The Syndrome

Adrie

1. Fax release to Neuma

2. Urn—Albion—Saturday.

3. Amalgamated docs—memo to Slough.

4. Visa: limit?

She thought for a moment. What else? There was something else. And then she remembered.

5. Will.

She hadn’t really looked at it. Just the one glance in Nikki’s apartment. Enough to tell her that she was the executor.

She looked at her watch, and saw that it was 9:15. She had a meeting that afternoon with Curtis Slough to discuss some “worrisome” documents in the Amalgamated case. And the truth was, she hadn’t even finished a

She really ought to take a day off, or even two, but how could she when she had this Amalgamated thing hanging over her head? It would take too long to bring anyone else up to speed. And it was the first substantive case she’d worked on for the firm. If she let them down in the middle of discovery… well, she might as well look for a job adjudicating parking tickets.

Do it by the numbers, she told herself. Just do what you have to do, one thing at a time. And so she did.

She filled out the release for the M.E.’s office, and faxed it to the officious Ms. Neuma

So she crossed that off, too, and began to feel a little better.

Going into the bedroom, she pulled on some clothes, tugged a hairbrush through her hair, and did the sixty-second makeup (mascara—lipstick—a dab of foundation on her forehead). Then she grabbed her keys, gave Jack a pat, and rushed out the door.

Only to return an instant later for Nikki’s laptop. Because why not use it until the new one was delivered? She hated not having one. Even so… , she thought as she closed the door behind her, if she was going to take it to court, she’d do well to find a more subdued carrying case than the flaming pink Cordura number that Nikki had used.

When she got to her office, she found that Slough had left a message of his own, saying that he couldn’t do lunch after all—so how about tomorrow? That gave her an extra day to deal with the Amalgamated documents. And handle the will.

It was in the laptop’s carrying case and, as she took it out, a chord of sadness ran through her. The pathos of her sister’s death was impossible to ignore, emblazoned as it was by the ba

Wills were not something that she’d ever handled before. She would probably have to file it with the Clerk of Courts, close out her sister’s bank accounts, deal with the insurance (if there was any), and…

It occurred to her, suddenly and for the first time, that Nikki had not been broke. Her Eurotrash boyfriend (or, more accurately, his parents) had settled a sum of money on her. Half a million dollars. It must have been invested. Even in a money market account, it would have pulled in twenty-five thousand a year. So even with the apartment in Georgetown and the twice-a-week visits to her Cleveland Park shrink, it was hard to see how Nikki could have made too much of a dent in four years. It wasn’t like she ever went anywhere.

The realization that she might inherit that money, which she then could use to pay down her student loans, sent a frisson of excitement—and a feeling of shame—through her. She didn’t want Nikki’s money. That is, she did, but… She didn’t want her sister’s death to be like wi

Her eyes drifted down the page:

SECOND: I direct that any and all costs of my interment or cremation should be borne by my estate;

THIRD: I bequeath the sum of $5,000 and my dog, Jack, to the actor and doorman, Ramon Gutierrez-Navarro, knowing that he will be as kind to the pooch as he has been to me;

Adrie

FOURTH: I bequeath to my beloved half sister, Adrie

FIFTH: I direct that the remainder of my estate should be divided, in equal portions, among my sister, Adrie

Adrie

A soft knock came at the door, and Bette leaned in. “Are you all right?” she asked. “I was just—”

“I have to go out,” Adrie