Yes, it’s the most popular item on our menu.”
“And it was delicious,” Mr. Tarrant assured her. “But I really came in to see you on behalf of a client. I inquired for you at your apartment first, and your landlady told me where you work.”
Good old Mrs. Mancini. Gracie could always count on her to guard absolutely no one’s privacy.
Mr. Tarrant withdrew a silver case from inside his suit jacket and handed her a business card. Tarrant, Fiver & Twigg, it read, and there was a New York City address. Bennett Tarrant’s title was President and Senior Probate Researcher. Which told Gracie all of nothing.
She looked at him again. “I’m sorry, but I don’t understand. What’s a probate researcher?”
“I’m an attorney. My firm is one of several appointed by the State of New York when someone passes away without a will, or when a beneficiary named in someone’s will can’t be found. In such circumstances, we locate the rightful heirs.”
Gracie’s confusion deepened. “I still don’t understand. My mother died in Cincinnati, and her estate was settled years ago.”
Not that there had been much to settle. Marian Sumner had left Gracie just enough to cover four months’ rent and modestly furnish a one-bedroom apartment. Still, she had been grateful for even that.
“It’s not your mother’s estate my firm was appointed to research,” Mr. Tarrant said. “Did you know a man by the name of Harrison Sage?”
Gracie shook her head. “I’m afraid not.”
“How about Harry Sagalowsky?”
“Oh, sure, I knew Harry. His apartment was across from mine when I lived in Cincinnati. He was such a nice man.”
For a moment, she was overrun by warm memories. Harry had been living in the other apartment on the top floor of the renovated Victorian when Gracie moved in after her mother’s death. They had become instant friends—he filled the role of the grandfather she never had, and she was the granddaughter he never had. She introduced him to J. K. Rowling and Bruno Mars and taught him how to crush the competition in Call of Duty. He turned her on to Patricia Highsmith and Miles Davis and taught her how to fox-trot at the Moondrop Ballroom.
She sobered. “He died two years ago. Even though I haven’t lived in Cincinnati for a while now, when I come home from work, I still halfway expect him to open his front door and tell me how he just got The African Queen from Netflix or how he made too much chili for one person.” Her voice trailed off. “I just miss him. A lot.”
Mr. Tarrant smiled gently. “Mr. Sagalowsky thought very highly of you, too. He remembered you in his will, which was just recently settled.”
Gracie smiled at that. Although Harry’s apartment had been crowded with stuff that was both eclectic and eccentric, nothing could have been worth much. After his death, she helped their landlord pack it all up, but no one ever came to claim it—Harry had never spoken of any family, so she’d had no idea whom to contact. Their landlord finally decided to toss it all, but Gracie offered to rent a storage unit for it instead. It had meant tightening her belt even more, but she hadn’t been able to stand the thought of Harry’s things rotting in a dump. She was still paying for the unit back in Cincinnati. She brightened. Maybe Mr. Tarrant could help her get it all into the hands of Harry’s next of kin.
“I’m afraid it took me a while to find you,” he continued.
She stiffened. “Yeah, I kind of left Cincinnati on a whim about a year and a half ago.”
“Without leaving a forwarding address?”
“I, um, had a bad breakup with a guy. It seemed like a good time to start fresh. My mom and Harry were gone, and most of my friends from high school moved after graduation. I didn’t really have many ties there anymore.”
Mr. Tarrant nodded, but she got the feeling he wasn’t too familiar with bad romance. “If you have some time today,” he said, “we can discuss Mr. Sagalowsky’s estate and the changes it will mean for you.”
Gracie almost laughed at that. He made Harry sound like some batty Howard Hughes, squirreling away a fortune while he wore tissue boxes for shoes.
“There’s a coffee shop up the street,” she said. “Mimi’s Mocha Java. I can meet you there in about twenty minutes.”
“Perfect,” Mr. Tarrant told her. “We have a lot to talk about.”
As Gracie climbed out of Mr. Tarrant’s Jaguar coupe in the driveway of the house Harry had abandoned fifteen years ago—the house that now belonged to her—she told herself not to worry, that the place couldn’t possibly be as bad as it seemed. Why, the weathered clapboard was actually kind of quaint. And the scattered pea-gravel drive was kind of adorable. So what if the size of the place wasn’t what she’d been expecting? So what if the, ah, overabundant landscaping was going to require a massive amount of work? The house was fine. Just fine. She had no reason to feel apprehensive about being its new owner. The place was...charming. Yeah, that was it. Absolutely...charming.
In a waterfront, Long Island, multi-multi-multi-million-dollar kind of way. Holy cow, Harry’s old house could host the United Arab Emirates and still have room left over for Luxembourg.
In spite of the serene ocean that sparkled beyond the house and the salty June breeze that caressed her face, she felt herself growing light-headed again—a not unfamiliar sensation since meeting Mr. Tarrant last week. After all, their encounter at Mimi’s Mocha Java had culminated in Gracie sitting with her head between her knees, breathing in and out of a paper bag with the phrase Coffee, Chocolate, Men—Some Things are Better Rich printed on it. To his credit, Mr. Tarrant hadn’t batted an eye. He’d just patted her gently on the back and told her everything was going to be fine, and the fact that she’d just inherited fourteen billion—yes, billion, with a b—dollars was nothing to have a panic attack about.
Hah. Easy for him to say. He probably knew what to do with fourteen billion dollars. Other than have a panic attack over it.
Now that they were here, he seemed to sense her trepidation—probably because of the way her breathing was starting to turn into hyperventilation again—because he looped his arm gently through hers. “We shouldn’t keep Mrs. Sage and her son and their attorneys—or Mr. Sage’s colleagues and their attorneys—waiting. I’m sure they’re all as anxious to get the formalities out of the way as you are.”
Anxious. Right. That was one word for it, Gracie thought. Had the situation been reversed, had she been the one to discover that her long-estranged husband or father, a titan of twentieth-century commerce, had spent his final years posing as a retired TV repairman in the blue-collar Cincinnati neighborhood where he grew up, then befriended a stranger to whom he had left nearly everything, she supposed she’d be a tad anxious, too. She just hoped there weren’t other words for what Vivian Sage and her son, Harrison III, might be. Like furious. Or vindictive. Or homicidal.
At least she was dressed for the occasion. Not homicide, of course, but for the formal reading of Harry’s will. Even though Harry’s will had already been read a few times, mostly in court, because it had been contested and appealed by just about everyone he’d known in life. This time would be the last,
