him.New phone, this is Milt D Jr.
“Milton! It’s been a long time!” The man’s voice boomed through the cheap phone speaker, as if he were actually glad to talk to him. Which they both damn well knew he wasn’t.
“I just saw the emails,” Mick said flatly. Point-blank. “That he died. You said to call.”
“Yes. My deepest condolences. His... housekeeper said he passed in his sleep—just didn’t wake up. That’s how I hope to go, someday.”
Hurry up already. Which applied both to a hope of thatsomedaybeing sooner than later,andMick’s desire for the asshole to get to the point. “What do you need from me?” he asked.
“Are you familiar with...” There was a pause and a rustling of papers. “Here it is. An Emily Johnson.”
Mick’s heart stopped. Just for a moment, but it actually skipped and then sputtered to catch up. Really? Except...Whatthehell...?
Harper took his silence for thenothat it wasn’t. “I’m shocked, too. Your father updated his will five years ago, back when I had that heart attack. Apparently he couldn’t wait, and nobody bothered to let me know about the changes. So, I had no idea, but... the document is real. It’s... legal. He’sleft everything—well, almost everything, one tenth of a percent to you, ninety-nine-point-nine percent to her—and we havenoidea who she is.”
His father.
Left everything.
ToEmily.
It was astonishing news, and completely unexpected. It twisted everything Mick knew and believed, complicating his hardcore black-and-white belief that his father was a total, unredeemable piece of shit. A total, unredeemable pile of ashes, now. Who’d left whatever remained of his once enormous fortune toEmily. Like... he’d maybe, somehow, for some reason, five years ago, regrown at least a tiny sliver of his shriveled, blackened soul.
But Harper was still yammering on. “Of course, if she doesn’t exist, this Emily, or if she can’t be found, or—we can only hope—” he laughed “if she’s predeceased your father as most of his friends have, the rest of the money goes to you, too, m’boy. Assuming, of course, that she’s not blood related. If she is, if she’s your, say, half-sister, which I suppose she well could be, the anti-lapse statute would mean that the money goes to her offspring instead of y?—”
“I don’t know her,” he heard himself lying. While as Mick, he’d mostly kept his lies to those of omission. But right now he was talking to Harper as Milt, who was a known liar, cheater, and thief.
Killer. Don’t forget killer. Milt had been convicted of manslaughter.
But his brain was still going a mile a minute because his father lefteverythingtoEmily?!? And then he almost laughed because it wasn’t quite everything, was it? His father had made a point to leavehimone tenth of one very, very tiny percent, which was a message in and of itself, wasn’t it?
The motherfucker.
All Mick knew for sure was that he wasn’t safe—he’d never been safe when dealing with his father, and this surprise news that the old man had finally—maybe—done something right and just... Well, that was no reason to let down his guard.
He’d known for years that he wouldn’t inherit the family fortune, but he’d expected something far more of an in-his-facefuck you. Like the old man leaving it all to the rightwing Heritage Foundation or the Westboro Baptist Church—did they even still exist? Instead, he’d left it toEmily, who was starting to hint to Mick that she was hoping for forever with him. The whole shebang. Marriage. Kids. Which, yes, if that happened, would make the money his, too.
