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“I’m ready whenever you are,” I announce, going over to the table where my purse has been sitting and sorting through it, making sure I have everything.
“A box was delivered for you at the shop.”
“Great!” Finally. I had an old work friend go into my townhouse and get some of the personal things I didn’t bring with me when I initially flew out here. It’s weird to be living somewhere else after I just recently moved. I feel so displaced without my day-to-day things. I never planned on not returning to LA. All of this happened so fast, sorta sweeping the rug out from beneath my feet. I’ve been living with whatever I packed two weeks ago and the stuff I bought online and had shipped.
“What do you know about your father’s will?” Lenox asks as he packs up a messenger bag and starts to head for the garage door.
“Um. Not a lot. His attorney handled it all.”
“Were you surprised you were named beneficiary?”
I climb up into his Jeep, closing the door behind me. Alice makes a noise but then curls down on the floor by the back seats.
“Yes. I assumed my mom would have been. His attorney was the executor and simply told us this was with the will.”
“It wasn’t,” he says simply, though there is nothing simple about that.
I fall back in my seat, staring up at the black roof of the car. “Okay.” I sigh. “I assume I’m not about to like what you’re going to say.”
“Georgie, there’s a lot of fishy stuff with all of this that doesn’t quite add up. Your father had a will originally drafted when you were born. Your mother was the sole beneficiary of everything, but you were the secondary beneficiary upon her demise. That’s all pretty standard. But about eight months ago, two months before his death, your father changed his will entirely, and there are no notes as to why in his file in his attorney’s system. He simply made you the sole financial beneficiary of everything from the life insurance to investments to the Monroe stock shares, with the stipulation that you must be married to inherit the Monroe stock. Your mother essentially lost billions, only getting the house and cars, which were already half in her name. Was she upset at all?”
It feels like the wind has been knocked out of me. I stare down at my hands, at the rings on my fingers, twisting them around and around. “She was upset. My father had just died, and she was wrecked over it. The two of us did little else other than cry for weeks. The will was read about two months after his death. She had been pushing my father’s attorney to do it sooner, but he held her off for reasons I can’t come up with. When the will was finally read, she looked shocked, but I assumed it was because she thought she would be the beneficiary. She didn’t say anything about it though, and she has plenty of her own money from her acting and commercial stuff.” I pause, my heart pumping out a few extra beats. “You don’t know why he changed it?”
“No. And it doesn’t make sense to do that randomly.”
“Maybe it’s because it was so close to my wedding? I mean, he did include the part about me having to be married.”
“Perhaps,” he finally replies as we bump along through the forest like Little Red Riding Hood. “But it still seems fishy. Your father logged in a lot of phone calls from his office phone to his attorney. No emails were exchanged. Never once did he call him on his cell phone. It was only office phone to office phone.”
“I’m not understanding.”
“A hacker can’t gain access to a landline. The only time a landline is ever tapped is if there’s a court order, and that has to go through the phone company, but since so few people have landlines anymore, there’s rarely a need. Your father, who owned a cyber security company, knew this.”
“Lenox, what the fuck are you saying?”
“I’m saying your father completely changed his will two months before he died. I’m saying he did everything covertly and entirely under the radar, so no one would be the wiser. But then he went and added in the stipulation that you have to be married, and that was only to inherit Monroe, not his wealth or primary assets. It’s strange, Georgie. All of it.”
“First, stop calling me Georgie. I can’t elbow you since you’re driving, and I really don’t want to hit a tree right now. Second, are you suggesting I had something to do with my father’s death?”
He throws me a perturbed side-eye. “Of course not. I’m saying your father had everything moved to you because he trusted you and wanted you and no one else to inherit. You had no knowledge of this. No one did as far as I can tell. But why did he do it? That’s the question. No one just wakes up one day and decides to do something like that without cause.”
I’m stunned silent.
“Other than me, the person who would have benefited the most is Ezra. Correct?”
He nods.
“Do you think Ezra had my father killed?”
He’s silent for a moment, and eventually we hit the main road and head toward town. “I thought about that. If we assume he knew about the will change somehow or even did something to coerce it, that’s a motive for killing your father. Ezra has done some very fucked financial shit over the last year. He is in deep with bookies. He sold off all of his Monroe stock, which would have been a hefty tax payment unless he plans to report a ton of losses this year. His father gave him twenty grand that he immediately used to pay off a bookie. And while I don’t think Ezra is all that bright, I don’t see how him blowing up your father’s plane right before your wedding would help him. He would have had to have figured you’d postpone the wedding. Plus, the timing is weird. You told me your father returned early from Paris because you called him wanting to call off the wedding. By all accounts, Ezra was not in your phone, so there’s no way he’d know about the early return. But is it impossible? Definitely not.”
“Alright. So maybe it wasn’t him, or possibly anybody. Except now I’m the majority shareholder, and instead of being married to Ezra, I’m married to you.”
“Yes.”
A terrifying thought hits me, sending chills racing up my spine. “If I had married Ezra, would he have killed me for my money and the shares given how financially destitute he is? And moreover, have I potentially put your life in danger?”
He shrugs. “I’m superfluous and only inherit your wealth and the company if you’re dead. But yeah, a part of me is starting to think that you marrying me might have saved your life.”
