Page 48 of Slayer

“Your Honor, is Kitty Sinclair privy to this information?” Celia asked, her voice booming loudly around the room.

The judge peered up from his podium, looking slightly terrified at that question. Maybe his wife played bridge with Kitty on the weekends.

“She is not. But we will be out soon,” he said.

Kitty looked like a snake had struck her. Her mouth hung open, and she grimaced, but as soon as she noticed me looking, she recovered, smiling lightly.

She yanked her wrist out of Celia’s grasp and walked back over to her seat.

I turned and followed the judge out the door at the back of the room and into a hallway.

“This will only take a few moments,” he told me as he led me into his office. He took off his large black robe and hung it over his chair before sitting down behind his desk and gesturing that I take a seat in front of him.

His office was what I would expect, books on the shelf, a picture of him golfing with some guy, and stacks of files on the floor.

But when I looked closer, I noticed the books were different.

I skimmed them quickly, my mind yearning to open each one and read it.

The Law of Runes: Interpretation and Enforcement

Codex Vampirica: Statutes Governing the Undead

Hunter Judiciary Manual, Seventh Edition

Legality of Lethal Force Against the Turned

On the Ethical Use of Rune Wafers

The Sentinel Handbook: Regulations for Licensed Hunters

“You look just like her,” the judge said, and I was snapped from my deep dive into book titles.

“You knew Molly?” I asked him.

He pointed to the picture on the wall. “I was best friends with her father, Robert.”

I looked closer at the picture, trying to find features of mine that were in him, but honestly I looked more like Kitty.

Which I was starting to gather was not a good thing.

He pulled out a manila envelope and slid it over to me.

“There are a few private letters in here, a key to Molly’s storage unit, and all the legal paperwork you will need when you go to the bank to take hold of the account.”

I blinked. “The account?”

“The trust account Molly’s father had in her name is now yours. I’m the trustee, the person who makes sure the money isn’t spent while waiting for the beneficiary to grow up. Last time I checked, which I do every quarter, the amount was well over ten million dollars. You⁠—”

“What?”

I stood up so fast, my chair knocked back, clattering onto the tile floor.

His eyebrows raised. “It’s a lot of money, yes. Robert was a brilliant day trader in the stock market. You could give him a hundred dollars, and he’d give you back a thousand at the end of the month.”

Ten million. He said ten million dollars.

“I don’t need that kind of money. That’s crazy!” I told him, bewildered, shocked.