Read Online Scammed by Ron Chudley - Free Book Online Page B

house for a while. I’ve already got a lawyer working on the probate. When that comes through, I’ll get busy on the division of assets. I’m going to make a full inventory. You can let me know if you want anything, and we can sell the rest. Am I right in thinking that you don’t want to live here at the house?”
    â€œGod, no.”
    â€œMe neither. I’ll get it ready for putting on the market, then. I want everything settled properly. That’s the least I can do.” He heard his sister chuckle. “What?”
    â€œNothing,” Jill said. “It’s just—Greg, you’re such an accountant. ”
    â€œUptight, you mean?”
    â€œMaybe, but don’t think I don’t appreciate it. In the business world, you meet so many shysters. It’s just good to know that my brother isn’t one of them.”
    After a few more words, his sister bade him farewell. Greg knew he shouldn’t be bothered by her description of him: in her Walter-like manner, she was only being frank, and not, in fact, inaccurate. An accountant, after all, was what he was, not just by trade, but in his heart. After he put down the phone, he poured some more whisky and took it into the office, now completely organized. Surveying his handiwork, the sense and good order painstakingly created from the confusion he’d found there, should have given him satisfaction, but he just felt bleak.
    The sour feeling, the annoyance and dull sense of injustice that now seemed to be his constant companions, did not divert him from the task at hand. Powerless to control the past, he blocked it out by grimly concentrating on endless detail. He’d told his sister that he was going to inventory their parents’ assets, and this he was determined to do, right down to the final paintbrush and the last loonie.
    In fact, it turned out to be quite an endeavour. He went over the property from one end to the other, counting, categorizing, estimating worth. The studio took the most time. There were over two hundred paintings, and he listed them all by title, medium and size, estimating their provisional value by contacting several galleries. Much of the rest of the stuff was worthless, fodder for the Salvation Army or the dump, but he included it anyway, finding first relief and then a mild pleasure in the simple routine. Having always found solace in wrestling numbers, he discovered that this extended naturally to the organization of belongings. Granted, these were the leavings of parents whose only use for him—it seemed in meaner moments—was that he clean up their mess. But in doing this, he discovered a kind of retroactive connection, if not closeness, to those two. By the end of a week of steady labour, helped along by evening infusions of Glenfiddich, he had completed the task.
    On Monday, nine days after he’d picked up his parents’ ashes, he knew it was time to get back to town. He’d taken two weeks off work, so there were still a few days before he needed to return. But there was a lot to do, including a decision about renewing his apartment lease, a detail which recent events had pushed right out of his mind. Still, as he drove over the Malahat Range into Victoria, glimpsing from the summit the familiar vista of ocean and islands in the bright morning sun, he felt remarkably cheerful. It seemed that he was at last emerging from the protracted period of anxiety and gloom.
    By the time he reached Oak Bay Avenue, with his neat apartment block in sight, he was so revived that he found that, subconsciously, he’d already made a decision: hell, the extra money for rent wasn’t going to break him. He’d renew the lease on the new terms, and that would be one less thing to think about.
    He parked the car in his spot, entered the building from the rear and stopped off in the lobby to pick up his mail. His box wasn’t large, and he hadn’t checked it for several days