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Now it started to make sense. “So he thought I would take some of his dad’s money?”
“Half,” Anna corrected. “If I can prove you are Jeremy’s biological child—and I don’t think that will be a problem—you get half of the estate.”
Van sat back. “Wow. That’s unexpected.”
“You don’t even know how much it is.” Hale wasn’t counting any chickens. None.
“I know he killed one person for it and was willing to kill all three of us,” Elisa pointed out. “He didn’t show up this morning to talk to us. He was desperate. He’s not desperate for a couple grand. Anna, do you know how much the estate is worth?”
“Five million,” the lawyer replied. “Your portion would be two point five, but it could be a bit more or less depending on how the assets sell. It’s not the largest estate I’ve worked with. From what I can tell the Jeremy family was good at looking wealthier than they were. I think John Jeremy is in serious debt. He thought he could pay it off with the inheritance. He got nervous when the court ordered me to look for other possible heirs. He hired a private investigator, and she got there first. I’m afraid this kind of work takes a while because lawyers don’t prioritize it.”
“It’s practically pro bono,” Gemma added. “The courts don’t have the funds to pay lawyers their full rates when they hire them. I bet the PI got paid better. Well, until she was murdered.”
He shouldn’t forget that this man who was his biological brother was also a killer. He hadn’t cared about anything but getting his hands on the money. “How did you find me? I never knew who my dad was.”
“Did I mention he lived in a small town?” Anna’s eyes lit with amusement. “I know I could have looked through a couple of records and called the people John Jeremy gave me to vouch for the fact that his dad didn’t have other children. It’s pretty simple. But there was something one of the cousins said about a woman named Margaret Galloway.”
“She was my mom. My biological mother.” It was hard to think of her. He didn’t even know if she was alive. She’d walked out so long before and never looked back.
“Yes, and she was from the same town as Harrison Jeremy,” Anna explained. “She was many years younger than he was, and when she graduated high school, she got a job as his secretary.”
Elisa gasped. “She had an affair with her boss.”
“Obviously,” he replied, but stretched his arm around the back of her chair. Normally he would be anxious about all of this. It was a lot of drama and change, and he preferred things calm. He definitely preferred to not be the center of attention, but it was all okay now. He’d found the person who truly centered him, and he could handle it. “Now that I think about it, my aunt used to say things would have been different if my mom had never taken that job. I didn’t ask what she meant. I guess she meant I wouldn’t have been born.”
“I was able to find financial records proving that Jeremy paid the hospital bills for your delivery, though no one put him on the birth certificate,” Anna continued. “From there, Margaret Galloway disappears from life in that small town. She left town with her baby and twenty-five thousand dollars, which from what I can tell, she went through pretty quickly. Within a year she was living with one of her sisters in Ohio, and according to the people who knew them, the sister was eventually left with the kid.”
“Yes.” He knew this part of the story well. “She took off when I was seven. I went through a lot of homes after that and ended up in foster care in Nebraska. I know some of the family services workers over the years tried to get into contact with her, but they couldn’t find her.”
Anna’s expression dimmed, and he knew what she was about to say. “She died a few years after she left you. I’m so sorry to tell you that, but she was killed in a car accident.”
Elisa’s hand found his.
He squeezed it, but all he could feel was some distant ache for what could have been. “It’s an old wound. It’s okay because I have a good family now. So you knew my name and basically where I’d been left. I was pretty good at staying off the grid.”
“Your friend wasn’t, though,” Anna countered.
Van groaned, and his head fell forward. “Because I couldn’t stay out of jail. Damn. This is my fault.”
“Yes. It’s your fault we’re probably getting two point five million dollars, which will set us all up for success,” Elisa pointed out.
Hale grinned. He had not thought of it that way. Two point five million wouldn’t allow them to live like the rich and famous, but if they used it right, they could have their cabin and build their businesses, and if they ever chose to, they could adopt and give some kids a good home. It might be the exact right amount of money to make them all content. “She’s kind of right.”
