Chapter 8
CHAPTER
EIGHT
There was a legitimate court system here. Like with judges and everything.
I found myself sitting next to Celia in a small courtroom with empty seats, the space echoing faintly even when no one spoke. A judge wearing black robes peered down at me from his podium in the center of the room.
Across the room from us was a representative from the DNA archives, along with Headmistress Rubina and someone else I didn’t know, all seated stiffly in a neat row.
This brought me back to my days in front of family court judges with my caseworker when I was transferred from foster care to the group home.
Again, I felt discarded, like I didn’t belong to anyone and no one wanted me.
I turned eighteen. I was supposed to be done with this!
“Thank you all for coming to this emergency hearing,” Judge Jason Greggory said, his nameplate engraved black on gold. “I have reviewed the case and will allow our forensic DNA specialist to report his findings.”
The back door to the room opened, and Celia glanced over her shoulder, so I followed her gaze.
A petite woman in her fifties with dark hair threaded with silver stepped into the room and took a seat in one of the pews, her movements deliberate. She was dressed stylishly in an ankle-length fur coat and white-rimmed sunglasses with a designer bag.
Celia went rigid beside me.
The woman kept her sunglasses on, but I could practically feel her staring at me from here.
“Kitty Sinclair, this is a closed case, but because you are related to the deceased, I will allow you to stay,” the judge said to her.
Kitty Sinclair?
“The devil herself,” Celia muttered to me.
“Oh, how kind of you,” Kitty drawled. “Since no one asked me before digging up my husband’s body,” she snapped.
“ Ex -husband,” Celia whispered loudly.
The judge shot Kitty a glare, and I heard no more from behind me.
A man in a three-piece suit walked over to the podium, smoothing his jacket as he moved.
A short woman in black hunter fatigues appeared suddenly behind the judge, and I realized she’d been there the entire time.
The judge’s desk was up on a dais three feet in the air, and it had hidden the small woman.
I admired her black leather hunter armor with handcuffs at her waist and a small dagger in her belt.
I now found myself wondering if they had jails here.
“State your name and occupation for the court,” the woman, clearly a bailiff of some sort, told the man in the three-piece suit.
He peered at me, and there was something in his gaze. Curiosity?
“Dr. Benson Carter, postmortem DNA geneticist.”
Whoa, fancy title.
The woman nodded. “Do you swear on the hunter codex that what you are about to report is true to the best of your knowledge and expertise?” she asked him, pulling out something that did not look like the Bible as he placed his hand on it.
“Yes, ma’am.”
He pulled out some papers from his pocket, and Celia’s hand slipped into mine under the desk and squeezed, her grip firm.
“I regret to inform the claimant—” he said, gesturing to me, and my stomach fell.
No.
I knew it.
Everyone was being nice to me because they thought I was Molly’s, and I wasn’t…
I pulled my hand from Celia’s, and she frowned at me.
“—that I was unable to find any link to the paternal side of Stella’s DNA. Nothing in our database nor the worldwide databases shows a match.”
Celia bristled beside me. “And her maternal side?”
The man shared a slow, regretful look with Headmistress Rubina.
“Based on the DNA exhumed from Robert Sinclair, Stella is, in my professional opinion, the descendant of Molly Sinclair.”
I gasped, sitting there in absolute shock.
Celia let out an excited whoop as Kitty gasped behind me.
Wait, what did he mean?
That he didn’t know who my father was, but Molly was my mom?
I had a mom.
A mom who was best friends with Celia and who had probably loved me and was now dead.
Tears filled my eyes, and I couldn’t hold them back. I blinked and they spilled out onto my cheeks.
Celia gave me a side hug, pulling me into her, and I had to fight the urge to sob, my shoulders shaking.
The judge nodded. “Thank you for that testimony, Dr. Carter. You may be seated.”
Dr. Carter took his seat as I fought for control of my tears, wiping frantically at my eyes.
I wasn’t a crier.
What was happening to me?
“Stella.” The judge peered at me.
I cleared my throat, drying my cheeks. “Yes, sir.”
“I would like to invite you into my private office so that I can read you Molly’s last will and testament.”
I nodded, standing.
Celia cocked her head to the side in confusion. “I thought Molly didn’t have a will. Robert had a trust set up and?—”
“This is a private matter between Miss Sinclair and I,” the judge said, cutting her off.
That was weird.
Celia bristled but nodded, urging me to walk forward to where the judge was seated.
Miss Sinclair.
Not Adams.
Not some made-up name the government gave me.
Sinclair was my last name.
A family name.
I had a family.
My heart burst open in that moment. I couldn’t explain what it felt like to finally know my last name. My mother’s name.
Molly. I was simultaneously overjoyed to know of her and grieved to know I would never meet her.
I headed for the judge’s desk as he stood and heard footfalls behind me.
Peering over my shoulder, I noticed Kitty following me.
As she passed Celia, the dark-skinned beauty snaked her hand out and grasped Kitty’s wrist, staying her.
“Your Honor, is Kitty Sinclair privy to this information?” Celia asked, her voice booming loudly around the room.
The judge peered up from his podium, looking slightly terrified at that question. Maybe his wife played bridge with Kitty on the weekends.
“She is not. But we will be out soon,” he said.
Kitty looked like a snake had struck her. Her mouth hung open, and she grimaced, but as soon as she noticed me looking, she recovered, smiling lightly.
She yanked her wrist out of Celia’s grasp and walked back over to her seat.
I turned and followed the judge out the door at the back of the room and into a hallway.
“This will only take a few moments,” he told me as he led me into his office. He took off his large black robe and hung it over his chair before sitting down behind his desk and gesturing that I take a seat in front of him.
His office was what I would expect, books on the shelf, a picture of him golfing with some guy, and stacks of files on the floor.
But when I looked closer, I noticed the books were different.
I skimmed them quickly, my mind yearning to open each one and read it.
The Law of Runes: Interpretation and Enforcement
Codex Vampirica: Statutes Governing the Undead
Hunter Judiciary Manual, Seventh Edition
Legality of Lethal Force Against the Turned
On the Ethical Use of Rune Wafers
The Sentinel Handbook: Regulations for Licensed Hunters
“You look just like her,” the judge said, and I was snapped from my deep dive into book titles.
“You knew Molly?” I asked him.
He pointed to the picture on the wall. “I was best friends with her father, Robert.”
I looked closer at the picture, trying to find features of mine that were in him, but honestly I looked more like Kitty.
Which I was starting to gather was not a good thing.
He pulled out a manila envelope and slid it over to me.
“There are a few private letters in here, a key to Molly’s storage unit, and all the legal paperwork you will need when you go to the bank to take hold of the account.”
I blinked. “The account?”
“The trust account Molly’s father had in her name is now yours. I’m the trustee, the person who makes sure the money isn’t spent while waiting for the beneficiary to grow up. Last time I checked, which I do every quarter, the amount was well over ten million dollars. You?—”
“What?”
I stood up so fast, my chair knocked back, clattering onto the tile floor.
His eyebrows raised. “It’s a lot of money, yes. Robert was a brilliant day trader in the stock market. You could give him a hundred dollars, and he’d give you back a thousand at the end of the month.”
Ten million. He said ten million dollars.
“I don’t need that kind of money. That’s crazy!” I told him, bewildered, shocked.
He nodded. “Molly felt the same way, and it was only five million when she inherited it. Nevertheless, I am legally bound to give it to you, along with the letters inside the packet, which have been sealed for almost nineteen years.”
Almost nineteen years… “When did Molly go missing?” I asked, picking up my chair and sitting back down at the desk.
She had gone missing, right? Wasn’t that what I’d heard?
“To everyone else here, about twenty years ago. But to me, it’s been almost nineteen.
She must have known she was pregnant with you.
She came back late one night and knocked on my front door.
Said she had updated her will and needed me to file it.
I urged her to stay and work out whatever issues had made her run away, but she ignored my pleas and was adamant she needed to leave quickly and couldn’t stay here in Veil Haven.
” He stood. “She made me swear not to tell anyone I’d seen her, so I haven’t.
I’ll leave you to look over that privately, and please let me know if there is anything else I can help with.
It was nice to meet you, Stella.” He stood, tapping the envelope.
I swallowed hard, nodding.
Celia said my mother had been missing almost twenty years, dead for eighteen, but to him, it was nineteen since she’d been gone. Nothing added up. That meant she’d gone somewhere for a year or two. But where? And why?
When the door clicked shut behind him, I peeled off the tape sealing the envelope.
My heart thumped in my chest as I prepared for something crazy.
A deed to a haunted house? A key to a safe-deposit box with bones in it?
A letter telling me I shouldn’t trust anyone here and needed to leave the country?
I felt sick going over every option. I’d seen way too many mystery movies for this moment. My mind was running wild.