Chương 4
“What?”
“He looked at the paper and said, ‘This proves your father owned everything.’”
Owen laughed.
It came out wrong.
He put his elbows on his knees.
For years Lily had imagined that if somebody important finally believed him, her father would become the version of himself he kept promising was still in there somewhere. Lighter. Vindicated. Maybe funny again.
Instead he looked frightened.
At nine thirty that morning, a video appeared online.
The first clip lasted seven seconds.
Lily’s wet hair.
Daniel’s hand.
The torn photograph.
Her voice.
That man bought my father’s stolen name.
The second clip showed Arthur Whitmore holding the cream certificate and saying, This proves your father owned everything.
By noon, the second clip had been viewed more than a million times.
By two, Owen’s principal asked him not to come to school Monday.
“It’s not discipline,” she said over the phone.
Owen stood beside the kitchen window while Lily pretended not to listen from the couch.
“Then what is it?”
“We have reporters calling the main office.”
“So tell them no.”
“We are telling them no.”
“Great. Problem solved.”
“Owen.”
“What?”
“A parent emailed the clip to the entire sixth-grade list.”
He stared out at the fire escape.
Rainwater sat in the rusted corners.
“I didn’t send it.”
“I know.”
“Lily didn’t send it.”
“I know that too.”
“So why am I the one staying home?”
A pause.
“Because children are walking into your classroom asking whether you secretly own a hundred million dollars.”
Owen looked at Lily.
She lowered her eyes to the book in her lap.
“That number isn’t real.”
“I understand.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I understand enough to know I need two quiet days.”
He nearly said something cruel.
Lily saw it gather.
Then he swallowed it.
“Fine.”
After the call, he stood at the window another minute.
Lily said, “Ms. Greene likes you.”
Owen turned.
“I know.”
“She’s not firing you.”
“I know.”
“You look like she fired you.”
“I have a face.”
“You have a dramatic face.”
“That is genetic.”
She smiled despite herself.
He did too.
It lasted perhaps three seconds.
Then someone buzzed the apartment.
Dana, half asleep on the armchair after a night shift, opened one eye.
“If that is a reporter, I’m throwing them down the stairs.”
“It’s probably Arthur’s lawyer,” Owen said.
“Then I’ll only throw them halfway.”
It was Daniel Reed.
He came alone.
No suit this time.
Dark pants, blue shirt, black rain jacket. Without the earpiece, he looked less like security and more like somebody’s tired uncle.
Owen did not invite him inside.
“What do you want?”
“To tell you something before your lawyer hears it from theirs.”
“I don’t have a lawyer.”
Daniel stared at him.
“Get one.”
“With my secret hundred million?”
“With the money you use for groceries. Find someone who handles disputed estates or art title claims and ask about a consultation. Don’t sign anything before that.”
Owen leaned against the doorframe.
“Why are you helping me?”
“I’m not.”
“You came to my apartment.”
“I’m telling you how not to make my job worse.”
“What’s your job?”
“At the moment? Figuring out why the auction house had a file on you.”
Owen straightened.
Lily appeared behind him.
Dana’s voice came from the living room.
“Lily, back up.”
She did not.
Daniel glanced at her, then returned his attention to Owen.
“Three weeks ago, someone in Harcourt’s legal department requested a background search on you.”
Owen’s expression hardened.
“For what?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who requested it?”
“I can’t give you internal names.”
“Then you came here to tell me something useless.”
“I came because last night Ms. Marsh acted like she’d never heard of the case.”
Owen said nothing.
Daniel continued.
“The request included your father’s name, your mother’s name, and a reference to Carter Family Holdings.”
Owen stepped backward.
That was invitation enough.
Daniel entered.
The apartment contained more evidence of Owen’s obsession than he had expected.
Not conspiracy walls. Nothing that theatrical.
Stacks.
Banker boxes.
Photocopies.
A folding table with an old laptop and two external drives.
Yellow legal pads filled with dates.
A framed photograph of a younger Owen and a dark-haired woman holding baby Lily.
Beside it sat a cheap ceramic mug painted with purple fingerprints.
Lily had made it in kindergarten.
Owen still drank from it.
Daniel noticed that before he noticed anything else.
Dana stood.
“What exactly did Harcourt search?”
Daniel took a folded sheet from his jacket.
“I wrote down the terms I’m allowed to repeat.”
“Allowed by whom?”
“My own sense of not wanting to get sued.”
Dana took it.
Owen read over her shoulder.
His face changed when he reached the fifth line.
“Rosen, Bell & Wexler.”
Daniel nodded.
Lily looked between them.
“What is that?”
“My grandfather’s law firm,” Owen said.
“Your grandfather was a lawyer?”
“No. His lawyer.”
Daniel said, “The firm closed in 2006.”
“Bankruptcy.”
“You know that?”
“I know everything about them except where their records went.”
Daniel looked at the boxes.
“I believe you.”
It was not entirely a compliment.
Owen walked to the folding table and opened a drawer.
It jammed.
He pulled harder.
Nothing.
He kicked it.
Dana said, “Very forensic.”
“It always does this.”
“You keep important documents in a desk that requires violence?”
“I keep pens in it.”
He kicked it again.
The drawer opened.
Lily laughed.
Daniel tried not to.
Owen removed a yellowed photocopy.
At the top was a letterhead:
ROSEN, BELL & WEXLER
COUNSELORS AT LAW
He handed it to Daniel.
“My father died in 2002. My mother spent the next two years trying to find out what happened to his partnership assets. This firm told her everything had been settled.”
“Settled how?”
“They never said clearly.”
“Did she hire another lawyer?”
“With what money?”
Daniel gave the page back.
May you like
Owen sat.
“When my mother died five years ago, I cleaned out her apartment. That case was behind winter blankets in the hall closet. I thought it was junk.”
