Edgewater by Courtney Sheinmel Read Free Book Online Page A

of the red.”
    â€œI suppose that’s what I’m trying to explain.” Jim Traylor’s hands, skimming over his computer keyboard, were pale, as if they’d known only this windowless office, time unending. “There is no trust.”
    â€œThat’s ridiculous,” I said. I laughed, and it sounded strange, as if I were making the sound from underwater. “Of course there is.”
    I’d seen the letter from Mom, explaining it all. She needed her freedom, Mom had written to Susannah and me; in exchange, she was leaving us, her two daughters, all the money her father had given her, now augmented with the interest she’d earned over the years. She’d start fresh in England with Nigel. She’d included a bunch of syrupy, Hallmark-card assurances about what wonderful daughters we were, how she wanted only the best for us.
I love you forever and ever, my lovely Lorrie and my sweet Susannah. Love, Mom
. I had clung to that letter, along with the cards that came on Chanukah, our birthdays, and occasionally on random holidays like Valentine’s Day or Halloween. She ended them the way she’d always ended the notes she’d stuck in my kindergarten lunchbox: a stick drawing of her, Susannah, and me. Mom in the middle with her arms around her two girls. “The Three Musketeers,” she’d called us. But we weren’t a threesome anymore, at least not that one.
    As time went by, notes from Mom arrived less and less frequently, and the ones I’d saved seemed to mock all she’d taken away. Up to the attic they went. Out of sight and out of mind.
    Jim Traylor’s voice broke me from my thoughts. “Is there anything else I can help you with?” he asked.
    â€œBut . . .” I began. “But the trust is there. I know it is—at leastI know it
was
. My mother set it up. It was supposed to last us . . . oh, I don’t know how long it was supposed to last, but certainly at least until I finished high school.”
    But sitting there, across from Jim Traylor, I realized how implausible that was. Gigi hadn’t been able to make her own trust fund last; how could she have managed ours?
    â€œAccording to our records, Miss Hollander,” he said, “there’s no trust. And I have no record of you ever having one.”
    â€œYou’re making a big mistake,” I told him.
    With that sentence came a horrible sense of déjà vu. I’d said those words before, just about twenty-four hours ago, when I sat in front of Pamela Bunn and her battered desk.
    But Pamela hadn’t made a mistake, and it was entirely possible that Jim Traylor hadn’t, either. The common denominator in all of it was Aunt Gigi. What had she done with our money? And how had she managed to erase all record of its existence?
    Was this all just a game to her?
    I didn’t know. What I knew for sure was this: I had no money to my name, a horse stranded five hundred miles away, and a tank of gas bought on credit from a stranger, and I had to get to the bottom of it.

6
    WE REGRET TO INFORM YOU
    MY HANDS WERE SHAKING AS I FUMBLED WITH MY cell phone to call Lennox. It took me three tries to press the right buttons, but then instead of ringing, a mechanical voice informed me that my phone bill was past due. It went on to recite a phone number for AT&T. “Press one to be connected now, or call back at your earliest convenience.” Digits were recited, but I hung up before the recording was done. The cell-phone issue would have to take a backseat to all the others.
    I went straight home to confront Gigi, storming into the house and not even noticing the smell. Maybe because I hadn’t bothered to inhale; I just screamed, “Gigi! Gigi!” BP or not, she was going to have to give me some answers. Right now.
    â€œGIGI!”
    â€œLorrie?” came a call from the kitchen.
    Gigi was standing by the counter when I walked in, alldressed up in a