Page 83 of The Five Year Lie

“Really? Are you sure?”

“Positive.” After my father died, there was a newspaper article about his estate. That’s how I learned that anyone can read a dead man’s will. And it’s also how I learned that he owned more than half of Chime Co. when he died. Fifty-nine percent, to be exact.

I grab my laptop off the coffee table and open it. “Jay Marker will be listed as the executor.”

Zain gets up to circle the coffee table and plunk himself beside me.

I’ve already googledMaine probate filings. “Okay—the documents are organized by county. Lowden is in... Androscoggin County?”

“Probably? Yeah.”

Hastily, I searchMiller, and the screen lights up with a whole page of results. I start scrolling, until Zain jabs at the screen. “Right there!” he practically yells. “Andrew Ernest Miller, died in May of 2016.”

I click, and four document links pop up.

Zain whistles as I choose a document at random. We both lean closer as a court filing resolves on the screen. “The court accepted the deceased’s personal representative in August—three months after Miller died,” Zain says. “And look—his signature.”

In a terse cursive that I definitely recognize, he’s signed:Jacob L. Marker.

Jacob.I say it a few times in my head, but it sounds like a stranger’s name.

I wonder if he thought so, too, whenever I called him Drew. Or maybe lying to everyone you meet just gets easier after a week or so.

“Jacob!”Zain repeats. “We’re going to google the shit out of that.” He laughs like a child who’s winning a scavenger hunt.

Meanwhile, my stomach clenches.

“But first... there are more documents. Click on the next one?”

Instead, I just hand him the computer.

Zain’s hands race over the trackpad. “Okay... it looks like he didn’t complete the probate process himself. He missed some deadlines during the summer he was here in Portland. And then Jacob L. Marker assigned a law firm to complete the probate process in 2017.”

I take a deep breath and ask the scariest question of all. “What is thelastdocument with Marker’s signature on it, though?”

“Uh...” He scrolls and taps, while I start to sweat. “November first, 2017.”

I exhale. That date is a couple of months after he ghosted me. But it’s still a few months before his obituary appeared in that North Carolina paper.

In other words, it doesn’t prove that he lived. And yet it doesn’t prove that he died.

I know nothing, and it might drive me insane.

Zain is still talking, oblivious to my anguish. “Look—I think I understand now how he used Miller’s social on his employment records at Chime Co.”

“How?”

“Google says that the executor of a will is the one responsiblefor reporting a death to the Social Security Administration. If he didn’t report it, they wouldn’t flag Mr. Miller’s Social Security number as deceased.”

“That makes sense,” I say. But in my head I’m repeatingJacob Markerlike a mantra.

Where are you, Jacob? What happened to you?Who are you?

“This lawyer he hired...” Zain points at the screen. “The guy is right here in Portland, Ariel. You could call him and ask for a forwarding address for Jacob Marker. See what he says.”

“No lawyer will give up his client like that,” I point out.

“True, but...” Zain thinks for a moment. “Try writing Drew a letter, and send it to his lawyer with a request to forward it. If the lawyer is still in contact with his client, he’ll have to pass it on.”