Spotless by Camilla Monk

settings, it’s probably nothing.” He sounded his usual bearish self so far, but I needed to make sure. “Dad, I’m sorry I woke you. You seem tense, is everything all right? Did anything happen?” It was a stupid question, since my dad was basically born tense, but I figured it’d get me somewhere.
    Two grunts. Bad omen. “Did Janice tell you?”
    My fingers tightened around March’s phone. “Tell me what?”
    “About the tapioca!”
    I blinked, while in the receiver, the gates of hell opened.
    “She’s having us go gluten-free! She force-fed me some goddamn rubbish tapioca pearls cake! Blocked me entirely! Haven’t been able to go to the john for two goddamn days!”
    March cocked a suspicious eyebrow at the inflamed rant rising from his phone.
    I winced. At least my father was okay. Well, badly constipated, but okay. “Dad, I have to go. I’ll call you soon!”
    “Island, wait—”
    I handed the phone back to March with a sigh. “I think it’s okay. He didn’t sound preoccupied or anything.”
    Ilan laughed. “He sounded pretty preoccupied to me!”
    “No . . . It’s just that his digestive tract got blocked by a tapioca pearls cake.”
    I looked up to see March’s eyes, wider than I had ever seen them since our first encounter. “Tapioca is excellent. There’s something wrong with your father.”
    I heard Ilan snicker some more, until he seemed to calm down. “So, back to business. Anything you can tell us about your mother’s notary?”
    Much like March, he never lost track of his targets . . . “I already told March everything I know, which amounts to basically nothing. But you said he never went to law school; is he some kind of fraud?”
    Ilan shook his head as he casually passed a semitrailer on the right, earning himself a disapproving snort from March. “Not entirely. He does oversee his clients’ assets and turns dirty money into clean wills.”
    “A notary for gangsters?”
    “Let’s not use big words!” Ilan laughed.
    Past the initial shock, a terrible sadness washed over me. Once again, I felt like I was discovering my mom. “March said my mother was some sort of spy, a thief, but it’s . . . I still can’t believe it.”
    “Didn’t your father tell you anything after she died?” Ilan asked, his voice tinged with surprise.
    I blanched. “What do you mean? He said the notary had never sent him the papers, that there was probably nothing!” The idea that my dad might have lied to me knotted my stomach.
    “To the best of my knowledge, he’s the one behind this. That woman I questioned told me she had been in charge of the rest of Léa’s assets. She said that when she contacted your father after Léa’s death, he refused to listen. He wanted nothing to do with them, even if they were technically your inheritance,” Ilan recounted. “She insisted, and he told her to let the money sleep. He never contacted her again after that.”
    My fingers were itching to grab March’s phone again and call my dad back to treat him to some rage-fueled ranting of my own. I gritted my teeth and put a lid on my rising anger. “I’m not sure I follow you . . . HSBC sent me a check. I received the remaining balance on her account plus interest.”
    March stroked his chin. “The six thousand dollars you told me about? I did find the amount a little surprising.”
    “Yes, why would that be surprising?”
    In the driver’s seat, Ilan broke into a gravelly laugh.
    “What’s so funny?” I snapped.
    “Island, your mother spent fifteen years serving the Board. Do you seriously think all she had was a little cash?”
    I looked back and forth between him and March. “I don’t understand.”
    Ilan shrugged. “I’m not gonna list everything, but I’d say you’re sitting on roughly twenty million euros. By the way, would you take an offer on that apartment in Monaco? My wife loves—”
    I cut him off abruptly. “It’s a joke, right?”
    “I don’t think so, Island,”