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.”