The Forgotten One (The Heirs #2)

Chapter Ten

Sarah stared at the top of Patrick’s head on her computer screen.

He’d agreed to a quick Zoom call but wasn’t about to give her his undivided attention.

“I need more to go on,” she pleaded.

“I don’t have more.”

She knew he was going to say that.

“Do we know if a man or a woman tipped us off? Was it an email, a phone call ... what?”

Patrick glanced up briefly and then went back to whatever papers he was shuffling on his desk. “A woman called. No, the number wasn’t traceable.”

“Young or old?”

“Somewhere in the middle,” Patrick told her.

“Did she ask for you by name or ask for the editor in chief?”

Patrick stopped what he was doing and stared at her through the camera. “What difference does that make?”

“I’m trying to figure out if this person is spam calling a bunch of magazines to cause some kind of chaos. Or is this an educated woman that would get her facts straight and ensure she was speaking to the right person?”

“She could still have called more than one magazine,” Patrick told her.

Sarah had considered that.

However, if their “Deep Throat” was throwing clues around, then there would be some kind of splash page in the sleazier tabloids already.

Sarah visualized a half-page story with an outline of a man, his features darkened and unrecognizable, with Max’s name under it. Then a sensationalized headline like ...

What Did Max Smith Know about Aaron Stone’s Death?

What Did Aaron Stone Reveal to Max Smith before His Death?

Where Was Max Smith the Day of Aaron Stone’s Apparent Heart Attack?

Any one of those lines in a paper would draw Max out. But that hadn’t happened, so maybe “Deep Throat” wasn’t making a round of phone calls.

“What time of day did the call come in?”

Patrick let out a frustrated breath. “Business hours. Do you have anything yet or not?”

Sarah pushed her glasses up and looked at the paper she was writing notes on. “Nothing solid,” she lied. Patrick would pounce if he knew she had Max Smith’s cell phone number. And if he pounced, Max would bail. Of that, Sarah was absolutely certain.

At least now she had something to offer Max and maybe get more information from him in return.

“Why don’t you use your interrogation skills on someone who isn’t responsible for your paycheck.”

Sarah ended the call.

She dropped her hands in her lap and laughed at the cartoon cat chasing a ball of string on her pajama bottoms. It wasn’t the cat that was funny; it was the fact she was still in them at four in the afternoon.

Sarah tapped her fingers over her notepad and pulled out an oversize piece of paper that she’d drawn on, with Max’s name and Stone’s name in the center.

Beside Stone’s name, she had a dollar sign, RIP in bold letters, the word cheater with a question mark ... since the tabloids were quick to point out Stone’s “companions” when the man was alive, and his bimbo wife. Which probably wasn’t fair, but one look at the blonde and a little research showed that the woman was the same age as Aaron Stone’s daughter.

Yuck!

Beside Max’s name, she had next to nothing. The words one year or one week had her rolling her eyes. New truck was something she’d noticed when he’d pulled out of the Stone Estate. Not that she’d written down the temporary license number, which might have come in handy if she had a resource at the DMV or police department ... which she didn’t. Rugged. The man had a way about him that said blue-collar. The casual jeans and flannel shirt he wore that probably came off the rack at a Target or Kohl’s store and not some swanky mall shop only a few could afford to buy from. In short, the kinds of places Sarah went and the Stones wouldn’t be caught dead in.

She questioned what a big story could be between these two seemingly opposite people.

Max was good-looking and young, at least in comparison to the late Aaron Stone. Was Max having an affair with the trophy wife?

And would that be a big story?

Not really, unless there was a question behind Aaron Stone’s death, which there was absolutely no chatter about anywhere.

According to the reports, the man had a heart attack, with no foul play suspected.

Before Sarah had met Max, she wrote down the words responsible for Stone’s death . But then after, she scratched them off.

A stranger, maybe.

The man she met ... no.

He did seem to have some spy skills, considering he’d discovered her name and where her roommate worked all in the span of a few hours, but that didn’t make him dangerous.

Maybe Max had something on Stone?

Sarah drummed her fingers on her desk and then reached for her phone.

She dialed Max’s number before she let herself think twice.

It rang . . . and rang . . . and rang.

Didn’t the man have his voicemail set up?

On the fifth ring, he answered.

“Well, well, well, if it isn’t Little Miss Sarah, our friendly reporter.”

“That almost sounds like an endearment,” she said with as much sarcasm as he was spewing.

She heard a breathy laugh over the line. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your call?”

“Do you really talk like that? It doesn’t fit the flannel shirt and massive truck.”

“What does a flannel shirt and big truck sound like?”

“They don’t sound like someone who says ‘pleasure of your call.’”

He was silent for a moment.

“What do you want, Sarah?”

She smiled. “That’s better.”

“I’m waiting.”

“I have some information for you.” Not a lot, but he didn’t know that.

More silence.

“Don’t you want to hear it?”

“Still waiting,” he said.

“I have answers to your questions. Answers I’ll give you in person.”

“Why?”

“Why will I give you them or why in person?”

“Both.”

“Because I’m pretty good at telling when someone is lying to me face to face. And if I ask you a question, and you give me a bogus answer, I won’t figure that out over the phone.”

She waited in his silence while he contemplated her offer.

“Okay,” he finally agreed. “I’ll call you with a place and time.”

“It has to be a public place.”

He laughed again. “Are you afraid of me, Sarah?”

“What? No.” She shook her head. “I’m smart.”

“This from the woman who offered a grown man help on the side of the road.”

He had her there.

“It was a ritzy neighborhood.”

“With the houses so spread out, no one would hear a thing.”

She leaned back in her chair. “Are you trying to scare me?”

“Are you scared?”

No.

“Do you always answer questions with a question?”

“Only when a reporter is doing the asking,” he said.

“What do you have against reporters?”

“Nothing. You’re the first one I’ve met. And so far, you’re living up to the stereotype.”

“That hurt,” she said, half teasing. “I haven’t written one false word.”

“Have you written any words?”

Sarah opened her mouth to answer him and promptly closed it. Maybe if he believed she would publish bullshit, he’d be more likely to give her something close to the truth. “Let’s meet this week. My editor needs to see progress, or he’ll put someone else on this story who might not be as truthful and kind as I am.”

“Nice dodge and weave.”

He noticed. “Thank you.”

“I’ll get back to you.”

She smiled. “This week.”

“We wouldn’t want your boss getting itchy.”

The man made her smile. “Don’t call early. I’m not a morning person.”

He hung up the phone without saying goodbye. All she heard was a low laugh that made her smile.

Max sat back in his chair, hands resting on his full stomach, and smiled with genuine pleasure as he disconnected the call from his own personal Lois Lane.

Yeah, he liked that. Lois Lane, only she was the one in glasses, trying to disguise her appearance, instead of Clark Kent.

On the plate in front of him was what was left of the one-inch-thick rib-eye steak he’d picked up from the grocery store butcher on his way home from the bank. Beside the now-empty plate, his five-year-old laptop, which was bottom of the line when he’d purchased it, was open, and his new account with Fidelity filled the screen.

Twenty-five million dollars stared back at him.

He’d half convinced himself that everything the Stones had told him was bullshit. That at some point, a call would come through saying it was all a mistake, but hey, keep the truck as a consolation prize.

What the hell was he supposed to do with twenty-five million dollars?

He’d gone to work that morning kicking up dirt about his future commute to Santa Anita and looking for a stipend for travel time.

Now he could buy a house closer to the yard and cut his drive time in half.

“That’s funny,” he said to himself. He didn’t need to go to work at all.

Isn’t that what people do when they win the lottery? Quit their jobs?

What would he do if he didn’t work?

Max ran a hand over his beard and pushed away from his small dining table.

He paused in front of his living room window and gazed at the high-desert landscape that attempted to produce the color green by way of irrigation systems. Only, paying to water the yard was an expensive endeavor, and many people in his neighborhood didn’t bother.

Max, on the other hand, skipped the steak dinners most of the time and spent that on his yard.

He liked the color green.

In Arizona, he’d never lived in a home that spent money on water, and he vowed that when he had his own space, he’d have a yard ... a green one.

He blinked several times, dragged himself away from the window, and picked up his phone.

Chase answered on the first ring.

“Hello.”

“What the hell do I do now?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Do I quit my job? I sure as hell don’t need the paycheck anymore.”

“Oh, that,” Chase said.

“Yes, that . I’m staring out my window, thinking about how I can afford to water the lawn twice a day now and then realizing that I don’t have to live in this shit neighborhood anymore. I don’t have to water a piece of dirt that doesn’t belong to me. Do I move? And where to? What does a man do when he’s worked for someone else since he was fourteen and suddenly realizes he doesn’t have to work for anyone else ever again?”

“As whiny as that sounds, I completely get it.”

Max blew out a breath. “What did you guys do ... I mean, after you realized Aaron left you all this money?”

“Let’s see ... Alex and I bitched ... drank ... bitched some more. I went to work, put my right-hand man in charge of my shipping business, and showed up at Stone Enterprises like I was expected to be there.”

“You were expected.”

“No. I wasn’t. We weren’t. Anyway, Alex quit her job. And we started looking for you.”

“You didn’t have to do that.”

“You’re right,” Chase agreed. “But Alex and I were both dedicated to learning who you were. And if we’d walked away from Stone Enterprises and screwed up your inheritance, that wouldn’t have sat well with either of us.”

Chase had said as much before.

Only now, Max got it.

“We considered you family before we even met you, Max. If you’d ended up being a complete asshole, maybe that would have changed.”

Max squeezed his eyes shut. “I threatened to bash your truck in with a baseball bat.”

“Yeah, you did.”

Max paused and tried to take in what was being offered to him.

“I don’t know how a family works. I’ve never had anyone in my life that I would have done half of what you two have done for me.”

“Family has your back,” Chase offered in explanation. “And if they don’t, like our father, you cut your losses and move on. I’m not suggesting that you need to plead your loyalty to Alex and me, but I sure hope you think we deserve the opportunity to be in your life.”

Max rolled his head from side to side as unease traveled up his spine. “I don’t trust easily.”

“Good. That will serve you well.”

“That includes you,” Max added.

“I’m not worried about that. Time will prove who Alex and I really are.”

Max wanted to believe him. “How do you know you can trust me?”

“I don’t. But since you called me to ask what you should do when you crawl out of bed tomorrow, I’m guessing that door to trust is starting to open.”

“Huh. You still didn’t offer any suggestion on what I do next.”

Chase laughed. “Are you ready to retire? Play golf? Go fishing every day?”

“That sounds like purgatory.”

There was a moment of silence.

“What do you want to do?” Chase asked.

Max considered his day-to-day routine. “I don’t want to spend four hours a day on a freeway, working for someone else.”

“Then quit. You’re not going to get a lot of peace on the job once the media finds you anyway.”

Max’s thoughts instantly shot to Sarah. “They’ve already found me.”

“What?” Chase’s question was a shout.

“Only one. She had my name but doesn’t know who I am.”

“Come again?”

Yeah, the way Max had put it didn’t sound right.

“I was leaving Aaron’s house. There was a reporter standing on the side of the road.”

“With a camera?” Chase’s voice elevated.

“No. Sarah was there waiting for—”

“You know her name?” Chase asked.

“Chase, shut the fuck up and listen.” Max paused, and when Chase didn’t say anything, he continued. He retold the story of how he and Sarah met and how he followed her and confronted her in the bar. “She has no idea of the connection between Aaron and I.”

“Someone does,” Chase said.

“I’m going to meet with her this week and try and figure out who that someone is.”

“I’m not sure that is the smartest thing to do.”

Max shrugged. He was doing it anyway. “The way I see it, Sarah could have easily written a speculative piece in a crap magazine after the tip she was given and then finding me at Aaron’s house. But she didn’t.”

“That’s true. A long lens caught Piper and I in the driveway. Her face was hidden by a hat, and suddenly I was having an affair with Melissa.”

“The stepmom?” That’s messed up.

“Technically, but Alex and I never called her anything other than Melissa.”

Max focused the conversation back on his Lois Lane. “Regardless, Sarah didn’t do any of that. I’m meeting with her in an attempt to find out who tipped her off. We want to control the narrative, isn’t that what you said?”

“That sounds like something Piper would say ... but yeah.”

“Maybe we use Sarah to do that.”

“Reporters write what sells papers without regard to the truth.”

Max didn’t disagree. “If Sarah’s paper was tipped off, who’s to say there aren’t others?”

Chase released a long-suffering sigh. “We have to assume there are. If we’re going to control anything, we have to move fast. I thought we’d have more time,” he said under his breath.

“The news vans aren’t swarming yet.”

“Yet, brother. The key word is yet .”