Chapter 4 - THE DNA TEST
We didn’t go home that night.
Nathaniel wanted us protected.
Mom hated the word protected.
“People say that right before they start making decisions for you,” she told him.
So we stayed in a furnished corporate apartment on the forty-sixth floor instead of Nathaniel’s mansion.
There were three bedrooms.
Our apartment had one.
There were two refrigerators.
We had one refrigerator that made a grinding sound every fifteen minutes.
The bathtub was so large I told Mom we could probably rent it out as another bedroom.
She didn’t laugh.
She sat at the kitchen table staring at Andrew’s old letter.
Nathaniel stood across from her.
“What was in that estate file?” she asked.
“I don’t know everything.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only honest one I have.”
He pulled out a chair.
“Andrew created a private trust approximately ten months before he died.”
“For who?”
“At the time, I believed it was for charitable projects.”
“And now?”
Nathaniel looked at me.
“Now I’m not sure.”
Mom leaned forward.
“Why was Ruby’s name on the folder?”
“I intend to find out.”
“You’re telling me someone wrote my daughter’s name on a private corporate file when you claim you didn’t know she existed?”
“Yes.”
“That means somebody knew.”
Nathaniel had no response.
At seven the next morning, the DNA results arrived.
Nathaniel refused to open them without us.
Mom stood by the window.
I sat on the couch holding a bowl of cereal I had forgotten to eat.
Nathaniel opened the envelope.
He read the first page.
Then sat down.
No billionaire expression.
No CEO expression.
Just a man staring at a piece of paper.
“Well?” Mom asked.
He looked at me.
“The probability of a biological grandparent relationship is greater than 99.99 percent.”
I blinked.
“So…”
Nathaniel’s voice cracked.
“I’m your grandfather.”
Nobody moved.
I had spent my whole life with one family member.
Mom.
Suddenly I had a grandfather.
A billionaire grandfather, which somehow made everything stranger instead of easier.
Nathaniel smiled carefully.
“Hello, Ruby.”
I stared at him.
“You already met me yesterday.”
Mom covered her mouth.
Nathaniel laughed.
It was the first real laugh I had heard from him.
“I suppose I did.”
The moment lasted about ten seconds.
Then somebody knocked.
Daniel Mercer entered carrying another pink sheet.
Mom’s face changed.
“What now?”
Daniel handed it to Nathaniel.
“An eviction crew arrived at the Aldridge property at six forty this morning.”
“What?”
Mom shot to her feet.
“Our things!”
Nathaniel was already reaching for his phone.
Daniel continued.
“Building management claims the court authorized immediate removal because of an alleged safety violation.”
“That’s a lie,” Mom said.
“We checked. There is no valid emergency order.”
Nathaniel’s jaw tightened.
“Who sent them?”
“Hawthorne Residential.”
Nathaniel looked at Mom.
“Your apartment is being targeted.”
“No kidding.”
“I mean specifically.”
He held up the notice.
“Seventeen tenants are behind on rent in that building. You’re the only one receiving an accelerated removal order.”
Mom went pale.
“Why?”
“Because someone is trying to move you before we discover what your address has to do with Andrew.”
Nathaniel called his legal department.
I listened to him calmly destroy somebody’s morning.
“No tenant is to be removed. Send independent counsel. Notify the city housing department. Document every item touched. If anyone enters Apartment 3C without legal authority, I want names.”
He ended the call.
Mom stared.
“You own the building, don’t you?”
Nathaniel hesitated.
“Indirectly.”
Her laugh was furious.
“Of course you do.”
“I didn’t know.”
“You’re a billionaire. That sentence must be very convenient.”
Nathaniel accepted the hit.
“Hawthorne was supposed to have been dissolved eleven years ago. Its assets were transferred into the Graves Community Housing Fund.”
“Our rent checks go to Alder Property Management.”
“Which appears to be owned by another shell company.”
“Owned by?”
“We’re still tracing it.”
Mom grabbed her purse.
“I’m going home.”
“Claire—”
“My whole life is in that apartment.”
“So is whatever somebody wants to hide.”
“That’s exactly why I’m going.”
Nathaniel looked at Daniel.
“I’m coming too.”
The building on Aldridge looked even smaller with Nathaniel Graves standing in front of it.
Neighbors leaned out windows.
People took pictures.
Mom was furious.
“You said no attention.”
“I didn’t bring the cameras.”
“You brought a face people recognize.”
He almost apologized.
Then Mrs. Delgado from downstairs ran toward Mom.
“Claire!”
“What happened?”
“They tried to change your locks.”
Mom hurried upstairs.
Nothing had been removed, but our front door was scratched.
Boxes had been stacked in the hallway.
My stuffed rabbit was sitting on top.
I grabbed him.
Nathaniel stopped in the doorway.
He looked around our little apartment.
At the thrift-store couch.
At the bucket Mom kept beneath the leaking pipe.
At the stack of overdue bills held together with a rubber band.
At our tiny kitchen table where one chair had a cracked leg.
Something in him broke quietly.
Mom saw it.
“Don’t.”
He looked at her.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t pity us.”
“I don’t.”
“You have that look.”
“I’m angry.”
“At who?”
“Myself.”
Mom didn’t answer.
Daniel walked in.
“We found something.”
Behind the kitchen cabinet was a narrow metal panel.
Our landlord had always told us it was an old electrical box.
Daniel removed two screws.
Inside was a safe.
Mom stared.
“That wasn’t ours.”
Nathaniel crouched.
The safe was old.
Stamped on the bottom were two letters.
A.G.
Andrew Graves.
My father.
Mom’s knees nearly gave out.
“He was here.”
Nathaniel looked at her.
“Did Andrew know this apartment?”
Mom shook her head.
“Not that I knew.”
Daniel examined the lock.
“Four-digit code.”
I looked at Mom.
She was crying silently.
“What numbers did Dad use?”
She wiped her face.
“He hated passwords.”
Nathaniel almost smiled.
“That sounds like Andrew.”
I glanced around.
There was a faded scratch on the side of the safe.
Not numbers.
A word.
NOVEMBER.
My birthday month.
But Andrew died months before I was born.
“He knew,” I whispered.
Mom looked at me.
“What?”
“He knew I was coming.”
Her hand went to her mouth.
I typed the date Mom had told me was my original due date.
1123.
Nothing.
Then Nathaniel whispered, “Andrew’s birthday.”
Mom looked at him.
“April ninth.”
I typed 0409.
The lock clicked.
Inside was a photograph.
Andrew and Mom.
A small flash drive.
A handwritten ledger.
And an envelope.
Nathaniel pulled it out.
Across the front were six words.
FOR MY FATHER, IF I FAIL.
Nathaniel opened it.
He read the first sentence.
Then lowered himself into our broken kitchen chair.
“What does it say?” Mom whispered.
He looked up.
“My son wrote that Peter Bennett was innocent.”
Mom began crying.
Nathaniel kept reading.
“And he wrote the name of the person who framed him.”
I looked toward the page.
One name had been underlined twice.
Richard Vale.
But beneath it, Andrew had added another sentence.
Nathaniel read it aloud.
“Richard isn’t doing this alone.”
Nobody moved.
At the bottom of the page were the initials of the second person.
D.M.
Daniel Mercer stood directly behind us.
May you like
And suddenly every person in the room turned to look at Nathaniel’s head of security.
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