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.

“We contacted him repeatedly.”

“And?”

“He said you were away at school, then visiting friends, then unavailable.”

My grip tightened around the phone.

“Did you believe him?”

“No.”

The answer was so direct that it stopped me.

“Then why did you do nothing?”

“Because I had no authority to remove you from your father’s home or accuse him of forgery without evidence. I needed your testimony.”

“You could have found me.”

“We tried.”

A sharp, humorless breath escaped me.

“You found me behind a dumpster.”

“I found you because your grandfather had hired a private investigator six months earlier. Until then, every trail led back to your father.”

I turned toward the window. The orchard had disappeared into dusk.

“What happens now?”

“If the signature is forged, the transfer can be challenged. The funds, including any gains, remain part of the estate until the matter is resolved.”

“How much?”