Chapter 1 - THREE DAYS LEFT
The doctor never said I had exactly three days to live.
He said the mass near my pancreas was serious.
He said the infection could become dangerous quickly.
He said they needed a biopsy before anyone could know what came next.
Vanessa heard only the part she wanted.
“Three days?” she asked.
Dr. Daniel Price paused at the foot of my bed.
“I cannot give you an exact number.”
But after he left, my wife leaned close enough for her perfume to cut through the hospital disinfectant.
She believed the medication had put me to sleep.
Her hand closed around mine.
Warm fingers.
Cold voice.
“Finally,” she whispered. “Three more days, then it’s all mine.”
My stepdaughter Chloe stood near the window, scrolling through her phone.
“I’m taking the Corvette.”
Vanessa released my hand.
“You can have the car. I’ll keep the house.”
The 1972 Corvette Stingray was not simply a vehicle.
My first wife, Margaret, and I had restored it together over years of weekends, grease, arguments, and cheap takeout. A photograph of her laughing behind the wheel still rested in my garage.
Chloe knew that.
She wanted it because she knew what it meant.
I remained motionless.
Vanessa smoothed my blanket before stepping into the hallway with her daughter.
Through the partly open door, I heard them plan my death.
A small funeral.
The furniture sold.
The house listed after a respectable waiting period.
Chloe complained about my leather couch.
Vanessa reminded her not to appear too eager.
Neither asked what would happen to Bennett Grounds and Property Care—the company I had built from one used truck and a borrowed mower.
That frightened me more than their greed.
Vanessa had questioned the company’s value for years.
Now she did not mention it at all.
At seven that evening, Miguel Alvarez appeared in the doorway carrying coffee and his faded Cincinnati Reds cap.
He had worked beside me for nearly thirty years.
He had sat outside Margaret’s hospital room.
Cut my grass for a year after she died.
And never once asked what my estate was worth.
“You look terrible,” he said.
I almost laughed.
“Close the door.”
He did.
I told him everything.
When I finished, Miguel slowly turned his cap in his hands.
“She thinks you’re already gone.”
“Maybe I have been for a while.”
He reached inside his work jacket and placed a small folder beside me.
“You asked me to keep this after Margaret died.”
I recognized the faded blue cover.
Inside was the original partnership agreement for Bennett Grounds.
Margaret and I had created it before the company became successful.
There was a clause I had forgotten.
If I became incapacitated or died under suspicious circumstances, temporary voting control did not pass to my spouse.
It passed to the longest-serving independent trustee.
Miguel.
Then he said something that made the heart monitor beside me quicken.
“Arthur, Vanessa came to the office last week.”
“She said she was bringing you lunch.”
“She wasn’t looking for you.”
He opened the folder to a copied security log.
May you like
“She tried to access your succession files.”
Cliffhanger: Vanessa had started searching for control of my company before the doctor found the mass—meaning she may have expected me to become ill.**
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