Tori finally understands her place in the world, with help from an old friend.

Personal relationships are off the table when someone is in a situation like Tori's.

Tori's relationship with Kal gets intimate. Will she regret dating an employee?

New York was different this time. There was still a hotel and still an exhausting schedule of meetings with Mr. Kenton, but now there were bankers, accountants, trust administrators and investment advisers. Tori learned phrases she had never heard before. Asset allocation. Beneficial ownership. Voting rights. Fiduciary duty. Private equity. Commodities. Tax exposure. Every meeting seemed to introduce six new words required to understand the previous six. At first, Tori nodded

Tori finds out quickly that life is different when you have money, much to her dissatisfaction.

Tori felt like a boss. It took considerably more than three telephone calls, but within a week she had negotiated temporary use of the abandoned warehouse across from the trailer park. The arrangement wasn't quite the lease she'd imagined. The property belonged to a small holding company whose owner seemed delighted that anyone was willing to pay him for a building he'd been unable to rent commercially. Once he learned that Tori was an emancipated minor, however, the conversa

Tori had expected to remain in Sweden while her father's estate was settled. Mr. Peeters had other ideas. Within hours of Erik Muller's death, Tori was told to pack her things. There were no lengthy explanations. No reading of a will. No meeting with accountants or attorneys. Peeters simply informed her that arrangements had been made for her return to New Mexico. This time, there was no security detail. That struck Tori as strange. She had apparently needed protection when s

Once Tori agreed to meet her father, events moved much faster than they had between New Mexico and New York. Mr. Kenton's office handled everything. There were telephone calls, signatures, explanations Tori only half understood, and an emergency passport application that the firm had already begun preparing in anticipation that she might agree to travel. Because she was an emancipated minor, her situation required additional documentation, all of which the firm's staff seemed

Tori returned to the trailer to find the red light blinking on the answering machine. For a moment, she assumed it had something to do with the hospital. She had agreed to let them contact her about future medical programs, although she hadn't even completed the first one yet. Tori figured there was no harm in having a backup plan. From what she had observed, financial disaster seemed to arrive eventually for nearly everyone she knew. She still hadn't turned in the fast-food

When Tori's mother died, Tori wasn't there. She received the news from a voicemail waiting on the answering machine when she came home from school. Her mother had wanted it that way. Before leaving for hospice, she had told Tori that she didn't want her there at the end. She wanted to let go, and the sight of her daughter made her want to stay too badly. Tori played the message twice. Then she sat down on the floor. She stayed there most of the night. There was no revelation

A single mother struggles to protect her young daughter despite her impending death.