Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
Present Day
Woodland Hills, California
Mission Day Minus Five
His father was dead.
Mick knew that he should’ve felt something besides this burning frustration that, even in death, the shithead was still managing to screw up his life.
He’d been planning to tell her—Emily—tonight. The truth. Of course, that had been his plan for most nights since she’d nearly dropped a watermelon on his foot in the grocery store, and he’d failed spectacularly in getting it done for months now.
But now—and forever more—it would look as if he’d only told her because he had to tell her. Which was now true.
Thanks, Dad.
Finding out about the old man’s death via a news article online wasn’t that big of a surprise.
It had been ages since he’d checked his ancient email address, and that was the only way his asshole father’s asshole lawyer at the office of Ernest B.
Harper, Esquire had to get in touch with him.
He’d kept his name change private from both bloodsuckers, and he’d long since tossed Milt Devonshire Junior’s cell phone number into the trash with the rest of his former life.
Indeed, after leaving Emily’s, he’d checked via his phone and found an email—just one, no two.
The first announced his father’s death and the plan for the old man’s body to be cremated.
.. which according to Harper had happened just a few hours after the lawyer had sent Mick the email.
Since I feel certain you would not wish to be here, I’ll proceed as planned despite not having heard from you.
Well, shit, Ernie. How was he supposed to know that his father had died, since it wasn’t exactly a major news story—not with all of the other crap happening in the country.
But the lawyer wasn’t wrong. Mick would not have wanted to have been there.
But oh, look, there was actually an email dated earlier than Harper’s He’s dead, Jim subject header.
From someone named Rene with a Devonshire.Estate email address.
She was presumably the new housekeeper—Mick had heard that Helen, who’d been there for his entire childhood had.
.. maybe retired? He wasn’t sure and he didn’t really care.
Helen had been on Team Dad in thinking that Milt Junior was the devil incarnate.
But this new housekeeper, Rene, had emailed him about a week before Harper with a brief message. I’m afraid your father’s health is fading quickly. I know you’re estranged, but if you want to see him again, time’s running out.
She’d included her phone number and a P.S. Reach out to me, not Mr. Harper.
No shit, Rene. It was kind of her even though there was no chance in hell, even if he’d received her email on the day it was sent, that he’d rush to the motherfucker’s side—good word, Carlotta.
It was the second email from Ernie Harper that required action. Please contact me ASAP about your father’s estate.
Best to get that shit over with.
Mick had bought a burner phone on his way home to pack for Palm Springs, and he used it now to call the lawyer on the man’s private cell, after texting him. New phone, this is Milt D Jr.
“Milton! It’s been a long time!” The man’s voice boomed through the cheap phone speaker, as if he were actually glad to talk to him. Which they both damn well knew he wasn’t.
“I just saw the emails,” Mick said flatly. Point-blank. “That he died. You said to call.”
“Yes. My deepest condolences. His... housekeeper said he passed in his sleep—just didn’t wake up. That’s how I hope to go, someday.”
Hurry up already. Which applied both to a hope of that someday being sooner than later, and Mick’s desire for the asshole to get to the point. “What do you need from me?” he asked.
“Are you familiar with...” There was a pause and a rustling of papers. “Here it is. An Emily Johnson.”
Mick’s heart stopped. Just for a moment, but it actually skipped and then sputtered to catch up. Really? Except... What the hell...?
Harper took his silence for the no that it wasn’t.
“I’m shocked, too. Your father updated his will five years ago, back when I had that heart attack.
Apparently he couldn’t wait, and nobody bothered to let me know about the changes.
So, I had no idea, but... the document is real.
It’s... legal. He’s left everything—well, almost everything, one tenth of a percent to you, ninety-nine-point-nine percent to her—and we have no idea who she is. ”
His father.
Left everything.
To Emily.
It was astonishing news, and completely unexpected.
It twisted everything Mick knew and believed, complicating his hardcore black-and-white belief that his father was a total, unredeemable piece of shit.
A total, unredeemable pile of ashes, now.
Who’d left whatever remained of his once enormous fortune to Emily.
Like... he’d maybe, somehow, for some reason, five years ago, regrown at least a tiny sliver of his shriveled, blackened soul.
But Harper was still yammering on. “Of course, if she doesn’t exist, this Emily, or if she can’t be found, or—we can only hope—” he laughed “if she’s predeceased your father as most of his friends have, the rest of the money goes to you, too, m’boy.
Assuming, of course, that she’s not blood related.
If she is, if she’s your, say, half-sister, which I suppose she well could be, the anti-lapse statute would mean that the money goes to her offspring instead of y—”
“I don’t know her,” he heard himself lying. While as Mick, he’d mostly kept his lies to those of omission. But right now he was talking to Harper as Milt, who was a known liar, cheater, and thief.
Killer. Don’t forget killer. Milt had been convicted of manslaughter.
But his brain was still going a mile a minute because his father left everything to Emily?!? And then he almost laughed because it wasn’t quite everything, was it? His father had made a point to leave him one tenth of one very, very tiny percent, which was a message in and of itself, wasn’t it?
The motherfucker.
All Mick knew for sure was that he wasn’t safe—he’d never been safe when dealing with his father, and this surprise news that the old man had finally—maybe—done something right and just... Well, that was no reason to let down his guard.
He’d known for years that he wouldn’t inherit the family fortune, but he’d expected something far more of an in-his-face fuck you.
Like the old man leaving it all to the rightwing Heritage Foundation or the Westboro Baptist Church—did they even still exist?
Instead, he’d left it to Emily, who was starting to hint to Mick that she was hoping for forever with him.
The whole shebang. Marriage. Kids. Which, yes, if that happened, would make the money his, too.
Hah, motherfucker, joke’s on you.
Even so, there was no safety in that—in fact, it made him even less safe, because if and when Emily discovered who Mick really was, well... His entire world would explode.
Still, an even more worrisome thought was that Emily wasn’t safe either. How could she be, with an asshole like Harper running the show, with so much money on the line?
“But I cut ties with my father a long time ago,” Mick added to his I don’t know her, after Harper started babbling Are you sure, is it possible you knew her mother, any female friend of your father’s named Johnson...?
As the initial jolt of surprise faded, Mick was again left wondering What the hell? How could Harper not know who Emily Johnson was?
Except, of course he wouldn’t.
She had a different last name than her dead mother, and Harper, like Mick’s father, had never given a shit about any of them—the woman who’d died or her grieving family. It was entirely possible Harper had forgotten Marina Santana’s name, too.
“I completely cut all contact,” Mick continued, padding his kneejerked lie with the truth. “You know that. I have no idea—none. Less than you—who he might’ve met since I left.”
Because, yeah, if Milt really didn’t know Emily, and he heard that his father had left nearly everything in his will to an unknown woman, he’d no doubt assume, too, that she was the old bastard’s latest romantic dalliance, regardless of the man being in his fricking nineties.
“Well, I guess we’ll have to hire private investigators to find her,” Harper huffed. “But talk about a needle in a haystack. Another, easier option might be for us simply to contest the will—”
“Yeah, I don’t want to do that,” Mick cut him off.
“In fact, I’m gonna give my percentage to charity.
I don’t want it.” Because in that moment, he knew with a brilliant clarity that this was his way out.
This was how he’d survive this latest fucking from his father.
He’d already told Harper that he didn’t know Emily, and likewise, he’d never tell Emily who he really was. “I want to hire the PIs.”
Harper immediately started making no noises, which Mick shut down fast with “I’ll pay for it myself, out of my own funds,” because no way was he going to let that asshole pick shitty investigators who’d conveniently never find Emily.
He wanted her to have it—the money, the property, all of it. It should’ve been hers, years ago.
And he, too, could then have what he wanted. A life finally and completely free from his father.
He could do this.
He could keep Milt and Mick separate, and Emily would never need to know.
He hoped. God, he hoped.
He’d require a solid disguise to make it work, but he had enough contacts among Hollywood’s makeup techs for that to happen.
Milt would personally hire a reputable team of investigators to “find” Em—which they’d do easily enough—while Mick stayed well in the background, supporting her in Palm Springs as best he could.
She’d inherit the money and never discover who he was—who he’d been, because he truly wasn’t Milt anymore.