Page 110 of Destiny

“May I see your IDs, please?”

“Yeah, sure.” I pull out my wallet, extract my driver’s license. Dad does the same.

“Good enough.” She hands me the papers. “If you have any questions, let me know.”

Dad and I leave the office and stand outside in the hallway. I glance through the results. There’s a lot of garbled language about DNA sequences, but the result is the same.

Dad and Jack share paternal grandparents.

“Just as we thought,” I say.

“Yep.”

“We’ll figure it out, Dad.”

Except I’m not sure if we will. Sean Murphy is long dead, and whoever took his sperm? Damn… He could’ve just donated it himself. But then, how could Wendy have gotten access to it?

“Let’s look on the bright side,” I say. “You have a cousin. A cousin who could marry and have his own children. Your uncle’s line will go on, even though he died.”

“I suppose that should be some solace,” Dad says. “But you know what? It really isn’t.”

“I’m going to give Jack a call.”

“Why? He probably got the same text we did.”

“True.” Before I shove my phone back in my pocket, I check to see if Ava has gotten back to me.

She hasn’t.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Ava

It’s three in the afternoon by the time I make it to downtown Denver. Ugh. I hate driving here. Parking is terrible. I find the building but have to park two blocks away.

Once inside the building, I take the elevator to the tenth floor, where the law firm of Wolfram and Burke is.

“May I help you?” a receptionist asks.

Her nameplate says Lola Smiley. Seriously.

“I need to see”—I glance at the document—“Frederick Jolley.”

“Frederick Jolley?”

My God, did I stutter?

She wrinkles her brow. “He’s one of our founding partners.”

“Okay. So what? I need to see him.”

“I’m afraid…he’s dead, ma’am.”

I shove the folder at her, showing her the paper. “This is your firm, isn’t it?”

“Ma’am”—she scans the form as her eyes widen—“this is dated…twenty-four years ago. That’s longer than I’ve been alive.”

“All right, whatever. If Mr. Frederick Jolley isn’t here, then I want to talk to somebody about this particular trust.”

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