Then six text messages.
Then seventeen.
My coworker sent me a link.
The headline made my stomach drop.
TEEN GUARDIAN STOOD TO RECEIVE MONTHLY PAYMENTS FROM SISTER’S MULTIMILLION-DOLLAR TRUST
I read it twice.
“What?”
Vicky looked up from the table.
“Nothing.”
But it wasn’t nothing.
The story quoted an “unnamed source familiar with the estate.”
It claimed my parents’ trust allowed me to receive housing and living expenses if I became Vicky’s guardian.
Which was technically true.
But the story made it sound as though I had fought Denise because I wanted money.
By noon, strangers online were calling me a parasite.
Somebody posted my workplace.
Someone else posted a photograph of the apartment building.
Then Howard went on television.
Mercer called while I was watching.
“Turn it off.”
Too late.
Howard stood outside his house in a dark suit.
His attorney beside him.
“I loved Michael’s parents,” he told reporters. “The insinuation that my wife or I had anything to do with this tragedy is disgusting.”
