"I need to bury him properly. I don't even know if he has family left to ask."
"Let me help pay for it. I've got some saved up, and I don't mind putting it toward this."
"No. I told everyone at that hospital I was his niece. I told them I was his family. I'm going to act like it all the way to the end."
"Amara, you can barely make your own electric bill. Let me help you."
"I'll figure it out. I always figure it out."
"Okay. But I'm not leaving you to do this alone. I'll be right beside you."
"Ms. Johnson. My name is Desmond Whitmore. I believe you knew my uncle."
"Your uncle?"
"Yes. He's the reason I'm here. Walter Whitmore. Founder of the Whitmore Group, the company whose name is on half the skyline downtown. He passed yesterday morning at County General, where you were listed, curiously, as his niece."
Amara stared at him. "He was telling the truth? All of it? The towers, the company?"
"My uncle was declared mentally incompetent 20 years ago. A sick man who wandered away from his care and refused every attempt to bring him home. Whatever he told you came from a broken mind."
"He wasn't broken. I sat with him every morning. He was clearer than most people I know."
"Ms. Johnson, we're settling his estate and affairs. Did he give you anything in his final months? Documents, papers, personal writings? Anything at all?"
"He gave me his company at breakfast. Half a sandwich most days. That's what I got from him."
"You understand that withholding a dead man's property is a crime. Whatever he handed you belongs to his estate, which means it belongs to me."
"Then I guess you've got everything already."
"You lied your way into a hospital and buried yourself into a rich man's final days. Whatever you think you're holding, Ms. Johnson, it will not survive contact with my lawyers. This isn't finished."
"You did right by him, Amara. Look around. He's got people here because of you."
"Four folding chairs of people. That's what a whole life comes down to sometimes."
"It's not about the number of chairs."
"You don't know me. Otis Green. I worked with Walter years ago, back at the tower."
Amara turned. "The tower? You knew him from Whitmore?"
"Thirty years I ran maintenance in that building. Walter hired me himself, back when his name meant what it said. Then things changed up top and he just wasn't around anymore. I only heard about today because a friend of a friend mentioned his name."
"His nephew came to my house yesterday with lawyers. Ten cars of them."
"Then you listen to me. Whatever Desmond Whitmore wants from you, you don't hand it over on your front step. He didn't bring ten cars out of grief."
"Day or night. Walter was good to me when nobody had to be. I owe him more than a folding chair."
"Thank you. I mean that."
"You've been staring at that envelope since we walked in. Open it, Amara."
"To Amara Johnson. I, Walter Whitmore, being of sound mind, whatever the courts were paid to say, leave everything that is lawfully mine, that is, my shares, my holdings, my name, to the only person in 20 years who gave without asking what she'd get."
"The notebook is the proof. Every false filing, every forged signature, every account my nephew moved, written down as I learned of it. When they come, and they will come, give it to someone who remembers me. He'll know what's true."
"Someone who remembers him. The man from the funeral. The maintenance man."
"It's Amara Johnson from the service today. I'm sorry to call so late. I opened the envelope Walter left me. It's a will. He left me everything, his shares, his holdings, all of it."
"It says to give the notebook to someone who remembers him. It says, 'He'll know what's true.' I think he meant someone like you."
"You said Walter was good to you. I need you to prove it. There's a boardroom I have to walk into, and I can't do it alone."
"This is the woman. She attached herself to my sick uncle in his final months, falsified a family relationship during his hospital stay, and now produces a scrap of handwriting she calls a will."
"Ms. Johnson, you're a nursing aide with a past-due electric bill. You met a confused old man on a sidewalk and saw an opportunity. That's the whole story, isn't it?"
"You're right about one thing. I couldn't pay my electric bill, and I still bought two coffees every morning because his was black, no sugar, and he'd notice if I only brought one."
"The morning I told him I couldn't afford to come anymore, he tore his sandwich in half, his half, his only food, and made me eat. He said fair's fair. That confused old man fed me. Ask yourselves who does that."
"Touching," Desmond said. "None of it changes the legal standing of a man declared incompetent 20 years ago."
"Declared by who, Desmond? Because he wrote that part down, too."
"Most of you don't know me. Thirty years I've kept this building running. Walter Whitmore hired me the year it opened."
"This is his hand. I'd know it off a work order at 50 feet. And these names, the transfer agents, the doctors who signed the competency ruling, the dates the shares moved, they're all here."
Desmond cut in. "A janitor's opinion on handwriting is not authentication."
"Stop. Just stop. These account numbers are ours. These filings are ours."
"If even a tenth of this holds up, this board has been party to 20 years of fraud. Effective immediately, you are suspended as chief executive pending a full investigation."
"You'd take the word of a dead vagrant and a girl from a bus stop over mine?"
Otis answered before anyone else could. "That dead vagrant built this room. You just sat in it."
"Ms. Johnson, it seems we have a great deal to discuss with our new principal shareholder."
"Six months since that boardroom, and you're still doing your own filing. You know you could hire ten people for this."
"I did hire ten people. I just like knowing where everything is."
"You gave away a tower, Amara. An actual tower. And you're still in scrubs."
"I didn't give it away. I turned it into something Walter would have built if they'd let him. Housing, medical care, hot meals. People stop being invisible the minute somebody feeds them."
"And nursing school on top of it. When do you sleep?"
"After graduation."
"It's eight weeks out. I checked. Niece of the year."
"I stand by it."
"Cold one tonight," she said. "Can you take it black?"
"No sugar, if you have it plain."
"Plain is exactly what I have."
"Walter Whitmore. He waited here 20 years. Somebody finally saw him."
"For whoever needs it next."
"I kept my promise, Walter."