“Is this an inheritance thing?” I asked. “Your uncle changed his mind?”
“No,” Jerome said. “Nothing like that. I went up and sorted everything, and I hired someone to do the sale. I hired someone else to bring back all the stuff I wanted to keep—heirlooms, valuables, stuff I thought should stay in the family.”
I was getting the picture, and I understood why Jerome might be hesitant about it.
“This guy—this mover you hired,” I said. “Not all your stuff came back from Redding?”
“Yeah,” Jerome said immediately. There was relief in his tone, and he nibbled on his thumbnail, waiting for me to understand the full picture from the hints he’d dropped.
“So,” I said. “The mover brings back most of your stuff, but there’s some expensive, important pieces missing. Andyoudidn’t do anything—it was all yourgrandma’sstuff—but whatever’s missing is something you don’t want to admit owning.”
“Yes,” Jerome said. He sagged in relief. “I knew you would get it.”
“Now, here’s my question,” I said, leaning in. I waited for Jerome to meet my eyes. “I need you to tell me what it was. I can figure out a lot of this from context, but you need to tell me what’s got you so twisted up.”
“My grandpa’s corpse,” Jerome said.
Of all the things I’d expected him to say, ranging from illegal exotic pets to items stolen from a museum, a corpse had not even made the list.
“I’m sorry, your what?” Nick said.
Jerome wasn’t even paying attention to him, instead he was leaning forward and talking to me like I was the first person he could be honest with about this. I probablywasthe first person he’d told about this. How do you bring up your grandfather’s missing corpse in casual conversation?
“I didn’t even know I wasn’t human until, before she died, Grandma showed me everything I would inherit,” Jerome said. “This was way back when I was in college. I almost didn’t believe her because you hear about the fae, but, I mean, who’s even seen one?”
“Yeah,” I said, glancing at Nick. He tilted his head and gave me a slight smile. “Who’s even seen a fae?”
“So when she told me she’d married one and that he was my grandfather, I was like, ‘Is she for real?’” Jerome gestured withboth hands and gave me a wide-eyed, shocked look, reenacting his feelings upon learning of his not-so-human background. “But she was, and my uncle confirmed it. He said if I ever spoke to him about it again, he’d take me to court and sue me for his portion of the estate, which, again, is not a lot, but knowing my uncle, he’d try to take me for everything else too.”
A half fae? Sure, he could take everything and just to make sure Jerome got the message, I could see his uncle dancing legal circles around him until he owned everything Jerome had, inherited or not.
Jerome getting his entire grandmother’s estate wasn’t a mercy, it was a fae contract, and this poor quarter-blood kid hadn’t even realized he was signing it.
“What does your uncle do?” I asked out of curiosity.
“It’s sick. He’s like a lawyer? A lawyer in finance? I don’t know, but he always seems to have something going on,” Jerome said.
I’d bet he did. I’d bet he was the sort of lawyer who made practicing law look natural because the subtleties of contracts were in his blood.
“When you say your grandfather’s corpse, you mean his ashes?” I asked.
“No,” Jerome said. He leaned forward, glancing at Nick, then back to me. “I mean, like, his body.”
“His remains?” Nick asked.
“My grandma had a whole room just for his coffin. But it wasn’t a normal one. Apparently he knew he was dying before he died, so he built himself this glass coffin. And grandma said a shroud appeared after he died, even though they were all the way up in Redding and nowhere near San Amaro. When she got the shroud, she figured the fae were okay with her keeping his body, but now, I don’t know. Maybe they aren’t okay withmekeeping the body?”
“Or the guy you hired stole the body,” I said.
“Exactly. My grandma didn’t leave me a lot of money, but I figure I have enough to hire you because I don’t want my grandpa’s corpse just… out there, you know?”
I looked Jerome over. He was wearing a designer hoodie and designer pants. I was no expert, but either he already had money or he was one of those guys who spent every penny he had. In which case, him spending some of his inheritance on me was a step up since I wasn’t rims he didn’t need or DJ lessons for a career that would never get off the ground.
“Okay, Jerome,” I said. “I’ll take your case.”
Two
Damon Griffith owned a legitimate moving company. The only address I could find for him was in east San Amaro, in a neighborhood riddled with packs and gangs.
