The Legend of Kareem Read Online Free Page A

didn’t know how that would function, but it seemed to make sense.
    But what did Kareem mean about some money coming to me in the event of my father’s death? Had he been simply babbling, knowing he was dying and not caring? Or had my dad made some arrangement so his inheritance would go to his daughter instead of me?
    I called my Aunt Judy, the one who’d been trying to inform me of Dad’s stroke while I had been a little too busy attempting to find where the hell Wyatt Green had imprisoned my wife. She didn’t have anything useful to tell me about Dad or Susan Palenti. She’d never heard of this Susan person. She did, however, scold me for a few minutes for missing Dad’s funeral. I was expected to give a eulogy, it seemed.
    Next, I called Grace, still staring at the key in my hand. Grace didn’t usually like to talk on the phone, but this was a special occasion.
    “What are you going to do?” she said after I’d explained the visit to the attorney’s office.
    “I have no idea. I have so many more questions now than before I came, which wasn’t supposed to happen.”
    “Oh, I just remembered: a detective came by this morning, looking for you. I told him you were busy.”
    This irked me. “I’ve already given them a million versions of the statement. How many times do I have to rehash the same story over and over again? He can call me if he needs me so bad.”
    “This one seems pretty determined to talk to you, but I’ll pass along the message if he shows up again.”
    “Thank you,” I said.
    “Did you open the box the guy gave you?”
    “I don’t think I’m supposed to,” I said, twisting the key between two fingers and staring at the box.
    “If it were me, I’d open it.”
    I thought about it, sitting there. Something that could possibly answer some of my questions. “Maybe so.”
    Grace sighed. “Are you going to go find this woman?”
    “I told you I’d be here two days. I don’t have time to go down to some little border town to hunt for a woman who may or may not be my half-sister.”
    “But if you’re the executor of the will, isn’t that what you’re supposed to do? I thought it was some kind of sacred duty.”
    “I told you two days.”
    “I’ll be fine, baby. My parents are keeping me busy. I just want this to be over with, and if this is what it takes, then this is what it takes. You go do what you need to do, and I’ll see you when you get home.”
    “But…”
    “Text me when you know anything,” she said. “I’ll check in with you later. I love you.”
    “I love you too,” I said, then she ended the call. Grace did seem okay without me, which was a strange feeling. Maybe that was my need to be needed. Maybe that was me forgetting how independent she was.
    I fiddled with the key. “Screw it.”
    Slid the key into the lock on the box. Opened the lid. I discovered, in the whole of the box, there was only one object inside: a little red Matchbox car. A truck.
     

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER FIVE
     
     
    I slid the toy truck into my pocket and took my laptop down to the hotel bar to hunt for dinner. A man in the elevator gave me a strange look, peeking at me out of the corners of his eyes a couple times. I didn’t think much of it.
    For some reason, pork ribs dominated my thoughts. There’s something so deeply carnivorous about eating ribs… tearing animal flesh from the bone with your teeth, getting blood (barbecue sauce) all over your hands and face in the process. Maybe I unconsciously sought violence now, in this new landscape of my life.
    When the ribs were all in my gut, I flipped open my laptop, put my feet up on the opposite bench in the restaurant booth, and connected to the hotel WiFi to prowl the internet for Omar and Susan.
    She wasn’t easy to find. The phone number the attorney had given me was disconnected.
    There was only one “S.Palenti” in Brownsville, although I couldn’t dig up a working phone number. So I knew she existed.