The Forgotten One (The Heirs #2)

Chapter Three

“Shut Up and Dance” blared from Sarah’s Alexa device and jolted her into an upright position without so much as a hello. Eyes blurry, with a drop of drool from the side of her mouth, Sarah told Alexa to stop.

She flopped back on her bed, arms extended, and stared up at the ceiling. She hated waking up to an alarm and, for a minute, didn’t remember why she had set it.

Then it came back to her.

Zoom meeting.

Patrick.

Sarah groaned and tossed back the covers. She reached for her glasses on her nightstand and placed them on the bridge of her nose.

She padded barefoot down the short hallway of the apartment she shared with her best friend, Teri, to the only bathroom. One look in the mirror reminded her why she didn’t like early mornings. Puffy eyes, pale skin, and her unruly red hair ... She ignored her reflection, splashed water on her face, and relieved her bladder.

Five minutes later she stood over the coffeepot, a bathrobe tossed over her shoulders, willing her morning java to brew faster.

Noise from down the hall indicated that Teri was up and about.

A rarity this early in the morning.

Early being completely relative. It was seven thirty. Teri tended bar and didn’t get in until three in the morning three nights a week.

“What are you doing out of bed?” Sarah called out as she pulled a cup from the cupboard and reached for the still-percolating coffee.

“She kicked me out.”

The unfamiliar male voice stopped Sarah like a zap of electricity. The cup in her hand tumbled between her fingers as she scrambled to catch it before it crashed to the floor.

Pulling the edges of her bathrobe together, she turned to face whoever it was that Teri had brought home.

For a minute, all Sarah saw was a man’s tattooed chest as he pulled a shirt over his head. Yuck!

A little skinnier and a little shorter than Teri usually preferred, he made up for it with his smile. One he flashed as they faced off in the kitchen. “Hi,” Sarah managed, pushing her glasses back into place.

He looked her up and down and huffed out a laugh. “I don’t imagine that coffee is for me?”

“Yeah, no! The bed-and-breakfast is around the corner.”

“Right,” he replied before turning and walking out the door.

Sarah stomped over to the apartment door and twisted the lock once Mr. Booty Call was out of sight. She marched from the front door to Teri’s and tossed hers open. “Who was that?”

Teri rolled over and pushed her hands under her pillow. “Forgettable.”

Sarah strode into the room and pulled Teri’s pillow out from under her head.

“Hey!”

“You’re supposed to tell me when someone is coming over!”

Teri reached for her pillow. “You were asleep.”

“Then wake me up.” Sarah kept the pillow from Teri’s reach.

“We were—busy when we came in.”

Sarah could imagine just what busy meant. “He caught me in the kitchen. I could have been naked.”

Giving up on the pillow, Teri placed her head on her arm. “You’re never naked in the kitchen.”

Sarah tossed the pillow at Teri with more force than she intended.

“Hey!” Teri protested, unraveling from her fetal position.

“We talked about this.”

“It won’t happen again,” Teri said.

“You said that the last time.” And the time before that, and the time before that.

Teri pushed up on the bed and leaned against the wall. “You’re the one that insists I bring them here.”

True. Safety being the number-one concern in a city full of unknown crazies.

“You could have called me from the bar.”

Teri blew out a sigh. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I thought you’d be asleep. Don’t you have a meeting this morning?”

Shit!

Sarah twisted around and looked at Teri’s clock that sat across the room.

She had five minutes to fire up her computer and log in to Zoom. “Dammit.”

From Teri’s room, Sarah ran to hers. The bathrobe fell to the floor, and she pulled her nightshirt over her neck and reached for a sweater. Leaving on the boy shorts she’d slept in, Sarah rushed to the bathroom and grabbed a tie for her hair. Wrangling it into a quick twist, she pulled a couple of strands loose and smacked on some lip gloss.

Jumping over her bathrobe, she ran to their tiny living room and snuck around her desk.

She shook her mouse and woke up her computer as she slipped into the chair. Behind her was a wall and a picture of the Manhattan skyline. In front of her was the main living space of the apartment, which always seemed to be in a state of turmoil. Mismatched pillows on a hand-me-down couch, two empty sparkling-water cans, Teri’s leather jacket ... and was that a bra?

Sarah shook her head and clicked into Zoom.

She’d shown up two minutes late, and the meeting had already filled.

“Good morning,” she announced before she turned on her camera.

“Wow, you’re almost on time, Sarah,” someone said.

“I’m not that bad.” She was always that bad.

Teri waved at her from the hall. “Coffee?” she whispered.

Sarah hit the mute button. “It’s the least you can do, you big ho,” she teased.

“You’re just jealous,” Teri poked with a smile.

“Who are you calling a ho?”

Sarah snapped her gaze at her monitor and realized she’d turned on her camera instead of muting her voice.

Several team members were laughing.

Patrick, her boss, was not.

Friday couldn’t come fast enough. When it did, the wind gods had stopped yelling, giving Max the opportunity to sleep well and take his motorcycle to the yard. He and Jeff got a jump on the day and arrived at the jobsite a half an hour early, giving them that time on the other end, which helped with the traffic coming home.

Max could almost hear the beat of the house band that played at the hole-in-the-wall bar he liked to disappear in at the end of the week.

He turned the corner of his street, the home stretch ...

And saw a shiny black double-cab truck in his driveway.

Not again.

His blood started to boil before he turned into his drive.

These assholes didn’t let up. He parked his bike behind the truck, blocking its exit.

He pulled his helmet off at the same time as he swung his leg off the bike, ready to punch this Chase guy or smash his truck, whatever came first.

Only he didn’t see a human target.

“Where are you?” he called out to his empty yard.

No reply.

Long strides took him to his front door, where he half expected the lock to be undone and his supposed “family” sitting inside, helping themselves to his beer.

Instead of people, there was an envelope.

Max ripped the thing open and pulled out a note.

Max,

We really don’t know how to convince you that everything we said is the truth. Maybe this gesture will open the door of communication.

If you look at your feet, behind the planter, you’ll find a lockbox. To open it, press the first four digits of your Social Security number. Inside you’ll find the key fobs for the truck in your driveway.

Take a good look at the registration that is in the glove compartment, and the pink slip. The name of the insurance broker and his number are on the policy, which is paid in full for the next year. We would have paid for five, but insurance companies are bloodsucking bastards and wouldn’t budge on a one-year policy.

The note wasn’t signed.

Max looked at the paper, flipped it over to see if there was more, then looked at his feet.

Sure enough, a lockbox like the kind used when a house is on the market sat on the ground.

He picked it up and looked at the truck.

A paper license plate, the kind you get before the real ones arrive in the mail, was attached to the front.

The anger that had consumed Max only moments before turned to complete confusion.

There was no way this was as it appeared.

He pressed the numbers of his Social Security into the box and twisted the knob.

It turned.

Two key fobs stared back at him.

He shifted, pulled out the keys, and tossed the metal lockbox onto his lawn.

Then he pressed the button.

Lights flashed, and the familiar sound of a car unlocking with a beep filled the silent air of his neighborhood.

Max reached for the door, opened it, and was met with the smell of new leather and money. The kind of car smell he’d only experienced when climbing into a new work truck that belonged to someone else.

His heart started to skip.

Excitement?

Trepidation?

Likely a combination of both.

Max climbed in and ran his hand over the steering wheel. The cockpit of the front seat had all the bells and whistles one would desire in a new rig. The kind of truck he didn’t see himself having for at least another decade. He leaned over and opened the glove compartment.

The registration and the pink slip said the same thing.

Owner: Maximillian Smith.

The insurance company had his name, driver’s license number, home address, and phone number.

Not only was this truck in his name ...

It was paid off.

“What the actual hell?”

Max flipped through the papers in his hand and found another note.

It had a name and a phone number.

Chase Stone.

Call me.