Flipping open a waiting folder, he said, “I don’t have to tell you that your parents were good people.”
Then don’t.
“But more than that,” he said, “they were conscientious people. Jordan, you should be proud — your mom and dad, they provided very well for you.”
She said nothing. This was his show.
The attorney’s forehead frowned while his mouth smiled. “Jordan, what I’m trying to say is... you’re a very wealthy young woman.”
Her eyes tensed. “My parents were doing all right, Mr. Terrell. But we sure weren’t rich.”
“Jordan, your father carried extensive life insurance policies on himself, your mother, and both of you kids.”
“News to me.”
“It’s not something he would have talked to you about, not until you were a little older.”
“I was in high school.”
“Your grandfather on your dad’s side died of heart disease in his early sixties. And your grandmother, your dad’s mother, died at fifty-seven of breast cancer. That family history made your father, an insurance man himself, cautious.”
She said nothing.
He plowed on. “With the payouts for your parents and your brother, the interest accrued over the last decade, and the sale of the house—”
She sat forward and sharpness entered her tone. “Our house was sold?”
He swallowed and nodded. “With you in St. Dimpna’s, in a state of mental health that precluded your participation, I — as executor of your parents’ estate — had to act in your best interests. I had no way of knowing when... or even, if... you would ever get out of that hospital.”
“So you sold our house?”
“Maintaining the place was a financial burden you didn’t need. Indicators were that housing values were going down, so I acted while you could still benefit from a relatively friendly marketplace.”
“You sold it.”
He nodded. “At almost twice what your father bought it for. And the mortgage had already been paid off. Your dad had a windfall about fifteen years ago—”
“I can’t go back to my room.”
Do I want to?
“With taxes and insurance, and utilities, Jordan, it was a financial drain. I discussed this with Dr. Hurst and she agreed that the money could be better used for your future, whether in St. Dimpna’s, or... out in the world. And, frankly, I didn’t imagine you would want to go back there.”
“It was our home.”
The intruder had taken their lives. Now added to that was their home.
Terrell looked decidedly uncomfortable. “I apologize if I have done anything that contradicts your wishes. But, frankly... and I mean in no way to be unkind, Jordan... but for two years I came to visit you, and you never made eye contact with me, let alone expressed yourself in words. As someone entrusted, by your father and mother, with your welfare, I had to use my own best judgment.”
Tears were flowing, warm and wet on her cheeks. Damnit!
Terrell opened a drawer, produced a tissue, and half rose to hand it across the expanse of the desk.
“Thank you,” Jordan said, dabbing her cheeks.
“I know this is difficult,” Terrell said. “It’s difficult for me, too. Is it all right to discuss the specifics of your financial situation?”
Jordan nodded.
She had never really thought about having a “financial situation.” Never even wondered who had paid the freight at St. Dimpna’s — the state, she supposed. Now she realized it was more like her parents’ estate.
The attorney, who looked as shaken as she felt, was saying, “Your parents left you in a very comfortable position, monetarily speaking.”
Not really caring, wanting to hurry this up so she could get out of this office and be anywhere else, she asked, “How so?”
“Well,” Terrell said, “your net worth is not quite three million dollars.”
“... What?”
“You heard right, young lady.”
“But how?”
“Mostly insurance,” Terrell said, glancing at the folder on his desk. “A million-dollar policy on your father, half a million on your mother, plus another hundred thousand on James. Just under four hundred thousand, after closing and various other costs, on the sale of the house. The rest is from interest and dividends from existing investments. With no other relatives, it’s all yours now.”
Jordan shook her head slowly. Though the money meant nothing to her — she would gladly trade it to have any one of them back, Dad, Mom, Jimmy — the size of the sum was staggering.
“I would not blame you,” Terrell said, “if you considered me negligent for not maximizing these funds. I am not a financial planner, and your parents obviously could not have anticipated a situation where they would be gone, and you would be hospitalized and out of communication for a decade.”
She stopped listening. He was saying something about having put the funds into CDs at an unfortunately low rate, and how after all this time, her father’s investments would need a hard look from a financial advisor for updating, and that he hadn’t felt he had a right to gamble with her money without her input, and so on and so forth.
“I know it’s a lot to digest,” Terrell said, wrapping up.
“No shit,” she said.
The attorney’s eyes widened. “Ah... a very understandable reaction. I have all the materials here, bank books, stock certificates, everything...” He handed a packet across to her. “... We can go over that now, or—”
“Or later,” she said, getting up. She nodded at him. “Thanks, Mr. Terrell. I’ll do some digesting.”
And try not to choke on the way down.
“Good, Jordan. Thank you. Really glad to see you looking so well. So fine. A regular young woman.”
She was a young woman — that much she knew. Not a girl anymore. Not a high school girl with hopes and dreams, but a woman, a young woman.
Just not a regular one.
Now, still in the lotus position, as she opened her eyes to look around her efficiency apartment, she knew she could live in a condo or a house at least as nice as their old one, but what good would it do? Funny thing was, when she began thinking about the possibilities of a new, nicer, much bigger place, right away she knew that Jimmy would be the perfect guy to help her pick things out and really decorate the place.
Jimmy, who she appreciated a lot more now that he was gone. At St. Dimpna’s, thinking about her family, it was Jimmy who she had missed the most, surprisingly. How she wished she could tell him what a really good older brother he’d been.
But there would be no bigger, better living quarters for her. She had only a GED earned in a mental institution, but she knew how to do this math: the less she spent on herself, the more she’d have to track down the killer of her family.
Dr. Hurst had helped her find this simple single-room apartment, not far from St. Dimpna’s. Blue-collar, ethnically diverse, the historic Ohio City district was far removed from her experiences in suburban Westlake. She might have been dropped on Mars. But she had already adjusted.
Getting this apartment meant she was an easy walk from St. Dimpna’s — she not only had no driver’s license, she hadn’t even finished driver’s ed yet when her life was yanked out from under her. This way, she would be close to her support group, and Kara.
The white-walled apartment was as spare as it was small, its kitchen little more than one wall with a few cupboards, an apartment-sized refrigerator, a small stove, a minuscule microwave, a single well sink, and a black-topped table with two chairs. This galley setup should be more than sufficient. Her mom had been a terrific cook, and Jordan had picked some of it up; but her menu would be salads and fresh fruit supplanted by microwave and boiling-bag cuisine.