Tell me to Fall (Crawford Legacy #1)

Chapter 1

JADE

The envelope is waiting for me when I get home.

I almost miss it. My vision blurs at the edges. Sixteen hours awake, three different jobs. The mailbox is just another obstacle between me and my bed.

But there it is. Plain white envelope, no return address, my name written in careful block letters across the front.

No stamp.

It was hand-delivered.

My apartment building doesn't have a doorman. Anyone could have slipped this into my mailbox. I turn it over in my hands, looking for some clue about who sent it, but there's nothing. Just my name and the weight of something inside.

I should probably be more concerned about this. A mysterious envelope from an unknown sender. I tear it open as I climb the stairs to my third-floor walk-up.

A check falls out.

I catch it before it hits the floor, and that's when I see the number.

$387,443.00

I stop walking. Stand there in the stairwell between the second and third floor, staring at a piece of paper that can't possibly be real.

I make it to my apartment somehow, though I don't remember climbing the last flight of stairs. My studio is exactly as I left it this morning. The unmade bed is shoved against one wall, the tiny kitchen counter is covered in unpaid bills and my laptop sits on a stack of books.

I set the check down on the counter and pull out the stack of bills I've been avoiding. My hands shake as I sort through them.

Hospital billing statement: $180,693. The total from my mother's emergency surgery, three days in the ICU, two weeks of recovery.

Student loan summary: $151,280. Four years of undergrad, two years of my MFA.

Credit card statements, three of them, all maxed out. I add them up on my phone calculator: $22,180 plus $18,450 plus $14,840.

Total credit card debt: $55,470.

I stare at the numbers I've written down, then at the check.

$180,693 + $151,280 + $55,470 = $387,443

That's not a random number. That's not someone's idea of a generous gift or a lucky lottery win.

That's the exact amount I owe.

Down to the last dollar.

Someone knows everything.

My hands shake as I search the envelope for something else—a letter, an explanation, a ransom note, anything. There's only a small card, expensive cardstock, with two lines written in the same careful handwriting:

You deserve better.

—P.C.

That's it. There are no instructions or demands. No phone number or address.

Just money and two initials I don't recognize.

I set the check down on the counter next to a collection notice from the hospital.

The numbers mock me. $387,443 printed in neat mechanical letters next to a signature I can't read. California Federal Credit Union. A legitimate bank, as far as I know.

This has to be a scam. An elaborate, incredibly well-researched scam designed to prey on desperate people like me. Someone hacked my credit report, figured out my exact debt, and now they're going to ask me to pay some kind of processing fee or give them my bank account information or…

But there's no ask. Just money and a note that says I deserve better.

I sit down on my bed because my legs won't hold me anymore.

Who is P.C.?

I run through everyone I know, searching for those initials.

Patrick Chen from my writing workshop? No, he can barely pay his own rent.

Penelope Carson, my thesis advisor? She's a tenured professor, not a secret millionaire.

I don't know anyone with money like this.

I don't know anyone who would help me even if they did.

My mother raised me to never depend on anyone. "The only person you can trust is yourself," she's told me a thousand times. "Accept help and you accept control."

She walked away from wealth once. Left behind family money, a trust fund, some kind of inheritance she never talks about. Chose to raise me alone, working herself to exhaustion rather than accept what she called "blood money."

I used to admire her independence and pride.

Now I just resent it. She walked away from comfort and dragged me down with her.

The check sits on my counter, and I can't stop staring at it. My phone buzzes. It’s another call from collections, the sixth one today. I silence it and go back to studying the check like it might reveal its secrets if I look hard enough.

What kind of person gives away almost four hundred thousand dollars to a stranger?

What do they want in return?

Because everyone wants something. That's the one lesson my mother got right. Nobody gives you anything without expecting payment, one way or another.

I pick up the check again, hold it up to the light like I'm looking for a watermark. It looks and feels real. The paper has that thick, official weight to it. The routing numbers are printed at the bottom. There's a reference number in the corner.

Everything about this screams legitimate except for the part where it's completely impossible.

I should rip it up and throw it away and pretend it never came.

Instead, I take a photo of it with my phone. Front and back. The note too. It’s evidence, in case this turns out to be something illegal.

My laptop is still open to my email inbox.

Sixteen new messages, and I already know what they are without looking.

Rejection letters from literary magazines.

"Thank you for your submission, but this isn't quite right for us.

" "We're passing on this piece." "Unfortunately, we've decided not to move forward. "

I write short stories that go nowhere, do nothing, say nothing important. Atmospheric pieces that are all vibes and no plot. Beautiful failures, my workshop instructor called them once. She meant it as a compliment.

No one pays for beautiful failures.

The tutoring keeps me fed. The coffee shop pays my rent. The writing pays nothing except in rejection and false hope.

And my mother is in a hospital bed with bills I can't pay, wondering if I'm going to let her die because I'm too proud to find help.

I turn the card over again. You deserve better. —P.C.

I should walk away. This is either a joke or a scam.

But what if I’m wrong? What if it’s real?