Jodi knew exactly what she wanted to do.

Let the bastard thaw.

“Calm down,” Harry said.

He’d run after her only to find her pacing by the side of his car.

“I want him to die,” Jodi said. Apparently too loudly and with way too much venom if the wary look she got from an older couple passing by on the street was any indication. “Do you know what he did to us? How we had to live? While he-what, dreamed about his nice little fantasy where he gets to be resurrected so he can ruin someone else’s life?”

Harry opened the car door and herded her inside. She jammed the seatbelt closed, then pounded her fist on the dashboard.

Harry glared at her as he got in the driver’s seat. “Just because you’ve found out your father, the popsicle, is a tightwad, that’s-”

“Corpse. He’s a corpse who doesn’t know it yet.”

“Okay. Have it your way. He’s a corpse. That still doesn’t mean you can take it out on my car.”

Jodi took a deep breath. Harry’s Mustang Cobra was his pride and joy. Most of his bartending tips went toward his car payments.

“Sorry,” Jodi muttered.

“Besides, he’s a rich corpse. And you’re his only next of kin, right?”

She shrugged. “I guess so. Or at least I’m the only one Mr. Owens could find. But I don’t want his money. I don’t want anything to do with him.”

Harry raised an eyebrow. “Oh, honey, of course you do. Don’t be ridiculous. If you didn’t want the money, we wouldn’t have made this trip, would we?”

She picked at a hole in her jeans instead of answering. This wasn’t her best pair. It was her second-best pair, and they weren’t supposed to have holes in the legs.

Harry started up the car and pulled into traffic. Jodi sat quietly in the passenger seat trying not to think about anything at all. Couldn’t she just go back to the way things were a couple of days ago? At least then she’d been poor but not quite so angry about it. And she didn’t have such a big weight on her shoulders. No matter how angry she was at the former Mr. Andrew Sommersby, he still was her father, absent and irresponsible or not.

After a few minutes she looked out the window expecting to see familiar streets on the way back to their apartment. What she saw was an on-ramp to the interstate.

She turned toward Harry. “Where are we going?”

He glanced at her, then went back to watching the traffic.

“It’s your day off, right? Well, if you’re going to let him thaw, you might want to meet him first,” he said.

What?

“Sit back and enjoy the ride,” Harry said. “We’re going to Cryonomics.”

For a high-tech company, the Cryonomics building looked like little more than a standard warehouse with once-fancy landscaping and a snazzy front office. Jodi could see the resemblance to the lushly depicted building in the company’s brochure, but clearly impending bankruptcy had taken a toll on nonessentials. Like watering the lawn.

Or paying for staff.

One harried-looking middle-aged woman looked up from a desk piled high with paperwork when Jodi and Harry walked in the front door. Cardboard packing boxes with open lids surrounded her desk like a fort. She was in the process of shoving papers into a shredder.

“Lawyers frown on that sort of thing,” Harry said over the whine of the shredder.

“What?” The woman pushed up her glasses and turned the shredder off, then glanced at the papers in her hand. Understanding dawned on her face. “Oh, this stuff.” She waved it at them. “I don’t think we need to preserve the office football pool from 1998 for posterity. Amazing the amount of junk you collect over the years.”

She put the papers down on top of another stack on her desk. The woman looked sad, Jodi thought, like she was saying goodbye to an old friend. Jodi wondered if she was losing her job too. Probably, if the company was closing.

“Are you from the bankruptcy trustee’s office?” the woman asked. “I don’t have the final figures for you yet. The judge gave us until next month.

“No,” Jodi said. “I’m… uh…” How to say this. “I’m the daughter of one of your clients. Andrew Sommersby. Your attorney contacted me.”

The woman blinked, then she smiled. “I didn’t know Andrew had a daughter. I’m Willomina Hardy.”

“Jodi Carnahan. Rachel’s daughter.”

Willomina shook Jodi’s hand, and then Harry’s. “Excuse the mess,” she said. “You’re the first relative who’s come out to visit. Everyone else has just made arrangements through the mail, or through their lawyers.”

“Arrangements?” Jodi asked.

“For transfer of their loved ones to a new facility.” Willomina pushed at her glasses again. “That is what you’re here for, isn’t it? Have you found a new place for your father?”

Jodi shook her head. “I’m sorry, but…” She took a deep breath and started again. “I didn’t even know I had a father until two days ago.”

Willomina put a hand to her chest. The gesture seemed as old-fashioned as her name, and definitely out of place in a cryonics company. “Oh, dear,” she said. “Surely your mother told you.”

“Jodi’s mother passed away several years ago,” Harry said. “I don’t think she knew about this either.”

“Oh dear,” Willomina said again.

She stepped around the packing box fort to make her way to a file cabinet. The cabinet was locked. Willomina took a key from around her neck and unlocked it, opened the second file drawer, and took out a large file pocket.

“I’m sure your father put down your mother as next of kin,” Willomina said. She rummaged through the folder, found a slim manila file and opened it. She flipped to a page in the back, then nodded her head. “Yes, here it is. Next of kin-Rachel Carnahan. Relation… oh.” Willomina paused. “Ex-wife. How unusual.”

She spent a few more minutes looking through the file. Jodi stood next to Harry, arms wrapped around herself, and waited.

Now that she was here, Jodi was less sure about pulling the plug on her father. It was one thing to think about it miles away with anger to fuel her decision. It was something else again when faced with the reality of Willomina and her old-fashioned concern.

“Well,” Willomina finally said. “Your mother is listed not only as next of kin, but also co-beneficiary of his trust. You say she passed away?”

Jodi nodded.

“Were you appointed her executrix?” Willomina asked.

Jodi frowned. That sounded official. “I don’t understand.”

“The executrix of her estate, dear. Were you appointed executrix by the court?”

“We didn’t have anything. When she died, it was just her and me. No lawyers or courts.” Jodi felt small, like she’d felt when it first hit her she was alone in the world. “It was just us.”

“Oh, dear.”

Willomina took off her glasses. They hung off a chain around her neck, cushioned against her ample breasts.

“Well, I’m no expert at this, but I’d say your mother had quite a lot, actually, when she died. You might need to see a lawyer after all, dear.”

Another person telling her to get a lawyer. “And pay him with what?” Jodi asked, frustrated with the whole thing. “I don’t have any money!”

“That’s not exactly true.” Willomina took something else out of the file. “I can give you a copy of the trust document. Have your attorney contact us, and let us know what arrangements you’ll like made for your father.”

Jodi waited while Willomina made the copies. This was what she wanted, wasn’t it? To know?

But it wasn’t all she wanted.

“Can I see him?” Jodi asked, her voice soft, barely audible over the sound of the copier.

Willomina frowned at her. “You can’t really see him, dear. Our tanks don’t have viewing windows. We’ve always thought it was better if the family remembered their loved ones the way they were. It can be upsetting to see someone after they’ve been preserved.”

“But that’s just it. I never met him. I don’t have any memories of him.”