Chapter Four #2
Laurie snorts. “He does if he can argue.”
Dawes gives Laurie a stern look and then turns to Evander with a sympathetic smile. “I can imagine this is all hard on you. I’ve only recently started working for Mr. Lennox-Hall, but he was a brilliant man. To see him taken so suddenly by an aneurysm is devastating.”
Evander glances at Laurie, who doesn’t react.
Aneurysm? It wasn’t—no, couldn’t have been.
Evander has read a few medical textbooks—out of sheer boredom—and he never lingered over descriptions of aneurysms, but he’s sure they don’t involve black foam frothing from the mouth and something growing inside the throat.
He wasn’t the only one who saw that. He couldn’t have imagined it.
Frustration pinches Evander’s brow and he can feel a headache brewing. He doesn’t know how to question this, so he simply grabs the second chair and drags it backward a few feet. Then he flops onto it.
Dawes blinks rapidly.
Evander folds his arms and scowls.
“Oh, and also,” Laurie says, “he hates me.”
“Er, right.” Dawes peers back at his papers. “Well, this reading shouldn’t take long. If we’re all ready?”
“Question.” Laurie lets his tie slip through his fingers. “What happened to Godfrey? Thought he was Grandfather’s main attorney.”
“His health took a bad turn,” Dawes says without missing a beat. “The firm asked me to step in.”
“Sure.” Laurie’s mouth is a flat line. “Sounds convenient.”
Evander can’t focus. His chest is full of matchsticks, his tongue a greased wick, and he thinks any second now the flint will strike and he will simply explode.
Why would they lie about an aneurysm? Hazelthorn should be swarming with detectives scooping up clues and building a case against the murderer—and yet it isn’t.
It sits silent and contained, all its secrets cloistered in its crumbling mouth.
This is all wrong. Everything is wrong.
Dawes plucks a single sheet of paper from his folio. “This is the Last Will and Testament of Byron Laurence Lennox-Hall. The distribution of his Estate, known from hereon as Hazelthorn, is as follows—”
A sick, wet weight pools in Evander’s stomach.
The legal jargon makes his head swim as it drones on, and it’s hard to focus instead of thinking about what will happen if they throw him out of Hazelthorn.
He doesn’t think he could survive it. Heat stings the back of his eyelids and he wants to leave. He is out of place here, unwanted.
“‘… if I have omitted in this Will to leave property to my descendants, this is intentional…’”
The carpet pattern has dislocated itself from the floor and taken hold of Evander’s ankles. He’s going to throw up. Or have another episode. He’s been too long without medications.
Laurie makes a small noise in his throat. The attorney seems oblivious to any discomfort in the room and reads on with a flourish.
“‘All properties, including the Estate of Hazelthorn, along with the sum of my accounts, which amasses to 1.1 billion dollars at this time, is to be given to my sole heir and current ward, Evander. I have signed this document while of sound mind under the witness of these ensuing signatures…’”
His words turn to mud as he continues and then, quite suddenly, stops.
Silence falls.
It takes Evander a dizzying moment to notice Dawes has laid down the will with a decisive nod. That’s it.
Outside, branches scrape along the study window under a sudden flick of afternoon breeze. It sounds like claws against glass.
Laurie lets his chair legs hit the floor. “What,” he says, “the fuck? He didn’t mention me at all?”
“It appears not,” Dawes says.
Silence again.
Evander’s heartbeat has turned sluggish, each throb sicker than the last. He is in the earth again, the shovel is coming down, the bright blue of a perfect summer sky has been caught in the cornflower eyes staring down at him, cheeks flecked with freckles of Evander’s blood.
Sole heir.
Sole heir.
Sole heir.
Laurie hated him for the act of existing before. Now Evander has stolen his inheritance.
“Read it again.” Laurie’s voice is deadly cold.
“It won’t change.” Dawes shuffles papers and he seems unbothered, though of course he would’ve looked over the will before he arrived.
No wonder he wanted to read it out now to just the two of them—without more Lennox-Halls waiting for inheritances that would never be doled out.
“Evander is seventeen, correct? So as a minor he’ll be placed under the guardianship of Byron’s closest kin, who I suppose would be his sister—”
“Kill me now,” Laurie mutters.
“—Oleander Burnett,” Dawes says. “Or I see she’s gone back to her maiden name of Lennox-Hall.
This will just be until Evander is of age to come fully into his inheritance.
She’ll take on your guardianship, too, Laurence, so not to worry there.
I’ve also received word that several of your relations are on their way here for the funeral, so I suppose we’ll—”
“Who is coming?” Laurie’s voice rises, his neck going red. “My grandfather locked everyone out of this goddamn estate seven years ago, he wouldn’t want them here.”
Dawes seems unfazed as he twirls a pen. “Let’s remain calm over this. I can’t stop your family from paying their respects to your beloved grandfather, plus they all seem eager to meet Evander.”
Laurie stands suddenly and turns to look straight at Evander. “You,” he says.
Evander doesn’t wait.
The sole heir of the Hazelthorn Estate bolts from the study.
His legs eat up empty hallways and alcoves as he flies through the convoluted maze of the house until he sees the gaping maw of the back kitchen door. Shouts ricochet after him. But Evander has torn holes in his threadbare universe and he wrenches open the door and explodes outside.
Do not go into the gardens.
But no one is here to stop him anymore.