My father threw me out on my eighteenth birthday, stole the $3,000 I’d saved from working after school, and used it for my stepbrother. Nine days later, while I was digging through a restaurant dumpster for something to eat, a stranger in an expensive suit called my name and told me my supposedly dead grandfather had left me everything. But there was one condition nobody had warned me about.

Nathaniel Brooks.

Not Nathan.

Nobody had called me Nathaniel since I was little. My mother had used it when she was annoyed, and my father had used it on school forms. Seeing it now made something inside me tighten.

The handwriting looked familiar, though I couldn’t say why.

“Where did he live?” I asked.

“About two hours north of here. Outside a town called Bellmere.”

“Did he know about me?”

Richard hesitated.

“He knew you existed. He spent several years trying to find you.”

I looked down at the envelope.

“Why didn’t he just call my father?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’re his attorney.”

“I was his attorney near the end of his life. Before that, he kept many things private.”

That answer bothered me.

“What did he die from?”

“A heart condition. Peacefully, in his sleep.”

I swallowed. “And my father knew?”

Richard didn’t respond immediately.