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“Shane Ventana. What’s going on? How do you know my grandmother?”

“She hired me a long time ago,” he said. “I helped her with her will before she passed away. Everything went to your father when she died, but I don't think he ever knew that. From what I’ve been hearing, that was probably for the best.”

I nodded. He didn’t have to go into specifics for me to imagine the kind of shit my father had been getting himself into.

“We hired investigators to try to find him, but we didn't have any luck.” He looked at me, and I could tell that he was holding something back.

“I don’t know where he is, but if you came here to find him, you're wasting your time. He didn’t want anything to do with this place after Abuela died.”

“I didn’t come here to find your father. Actually, Shane, I came here to find you.

“It’s not the norm. Your grandmother insisted our firm keep tabs on you even after her death, but you disappeared after your last jail release,” he said. “She was a great person, and she helped a lot of people, even me. I grew up on this street, years before you and your dad came back to town. She saw something in me that no one else had. If it hadn’t been for your grandmother’s faith in me, I would’ve never become a lawyer.” He smiled wistfully as he looked up at the building, then back at me. “I know she did a lot of bad things, and your life could have been better, but she only did these things to support her family.”

“You don’t have to tell me any of this. I never blamed her for anything.”

He pulled a folder out of his briefcase and handed it to me. “We need to talk about this. I can’t explain to you why I ended up here when I did, but I was hoping to be able to find some trace of you. I know that even after your grandmother passed you would sometimes write to her here. So I was hoping maybe you wrote her recently and left a return address. I never expected to actually find you here.”

I opened the folder and saw a bunch of legal documents. This was the last thing I needed, another way for them to throw me back in jail.

“Who are you? I’ve been out of this life for years. Why can’t you just leave me alone?” I pushed the folder at him, picked up my bag, and started to walk away. His hand grabbed my arm firmly, and as I raised my hand to punch him, I thought about what he said. If my grandmother trusted him, then I should too. I let my bag drop to the sidewalk and waited for him to speak.

“I’m sorry, Shane. I should’ve introduced myself earlier. My name is Tom Mulligan, and I'm your grandmother's attorney. I handle estates, wills, that kind of thing.”

“She died years ago, wasn’t this taken care of then?”

“Yes, but…” His voice trailed off as he changed his mind about what he was going to say. “We should go to my office so we can talk more. There’s a lot I need to go over with you.”

He motioned towards his car. I grabbed my bag and walked towards it without a second thought. I had no place to go, and it was obvious to me that my grandmother brought me there for a reason. Besides, I needed something to keep my mind off of Rosalie. None of this was coincidental, and I needed to find out why.

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