“PLEASE,” HE SAYS, opening the door just a little wider to invite me inside. I notice that he checks behind me to see if there’s anybody else. He’s kind of pudgy, with a pasty white face. He looks like he’s been trying to grow a beard for a while but still hasn’t produced much foliage. Age? I’d guess about forty. But an old forty. Thick glasses. Spongy gut. If it turns out I inherited a yacht, I doubt this guy is the captain.
I step inside and right away, I realize that this is a grade-A textbook setting for a pedophile lair. This wasn’t a very bright move on my part. I do a quick look-around. There’s nothing obviously evil in sight, but I pull my scooter off my shoulder and hold it in front of me, just in case.
“Okay, what’s going on?” I ask. “What this place about? Who are you?”
“I’m Dr. Fletcher,” he says. “Julian Fletcher.” He holds out his hand. I shake it. It’s slick with perspiration. I can tell he’s more nervous than I am, and that shifts the power dynamic a bit. I put down my scooter.
He looks me up and down, but not in a creepy way. Then he focuses in on my face, like he feels he should know me. “It’s incredible,” he says.
“What’s incredible?”
“That you’re actually here. That this is actually happening.”
“You mean you’ve been waiting for me?”
He lets his breath out in a slow stream.
“You have no idea.”
I decide to give Fletcher a quick recap. I’m not sure that I totally trust him, but I’ve got to start somewhere. I need to get this process off the dime!
“Here’s all I know,” I say. “I got a letter saying that I was the beneficiary of some mysterious will. The letter sent me to a lawyer. The lawyer started to give me the runaround.”
“Poole,” said Fletcher. “He’s an associate of mine. I’m surprised he let you come down here without him.”
“Not his choice,” I say.
I step deeper into this huge musty room, which looks like an old-time science lab. The windows are covered with some kind of blackout paint, but there must be a solid electrical feed, because the lights are steady and some of the electronic boxes are humming. There’s a big metal table covered in wires and dials and old electronic parts. Real collector’s items. Not a single IC board or LED strip in the pile. It’s like I’m stuck in an alternate time zone, and it’s getting weirder by the minute.
I see a hallway leading from one side of the room. There could be anything back there. But so far the only sound in the place is the beeping from the machines on the table.
Fletcher scratches his head. He rubs his palms on his shirt. He clears his throat. Finally, he looks around the room and pulls up a metal stool.
“Here,” he says, patting the seat like he’s training a puppy. “Sit.”
I slide onto the stool and hook my feet around it. Fletcher pulls up a worn and slouchy office chair. He’s obviously spent so much time in it that it’s molded to his shape. I’m perched above him on the stool, looking down on the bald patches on his blotchy scalp. I can imagine him plucking out strands of his own hair in his spare time. Nail-biter too, I’ll bet.
“I’ve practiced this a million times in my head,” says Fletcher. “But I can’t believe I’m saying it for real.”
Now I’m starting to get a tingle. Not fear, exactly—just that feeling you get when all your senses are on high alert because you’re not sure which way things are going to go. Fight or flight, right? I lean down.
“So say it.”
He nods his head slowly, like he’s working up his nerve. Then he rolls his chair closer and looks straight up at me.
“What you’ve inherited, Miss Gomes…is a body.”