Chapter 1: The Inheritance of Secrets

The letter arrived on a Tuesday, sandwiched between a final notice from the electric company and a coupon circular for a grocery store that had closed two years ago. Eric stood in the cramped entryway of his two-bedroom apartment, thumb tracing the heavy, blue-colored envelope with its embossed return address: Hawthorne, Blake & Associates.

He almost threw it away.

Instead, he slit it open with a butter knife and read the words three times before his knees gave out, and he sat down hard on the linoleum floor.

... hereby bequeath to Eric Michael Sanderson, in recognition of an act of uncalculated kindness performed on the morning of March 14th, six years prior, the entirety of my estate, including the island of Santa Catalina del Norte, all structures thereon, and the liquid assets held in the Cayman account referenced below...

His hands trembled. The old man. The one with the crooked fingers and the smell of cheap whiskey and sea salt. The one he’d bought breakfast for at McDonald’s because he looked like he hadn’t eaten in days. The one who’d eaten three Egg McMuffins and cried silently into his orange juice while Eric pretended not to notice.

The old man had been worth a fortune. And now—

Eric looked up at the ceiling, at the water stain shaped like Florida. Somewhere in the apartment, his son Keith was playing video games. His daughter Tina was in her room, probably reading. The three of them had been surviving together for six years, ever since Maria had walked out with nothing but a suitcase and a middle finger.

Six years of ramen and paycheck-to-paycheck. Six years of sleeping in shifts so they could share the one bed.

Now this.

The island was exactly as the lawyer had described. No—that was wrong. It was better. A volcanic tooth of black rock rising from the Pacific, ringed by a reef that turned the water turquoise. The estate sat on the leeward side, a sprawling compound of whitewashed stone and reclaimed teak, built into the hillside as it had grown there. Solar panels glinted on the roof. A cistern system collected rainwater. A satellite dish—discreet, almost invisible—and a dock with a forty-foot boat that started on the second try.