Hello, Again (Book 2)

The Will

KATHERINE

After a few botched attempts at conversation, Betsy pushed aside her chow mein, folded her arms on the table, and looked pointedly at Matt. "Listen, if we're just going to pretend to eat, I would rather do it after we find out what that will says."

I pushed my plate away. She was right. Mom was probably waiting on my call anyway. Erland stood and collected the plates to the kitchen.

"Here it is." Matthew procured the envelope from a drawer in the china hutch and laid it out in front of me. I put hand on the yellow folder and, with a steadying breath and a prayer to God, tore it open.

My eyes scanned the first page of the document: LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT OF MR. GREGOR MALLOY. I skimmed the legal jargon on the first page, only to find that I couldn't read anything at all as the letters swirled together.

Matt took the empty seat beside me and put his arm around my shoulders. He whispered something to me, probably offering to take the papers, but I couldn't hear it over the heartbeat pounding through my skull. "No," I said, my grip tightening on the document.

I started again, this time reading it out loud. My voice shook, heat flowing through me as I realized the page that should've been a dedication of his assets to his family was actually a list of all the people who've wronged him. Long-distant enemies, failed business partners, burdensome family members. And why they would never get a dime of his estate.

The papers crinkled in my hands as I tried to stifle the hate the surged up in my chest. Across the table, Betsy's features arched in surprise, but surprise would not be the reaction I would have to the cold-blooded selfish sociopath that was my grandfather.

I flipped through two more pages, each grievance against someone growing worse than the last—stole what was mine, broke the contract, offended the sensibilities of my wife. I found it impossible to believe Gramps had ever loved anyone, but he must have coerced a young woman to be with him in order to have my mom.

And there was her name, Camille Malloy. The last on the list. The worst of the lot.

Typed out in ugly block letters, the reason for her disownment from her own father's will.

Whore.

My mind swirled like the currents of a hurricane.

How could he say that about his own daughter? So what if she'd had an affair with my birth father? She'd chosen to stay. To be with the man I grew up knowing as Dad. How could she stand to see him? How could she even think to check in on him?—

"Is that the last page?"

Erland's voice shattered through my silent rampage. He'd settled in the chair beside me at some point while I poured through the will. And his voice, tinged with curiosity though still unsteady, was enough to keep me together.

"No." He was right. Mom's name didn't mark the last page. Who or what would he have given his estate to? Where would he deliver his death blow to our family?

I turned the page and found the one name that was grievously missing:

I HEREBY DEDICATE ALL MY ASSETS, INVESTMENTS, AND PROPERTY TO THE SOLE OWNERSHIP OF MY GRANDSON, ERLAND MALLOY.

Erland jolted back as if he'd been struck. "Is he serious?"

I was silent, my throat tight with the emotions that coiled around like a snake.

Erland's face reddened. "I won't do it, Kat. I don't accept the will. I don't want anything to do with—with him." He spat the last word, then looked at Matt as if for backup.