“Who wants to know?” I asked.
He pulled out a business card and offered it to me as though we were meeting inside an office instead of beside trash bins.
“My name is Richard Hartwell,” he said. “I’ve been searching for you.”
No one had ever said that to me before.
“I represent the estate of James Brooks,” he continued. “Your grandfather.”
I scoffed.
“I don’t have a grandfather. He died before I was born.”
Something shifted in his expression — not pity, but gravity.
“That isn’t correct,” he said quietly. “Your grandfather passed away a few weeks ago. And he instructed us to find you immediately.”
The world seemed to tilt.
“Why?” I asked.
His eyes moved toward my car.
My clothes.
The alley behind us.
He lowered his voice.
“Because,” he said, “he left everything to you.
The house.
The business.
The accounts.
All of it.”
Ten minutes earlier, I’d been wondering whether anyone had thrown away food.
Now a stranger was telling me I owned more than I could imagine.
He held my gaze.
“But there’s one condition,” he said.
“And it changes everything.”
I stared at him.
“What condition?”
Richard Hartwell didn’t answer immediately.
