A Daughter's Legacy

“Please call me Kelli.” His hand felt cool and dry next to her damp palm. Now that she could see him face-to-face, she felt a little flustered. He was quite handsome, with a golden tan and green-brown eyes that seemed to pierce straight into hers.

“Kelli.” He drew out her name, making the most of both syllables in a faint southern drawl that sent a tickle through her insides. “I’m sorry for your loss. Lil was a good boss, a good woman. She meant a lot to all of us here at the zoo. She was almost like a mother to me.”

The words hit her like a slap. Almost like a mother? How nice for them both. Kelli tried to hold her bitterness at bay, but when his eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly, she realized her lips were pressed tightly together.

“Thank you,” she managed as she extracted her hand from his grip. “And thank you for your kind words during the service. I’m sure my—mother would have appreciated them.” She turned to Mr. Lewis. “I’d like to get started going through her house. Do you have the key?”

To her surprise, Jason answered. “It’s in the office. Follow me.” He turned abruptly and strode away, not bothering to check to see if she followed.

Odd. What was he upset about? She was the one whose mother apparently mothered everyone but her own daughter. She raised her eyebrows in a silent question to the attorney, but he merely nodded for her to follow Jason’s retreating back. With a sigh, Kelli hitched her purse strap higher on her shoulder and trailed after him down the sidewalk beside a high hedge with lush pink blossoms.

Mr. Lewis fell into step beside her. “There are a couple of things we need to go over.”

“You mean her will?”

He nodded and lifted his briefcase slightly. “I have everything with me. Do you feel up to talking now, before you go to the house?”

Kelli looked sideways at him, discomfort tickling in the pit of her stomach when he didn’t meet her eye. Had Lillian left a pile of debt for her daughter to settle? A financial tangle that would take months to unravel? Well, hopefully the house would sell quickly, and at a price high enough to take care of the balance of the mortgage with enough left over to resolve the rest. There would probably be some large medical bills. Kelli’s stomach churned with an unnamed emotion. Did her mother even have medical insurance?

What kind of daughter doesn’t know things like that?

They passed a large, dome-shaped cage full of medium-size brown monkeys with long tails. One let out a loud screech that made her jump. As the sound continued and gained in volume, she clapped hands to her ears. “What in the world?”

Ahead on the path, Jason glanced backward. “Howler,” he said over his shoulder.

“No kidding.” Kelli eyed the bearded primate, whose head turned as she passed, liquid brown eyes fixed on her face. The creature watched her with human-like intensity, but the smell emanating from the exhibit—or maybe from the howlers themselves—was pure animal, and seemed to be magnified by the heat. She wrinkled her nose and breathed through her mouth until they were downwind.

The path wound through a smaller set of cages containing a variety of large, colorful birds. A macaw combed its wing with a hooked beak as they passed, and Kelli admired the way the sun turned the feathers fiery red. Now, birds like these she could handle. Just as long as she stayed away from the lions.

She suppressed a shudder.

Finally, they arrived at the office, a smallish one-story building tucked behind the ticket booth where they’d stashed her luggage when she arrived by taxi from the airport. Jason politely held open the door as she entered.

Kelli blinked in the cool interior to clear her sun-dazzled eyes. Four office desks were crowded into this room, three of them occupied. As Jason led them toward a door in the back wall, one of the girls, a blonde who Kelli vaguely recognized from the memorial service, stood and stepped in front of her.

“Hi, I’m Angela. I just want to tell you how sorry we all are.”

Kelli shook her hand. “Thank you.”

“If there’s anything we can do,” the girl’s gesture included the others in the room, “don’t hesitate to ask.”

What that would be, Kelli couldn’t imagine, but she nodded. “I appreciate that.”

The back office was barely big enough for the three of them. A cluttered desk dominated the room, with two hard plastic chairs in front of it. On one corner an engraved nameplate read Lillian Mitchell, Director. The walls were cluttered with unframed pictures of animals held in place with thumbtacks, alongside crayon drawings with notations like, “Thank you for shoing me the munkes,” and beneath a gray drawing that vaguely resembled an elephant, “Elsie is my favrit.” Kelli noticed that someone had brought her luggage in here and piled it in the corner.

Jason set the box containing Lillian’s ashes on top of a crowded bookcase. He started to round the desk toward the padded desk chair, then hesitated. With a gesture for Kelli to take that place, he waited for her to be seated before settling his large frame on a plastic chair.

Why was he being included in this conversation? Had Lillian named him in her will? Probably, because he said she’d been like a mother to him. Kelli kept a smile fixed on her lips in spite of the bitter taste on the back of her tongue. She felt entirely out of her element here, like she didn’t belong.

Which, of course, I don’t.

Mr. Lewis set his briefcase on top of a pile of papers on the surface of the desk and clicked open the latches. “As you probably know, your mother made plans to settle her estate six months ago, shortly after she was diagnosed with cancer.”

Kelli swallowed, her throat dry. The truth was, she didn’t know Lillian was ill until three days ago, when the hospital called to inform her that her mother had died. Six months? She’d found out she had cancer last January, then.

Why didn’t she tell me?

“No, I wasn’t aware of that.”

Jason’s head jerked up, his eyes narrowing into a speculative stare. Heat flared into Kelli’s face. What reason did he have to look at her with that judgmental expression? Who was this guy, anyway? Whoever he was, she didn’t like him. No matter how handsome he was, he had no right to look at her like she had done something wrong. It wasn’t her fault Lillian had chosen to keep her illness from her daughter. Kelli refused to return his gaze, but looked pointedly at Mr. Lewis.

The attorney cleared his throat and extracted a document from the case. “I’ve known Lil for more than ten years, since I was first invited to serve on the zoo’s board of directors. I’d never handled any personal business for her until she asked me to set up her trust, in which—”

“A trust?” Kelli couldn’t filter the surprise out of her voice.

“Yes. Are you familiar with the purposes of a trust?”

She nodded. “I’m an accountant, so I’m quite familiar with them. A person transfers all assets into the trust to avoid probate when he or she dies. But it’s usually only necessary if the assets exceed $500,000, or if there are minor children to be cared for.” Surely Lillian’s estate didn’t come close to that amount. And at twenty-six years old, Kelli could hardly be considered a minor.

“Usually. In this case, Lillian chose a testamentary trust so she could specify certain—” he appeared to search for a word “—conditions related to the disbursement of her estate.”

She couldn’t stop herself from glancing at Jason. The guy watched her with an intensely speculative gaze that unnerved her. She looked quickly away.

Lillian, what have you done?

With iron control, Kelli managed to keep her tone even. “Go on, please.”

Mr. Lewis handed her the thick stack of papers, held together with a large paper clip. “With the exception of a few minor bequeaths, your mother named you and Cougar Bay Zoological Park as equal beneficiaries in the trust. The zoo’s half is to be paid out immediately after her affairs have been settled, and the liquid assets will go into the fund for the new African Lion Habitat. Yours will be distributed after six months, provided the conditions of the trust are met.”

A lion habitat. Terrific. Of all the things Lillian could have done with her money, that was the one sure to cause the most agony for her only daughter. No wonder she chose not to mention it to Kelli.

She sat taller in the chair, her spine rigid. She would not react to this, not in front of strangers. Especially not in front of Jason, who sat there purposefully trying to unnerve her with his silence and his narrow-eyed stare. “And what are the conditions of the trust?”

“That you accept employment as a keeper at Cougar Bay Zoological Park for a period of six months. At the end of that time your work will be evaluated by your supervisor, the new zoo director, and if all is satisfactory, you’ll receive your half of the assets in the trust.”

A blast of laughter escaped Kelli’s mouth before she could stop it. “Me, work in a zoo? That’s ridiculous.” She leaned forward across the desk. “I don’t like animals. My mother knew that.”

Mr. Lewis had the grace to look embarrassed. He handed her a sealed envelope. “Perhaps she explained her reasons here. I was instructed to give this to you after she passed.”

Kelli took the envelope and noted her name scrawled across the front in Lillian’s handwriting. She tossed it and the trust document on the desk. There was no explanation that could possibly explain this—this outrageous condition.

“I won’t do it,” she said.

Mr. Lewis cleared his throat again. “Before you say that, you might want to know the value of Lil’s estate.”

Kelli’s head shot up. “I don’t care how much it is. There isn’t possibly enough money in that trust to make me work in a zoo.” Besides, surely Kelli would have known if Lillian was wealthy, regardless of their distant relationship.

Curiosity flickered briefly across the attorney’s face, but in the next instant he was all business. “She maintained a large life insurance policy, and she carried mortgage insurance on her home, which has risen rather dramatically in value in the fifteen years since she bought it. Plus she owned twenty-five acres adjoining the zoo on the south side.” Mr. Lewis’s voice became soft, almost apologetic. “Between those and her IRAs, the value of the trust is just over $1.4 million.”