by Dale Mayer
“Oh, my God,” she said. “And never once did she tell me.”
“What would you expect her to tell you?” Damon asked at her side.
She looked at him in shock. “That my father was alive would be a good start.”
“Well, I think in a way he secretly hoped she would tell you,” Nathan suggested.
“But he could have contacted me himself,” she said, her heart cracking from this revelation that she never thought to experience.
“And I get that,” he said gently. “Of course it’s just that much harder to accept, considering he’s now gone.”
“I was so close to having a relationship with a real relative,” she said, “and, just like that, I didn’t even get that opportunity.”
“Well, isn’t it a good thing that you did get to know him though?” Damon asked.
Reaching across, she gripped his fingers hard. Then she turned to the attorney. “Did Jerry know?”
“He came to me a couple days before his death and asked me to check. I did some searching, and the preliminary investigation, short of a blood test, seemed to confirm it for him. And that was the morning of the day before he died.”
“I wonder if that’s what brought on the heart attack,” she murmured, staring at the window.
“Stop,” Damon said. “You are not responsible for that.”
She glanced at him with tears in her eyes. “Maybe not,” she said, “but it feels like it.”
“No, not at all,” the lawyer said. “He felt horribly guilty for what he’d done all those years before to you, on top of the loss of his wife, so he was dealing with two losses. However, once he had already made arrangements for your care, he felt he couldn’t reverse it.”
“Well, he could have,” she said. “I had a terrible life! It was cold. It was lonely. I was taken care of, but I was never loved,” she said. “Even if he hadn’t done a very good job of raising me, at least I think Jerry would have loved me.”
“We can’t judge him,” Damon said. “Life isn’t that easy, especially with Andrea’s death thrown in there. Life’s not that black-and-white. Nothing is ever clear-cut, and we don’t always get the answers we wanted.”
Tears cloaked her eyes, and she nodded slowly. “I get that,” she said. “I just wish I’d had more time with him or had known so I could have appreciated the time I did have.”
“I get that too,” Damon said, then looked at the lawyer. “Do you want to tell her the rest?”
She looked up at Nathan. “Tell me what?”
“He did know about you at the end, and accordingly he changed his will. He left you the building with the business and any other assets in his will.”
She stared at him, her jaw dropping. “What?”
“Yes,” he said, smiling. “So the bookstore is yours, free and clear. He owned the building as well, in case you didn’t know. He also owned the two buildings on either side and rented out space to those two businesses.”
She shook her head. “What?”
Damon couldn’t stop grinning.
She stared up from the lawyer to Damon and back. “Oh, my gosh,” she said, focused on Damon now. “You knew?”
“I figured it out last night, after we talked, and I then called Nathan to confirm it last night,” he said. “That’s why I came in with you this morning.”
She sagged in place. “The bookstore is mine?” In that moment, she could almost feel hope welling up inside her. But she’d had a lot of disappointments in life, and this was too big to get wrong.
“The bookstore is yours, as is the rental income from the other stores. You have an apartment above that you can live in yourself,” Nathan said, “or you can rent it out.”
She stared at him. “I can’t believe it,” she said. And then she asked, “Do you have my paycheck?”
Both men burst out laughing. “Yes, I have your paycheck,” Nathan said, “and, from now on, you can write your own paychecks.”
She just stared, thinking it was far too much to comprehend. “Who was supposed to get it instead of me?”
“There was no one, so it would all have been sold, probably to a developer, and the money would have gone to charity. Instead he chose to give it to his daughter,” he said. “I think he would have loved to have had time to explain it to you himself, but he didn’t get that time.”
She nodded slowly. “That’s something I’ll deal with myself as well,” she said. “I never even once tried to track down any of my birth family,” she said. “I was told that they were all gone and that nobody wanted me.”
“And, at the time, it was true in a sense,” the attorney said. “I can’t lie to you. At the time, Jerry was so devastated by the loss of his wife and by the possibility that she had committed suicide. He just couldn’t handle any more, and the thought of being faced with the innocent but very real baby, day in and day out, was too much. He was torn between blaming you and blaming himself. He didn’t want to be around the person that he thought had sent his wife off that cliff, and he couldn’t deal with the self-loathing. In the end, he realized it was a dreadful mistake, one that he regretted very much.”
She sagged in place. “God,” she said, “this is just too unbelievable.”
“Maybe, but it’s a good kind of unbelievable,” Damon said. “You got answers. You found your birth family, and you get to inherit enough to allow you to stay in Aspen.”
“And that’s why I’ve always been drawn here, isn’t it?”
“That’s because this is home for you,” Damon said. “This is where you belong.”
She felt the tears burning at the back of her eyes. Damon hastily reached across the desk, grabbed a box of tissues, and shoved it at her. “Here,” he said. She wiped her eyes and blew her nose. “Thank you,” she whispered. She looked up at the lawyer. “Do I have papers to sign or something?”
“You absolutely do,” he said, “and it’ll take us a little bit to get through it all. You’ll also need to set up a will of your own.”
She looked at him in bewilderment.
“The estate is of significant value. If you passed away,” he said, “which one day you will, we all do, you’ll want to decide for yourself what would happen to it.”
She said, “It’s all too much to take in.”
“Maybe right now, but you’ve got some time,” he said, “so don’t worry about it.”
She looked at him for a long moment, and it started to settle inside. She felt the tears, but there was also joy. She stood up, as Damon stood as well, and she wrapped her arms around his chest and hugged him close.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” she whispered.
Laughter rumbled up his chest, as his arms closed around her, and Damon held her close. “Don’t thank me,” he said. “Your father left you all this.”
She nodded. “But you’re the one who helped me in the meantime. I don’t know if we would have gotten this far without you.”
“The lawyer confirmed your identity,” he said, “so it’s all good.”
She looked at the lawyer. “Did you call my …” And she stumbled over the words. “… adoptive mother?”
He nodded. “She confirmed that she picked you up from Jerry, agreed to raise you, until you were of legal age. And I must admit, she sounded like she deserved a reward for it too.”
She started at that. “She won’t get one from me,” she said. “I think she was always jealous of my mother.”
“Well, that didn’t help her any. She never had any other children herself?”
“No. I don’t think they wanted any, after inheriting me,” she said.
“Well, they didn’t know what a blessing was then,” Damon said. “I can’t imagine you being anything but a beautiful child.”
“Well, I was a heartbroken one, right from the beginning,” she said. “Even though I was an infant, Bernadette and I never really bonded somehow. And, while this is all just incredible, it’ll take a bit of getting used to.”
“Give me a day to get the paperwork situated,” he said. “I do have some of it right here, but we must get the property transferred into your name, and, like I said, we must sit down and sort out a will for you.”
The next hour was taken up going over paperwork, and, by the time they finished, she was dazed. “He actually had money?”
“But he was old-school,” the lawyer said. “He didn’t spend it because he didn’t think he needed to. And, though he’d changed the will only recently, I think, deep down, he’d always saved what he could because you might need it for later.”
“So I’m not broke?”
“Not only are you not broke but I think a lot of people would say you’re a very wealthy woman in your own right.”
She shook her head. “Whoever would have thought it?”
Saying their goodbyes to the lawyer, they walked toward the car.
“Your parents had to be out there somewhere,” Damon said. “I’m just glad that, after all of it, there was something left for you.”
“I’d rather have had my father,” she said tearily.
“I know,” he said, “and that’s what makes you special.”
“He had such a broken life,” she whispered.
“And he’s happy where he is now.”
“Do you think my mother’s happy now too then?”
“Well, we can hope so,” he said. “At least they should be together.”
She frowned at that. “Not if she’s still here.”
He nodded slowly. “We’ll ask Stefan about that,” he said. “You never know. Maybe they can meet up and cross over together or however that works.”
“Isn’t it bizarre,” she said, “to think of such a thing.”
“Absolutely. But look. You have options now. And you’re not destitute.”
“And I should clean out Jerry’s apartment, shouldn’t I?”
“And open up the business,” he said with a bright smile. “So you don’t need those résumés after all. You have your own business to run now. Not only that, because you are the landlord to the other two businesses, you might have to brush up on how to handle it.”
“I took business classes in college,” she said, standing up a little straighter. “I’m really looking forward to this.”
“So now you’re working for yourself,” he said. “Nobody else.”
She started to laugh, threw her arms around him, and said, “Life seems so wonderful right now.”
“Good,” he said. “So it’s eleven o’clock.”
She looked at her watch, smiled, and said, “Meaning, you must go to work.”
“I do, indeed,” he said.
“Is that why you wanted my DNA?”
“That’s partly why,” he said. “Though those results take longer to come back.”
She froze. “What if I’m not Jerry’s daughter?”
“Well, legally everything passes to you anyway,” he said. “And you are your mother’s daughter. That photo confirmed that. As for the rest, well, I don’t really know about that,” he said with a shrug.
She nodded and smiled. “I’m still in shock.”
“Well, I’m heading back to the office. Do you want a lift home?”
“No,” she said, looking down at the keys in her hands. “I think I’ll go to the bookstore.”
He grinned. “I don’t blame you one bit,” he said. “Maybe avoid doing too much upstairs or going into his private stuff yet but consider opening up the store, so people know that everything’s okay.”
“I can do that,” she said. “There’ll probably be a lot upstairs to clean or to toss or whatever anyway.”
“Exactly,” he said, “and wait maybe until I get there, and we can go through the upstairs together.”
“You think that’s best?”
“I think it might be emotional for you,” he said, “so, yes.”
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll go open the store and spend time in the office, just familiarizing myself with the business aspects, and I’ll see you whenever you’re off work then.”
He nodded. “That sounds good.”
She stopped and looked at him, then said, “Of course, tomorrow’s the day, isn’t it?”
He looked at her, his smile falling away, and said, “Yes, the seventh day, so please be careful and stay safe.”
“There’s no reason for anybody to come after me,” she said.
“So you say, but there was no reason for anybody to come after your two roommates either.”
She winced, nodded, and said, “Right.”
And, with that, she headed down the street toward the bookstore. Her heart was heavy, but her steps were light, and she felt a completely different change in circumstances now. She was no longer destitute, for one thing. She had a paycheck in her pocket, which felt even weirder now that the bookstore was hers.
As the realization hit her, she started to dance and twirl on the sidewalk. She accidentally bumped into somebody walking past.
She apologized immediately, but he just grinned and said, “At least somebody’s having a good day.”
She beamed back. “You’re not kidding,” she said. “Life is good, indeed.”
And, with that, she danced all the way to the bookstore.
Her bookstore.
*
Damon was happy for Gabby. He was thrilled for her actually, now that she was clear of all the murders and suspicions about her tarot card readings, which had been just a bizarre coincidence, as far as he was concerned. At least at this point. Now if somebody like Stefan told Damon it was something other than that, maybe he’d listen to that theory, but, for the moment, he was completely content to go with coincidence on that one. Now she had a way to make a living, and she also had money in her pocket from the paycheck, and she had a place to live.
He smiled at that because it was pretty much everything she needed all at once. Good for her father for recognizing exactly what was going on there and doing something about it—even if he hadn’t come forward and said something to her personally, maybe simply because he didn’t have enough time. Damon didn’t know, but it was an interesting conundrum. He drove to his office, and, when he walked in, Jake looked up and said, “Where the hell were you this morning?”
“At the lawyer’s,” he said, shaking his head. “In a weird coincidence, the bookstore owner, Jerry, is the father of the woman I’ve been helping.”
“Gabby?”
“Yeah.” He told him more of the story.
Jake stared at him. “That is beyond bizarre.”
“It is. I know.”
“You sure she didn’t kill him?”
He looked at Jake in surprise and said, “And here I thought it had already been ruled as natural causes?”
Jake nodded. “Sure, but it does make you wonder.”
“Yeah, except she had no idea he was her father. The lawyer broke the news to her this morning. She was raised by her mother’s best friend and her husband, and, although they took her and raised her, providing her needs growing up, she missed out on that entire loving family connection. They took care of her in a literal sense, but that’s all, then gave her the boot when she turned eighteen.”
“Right, so, in that case, she might very well have preferred to have had her father around.”
“Definitely she would have. She also really loved the bookstore and has apparently inherited that trait from her mother.”
“Well, things are looking up for her then.”
“It’ll still be a bit for everything to transfer of course,” he said, “but the paperwork is done.”
“Good for her. It doesn’t help us with the murders though, does it?” he asked.
“Not that I can tell at the moment, and unfortunately tomorrow is the day.”
“Meaning?”
“Remember how I said that, thirty years ago, there were two deaths and then, seven days later, there were two more?”
He looked up nodded and said, “And?”<
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“Well, tomorrow is seven days later.”
“So, if we get another murder in the wee hours of Sunday or later Sunday night,” Jake said, “we can pretty well be assured they’re all connected because they are following the same pattern?”
“Absolutely, but of course that’s the worst way for us to reach that conclusion.”
“I hear you, but that doesn’t mean it will be the only way though.”
“I get it,” Damon replied. “That’s where our focus needs to be.”
“Are you thinking about trying to protect the other women in the group?”
Damon winced at that. “Well, it would be a damn shame if Gabby was murdered now that she’s finally getting a chance to live.”
“And not many of us get a chance like she just got,” Jake said.
“I know.” Damon frowned at that and said, “But you make a good point.” He picked up his phone and called her.
“Hey,” she said, her voice almost singing.
He grinned. “Still on a high, I see.”
“Probably will be for the rest of my life,” she said. “I mean, it’s a lot to take in, in the sense that I actually had a father and somebody who cared enough to leave me something,” she said. “But it’s also sad that I just lost him, but then, at the same time, there’s the high that I have a way to stay in Aspen now and actually make a living.”
“Did you open the bookstore?”
“I did,” she said. “It’s pretty slow though.”
“Well, it’ll take a bit for everybody to realize that it’s back open again.”
“True enough,” she said. “Listen. Since I actually have some money now in my pocket, and you’ve been looking after me all this time, I thought maybe I could pick up some groceries and cook a meal for you tonight.”
“Oh,” he said, surprised, “that’d be wonderful. Thanks.”
She chuckled. “I don’t know how long the money will last before the rest is freed up, or when I’ll move into the place, so I need to make some kind of arrangements with you—if you’re okay to let me stay until I can get into the bookstore.”
“Yeah, you should ask the lawyer about that,” he said. “You can probably make that arrangement ahead of time, before the paperwork is processed or whatever.”