The Heir Read Online Free

thousand dollars per month, from a trust created for the purpose.” He’d been living on twenty. No, he’d been getting twenty, but he’d been spending about twenty-five. BMWs were so expensive these days. Fifty would come in very handy for him, and his Jaguar dealer wouldn’t complain, either. If he remembered what he’d borrowed from me, he might even start paying me back. I wouldn’t remind him.
    “And it will increase when you get married.” Fred turned to me. “Yesterday, you asked about Angela. She will also have an income.” Okay, good for Angela. I was sure it would be more than fifty thousand a month. “Then there are numerous other bequests to relatives, friends, and employees, which amount to less than two million dollars. As his executor, I will take care of those.” He tapped the stack of papers. “You each have a list, although it is not complete. There were some bequests your father chose to not be made public.”
    All of that had been his original plan. What was no longer part of the plan? It was my name that had not yet been uttered. I was already thinking it through. Four years at Yale, I must have gotten a degree. Business, yeah, that was it. I could get a job with that. Or maybe I could drive trucks.
    “Jason, you were to have received a similar monthly income. That has been changed.”
    I decided on the trucks. Maybe Katie could ride with me.
    She was frozen beside me, and I felt two red hot lasers drilling into my shoulder. Maybe I’d be riding alone.
    Maybe I could freeload off Eric. I could wash his cars. We’d make sure Rosita fixed him a real nice lunch today.
    I didn’t have enough time to build up real confusion. Fred’s mouth was still moving.
    “Your father had originally planned to leave the bulk of his estate to the Boyer Foundation, and Mr. Kern and the board of directors would have been trustees. However, except for the other distributions I’ve mentioned, you are now the sole heir of the estate.”
    “No.”
    There was pounding in my brain and a wave of heat shooting up through my chest and head, like a ring crushing me. It was a primal reaction, before I even really understood the words. Sole heir? It was rage, absolute fury. And it showed.
    “Jason?” The lasers beside me had suddenly malfunctioned. The way she said my name, she sounded as if she were about to lose power completely.
    I was so angry I didn’t care. How could he mess it up so completely? When he’d been leaving it to someone else instead of me, I was annoyed by the rejection. But this was total idiocy. He hadn’t even told me! I would have killed him if he hadn’t already been dead.
    Fred decided to keep going. “The estate is primarily stock in the companies your father owned and controlled, but also includes his properties, art and valuables, and,” he was faltering, seeing my anger, “some other investments.”
    “Why?”
    Fred took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Jason. I know this wasn’t what you expected.”
    “I won’t take it.”
    I’d hit Fred’s button. “Just a moment.” He said it angrily and with exasperation. I hadn’t seen him like this. “You have no idea what you are saying.”
    “But I don’t want it. I refuse.”
    “Then I’ll take it,” Eric said, his eyes wide. “Give it to me. What’s the problem?”
    “At least listen to him.” Katie had rebooted.
    “Just tell me why he changed it,” I said.
    Fred was calm again. He shook his head. “I don’t know why. When he instructed me to revise his will, I asked him why, but he chose not to confide in me.”
    “He could at least have told me,” I said.
    “I think he would have. But there was no opportunity.”
    “When did he come up with this brilliant strategy?”
    “We first discussed it several months ago. He signed the will at my house Saturday evening last week and died on his way home.”
    On his way home. That was past stupidity, deep into farce. I couldn’t even think, only feel, and all I felt