I was still in a state of shock but managed to ask, “How did the paramedics know to come?”

“Somebody called 9-1-1. They wouldn’t say who. But that’s unimportant. Now you really will want to sit down.”

“Are you kidding, Karen?”

Karen giggled. “No. Sit, Mare.”

I sat on the curb. “Okay, shoot.”

“Okay. I shouldn’t be telling you this, it’s not my place—and remember, you didn’t hear it from me—but the old boy left you everything. The whole kit and kaboodle.”

I was glad I was sitting down, or else I might have fallen into the path of a speeding car.

“You’re not shitting me, are you, Karen?”

“No way. I’m his legal secretary, right? I have access to all his personal legal papers, including but not limited to his advance directive and his last will and testament. There’s no mistake, Marin Portman. You have just won the lottery.”

I let the news wash over me. It made no sense, but Karen wouldn’t lie to me.

“But why? Mortimer treated me like shit.”

“Simple. He told me how you stood up to him. He admired that. I think you actually got to him, Mare. Morty may have been a sonofabitch, but he was old school. Beneath that racist and sexist exterior there was a chivalrous old fart chomping at the bit to get out. He had no family, no friends. He realized he only had a few good years left, if that. His naming you the beneficiary of his estate was his last chance to actually do something worthwhile in his miserable, misbegotten life. Not to mention, it was a great way to piss off his partners. They never saw eye to eye, you know.”

It still seemed unreal to me. “Are you sure about all this?”

“Absolutely. Listen to this, straight from the horse’s mouth. His will is extremely detailed and complicated, as you can expect, but it contains this simple but eloquent remark: To Marin Portman, my personal assistant whom I should have treated with more respect and dignity, I leave everything in my estate. I have complete faith she will use my assets for greater good than I ever did. There’s a ton more legalese, but that’s the gist of it. You are one rich bitch now, Mare.”

I didn’t know what to say. The man I loathed most in the world was dead. And irony of ironies, I had inherited his vast fortune. If the frozen air sending shivers through my skin and into my bones hadn’t reminded me that this was real, I would have thought I was dreaming. A perfect, beautiful fantasy.

“Mare? You still there?”

“Yeah, I’m still here. Just trying to keep from floating away on a cloud of ecstasy.”