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“We leave him Snickers bars,” Brianna proudly announced. “Mel told us if we want Maurice to like us, we should leave him candy.”
That was her dad. He was always giving out helpful advice. She threaded an arm through Hale’s and leaned against him. “We’re going to find out what’s going on now. It’s going to be okay.”
He leaned in and kissed her right above her ear. “Yes, it is. No matter what.”
“No matter what.” Van was on his other side, surrounding Hale with their love and support.
“I don’t think moose are supposed to eat chocolate,” Adam said with a frown. “I’m also pretty sure they shouldn’t be so close to the porch.”
“Maurice is a magical moose,” Tristan insisted.
Then Maurice proved he was a biological moose and chocolate probably did upset his belly, and there was a lot of arguing about who cleaned that up.
But there was no doubt that Bliss was a magical place.
* * * *
Hale stared at the lawyer. She appeared to be in her mid-thirties and was dressed for vacation. Which apparently she was on. She’d explained that she’d taken the job of finding him for the simple reason that she wanted to have some fun ski time with her husband. She sat across the conference table in the sheriff’s department wearing activewear and a puffy vest, having come in straight from a ski run up at the lodge. But that wasn’t the information that had made Hale’s jaw drop.
“I have a brother?” He had a brother. He had Van. But according to the woman who’d introduced herself as Anna Kaplan, he had a biological sibling.
The lawyer glanced back toward the jail cells, though they couldn’t see them from here. “That will take a DNA test to prove, but the resemblance is there. And you look almost like a twin of the man I believe is your biological father, Harrison Jeremy. Here. I brought along the file.”
She slid a manila folder his way, and both Elisa and Van leaned in to get a look. Those two hadn’t left his side since the moment they’d taken the man who’d tried to kill him into custody. The man who was his brother. Probably. Maybe. Hopefully not.
He opened the folder and all hope fled.
“Holy crap,” Elisa said. “That looks like you but older.”
“The younger pictures of him are dead on,” Anna assured them.
“I don’t know. This guy looks mean.” Van was on his side. “Hale’s not mean.”
Anna shrugged. “Well, probably because he didn’t grow up in the Jeremy family. There’s a reason his brother’s such a shitbag. His name is John. John Jeremy. He didn’t have a chance.”
The lawyer had a dry wit. “I still don’t understand why he would want to kill me. I didn’t know about him. I would never have known about him.”
The sheriff leaned in. He sat at the head of the table, Gemma taking notes at his side. “Why don’t you explain how you got involved in this case, Ms. Kaplan?”
“Oh, it’s just Anna,” she corrected. “I’m not one of those stuffy formal lawyers.”
“Amen,” Gemma agreed. “I hate those douchebags. Do you do family law? Is that why you work with the probate court?”
“Yes.” Anna turned his way, thankfully recognizing he did not understand all the lawyer stuff. “I’m with a small firm outside of Houston. I deal with family law, so it’s a lot of wills and advanced directives and custody cases. I personally specialize in wills. If you don’t have one, get one or you’ll find yourself in Harrison Jeremy’s position. Well, he’s dead, so I guess he doesn’t care, but he left a mess behind for his kid.” She frowned. “I’m so sorry. Your dad passed away four months ago.”
“I didn’t know him, so it’s all good. I still don’t understand what this has to do with me.”
“Well, in the state of Texas if you don’t have a will, the court system has a lot of discretion with how they handle the case,” Anna began. “It can be simple. If a man dies and he’s survived by his wife, it doesn’t matter if they had children, the wife gets everything because we’re a community property state. It’s more complex if there isn’t a spouse. In this case Harrison Jeremy’s wife died over a decade ago, and he didn’t remarry. He only had one acknowledged child, so the court could have made it simple. But it’s a small town, and the judge pretty much hated that whole family. Like really hated them. So he followed the absolute letter of the law, which in Texas means when a person dies without a will, the court must do everything it can to insure all possible heirs are identified.”
“Ah,” Gemma said knowingly. “So you were brought in to look through records to make sure there wasn’t another family hanging around in the background who would have a claim on the man’s estate.”
