The Inheritance Part IV

by Olivia Mayfield

  Maggie gave a curt nod. She’d be angry about this later. But right now she wanted to go home, take a soaking bath and shake this off for a bit. She needed perspective. “I’m going home now,” she said. “Thank you for talking to me. If you remember anything else—”

  He nodded, suddenly looking amenable. Probably because she was going to leave him alone. “Yeah, sure, I’ll call.”

  She stood and made her way back to the door, the bitter cold wind smacking her in the face as soon as she opened it. A chill crawled across her skin, dug beneath her flesh and froze her to the marrow.

  The trip home was quiet. Maggie tried to shove out of her mind the horrible images Scott had painted of her sister’s final hours at the party. But all she could see was Cassandra’s face, her half-closed eyes, her swaying figure.

  Men touching her. Had her sister even been sober enough to consent? Maggie’s heart splintered into a thousand pieces again, and she released a sob, clenching the steering wheel.

  God, Cassandra. Was Maggie ever going to find out where she went after she left the barn? Had she met one of those guys she’d slept with, and one of them had kidnapped her? Killed her?

  Where the hell was her sister?

  ***

  “I’m so glad you called me, by the way,” David said, giving a bold smile as he raised his wineglass. “Cheers.”

  Maggie smiled in return. “Cheers.” She sipped her chardonnay.

  The wine bar was in Avon, the town right beside Bay Village, and was intimate and classy. Soft instrumental music played in the background, and the walls were covered in lush warm-toned fabrics. It was Saturday night, and David and Maggie were nestled at a small table in the back corner, away from everyone else.

  Maggie had spent the whole day holed up in her house. Unable to stop torturing herself with wondering where to find the guys who’d been with her sister. Praying with everything in her that despite how uncomfortable she felt about it, the sex had at least been consensual, the way Scott seemed to think it was.

  So this morning, she’d sent David a text, asking if he wanted to hang out tonight. He was off duty, so he’d agreed. And here they were, enjoying a cheese plate and a nice bottle of wine.

  David was great company. A perfect gentleman, handsome and kind, always ready with a smile and a lively conversation. Even as just a friend, he’d been attentive to her the whole night so far.

  But she missed Andrew like hell.

  She couldn’t get his parting words out of her mind. Couldn’t forget the sight of his face, his frustration and sorrow at her distrust of him. Every night she’d sat with her phone on her stomach, fingers itching to call him, mind screaming that she had to let him go.

  She sucked in a deep breath and shoved out thoughts of Andrew from her mind. She was here with David. He deserved the respect of her full attention.

  David had on a dark blue dress shirt and dark gray dress pants. Many of the women in the wine bar had been giving him furtive glances since they’d arrived. If this had been a real date, Maggie would probably have been jealous. As it was, she almost wanted to tell him to look around and take a chance on someone good.

  “So how come you’re not settled down?” she blurted out.

  His eyebrows rose straight up. “Where did that come from?”

  Ah, shit. That was classy. Her cheeks burned. “Sorry. I’m apparently a little too blunt when I’m drinking fine wine,” she said with an apologetic laugh.

  He gave a crooked grin. “Haven’t met the right person yet. I don’t want to settle. And you? Why are you still single?”

  She opened her mouth to reply that the same was for her, but could she honestly say that?

  He tilted his head. “So, who is he?”

  “What?”

  David chuckled, his eyes flashing with light mirth. “The man who has you all turned around.”

  “You’re so sure it’s a man,” she said coyly, trying to deflect.

  “I haven’t seen you check out any women since we’ve been together,” he countered with a smug smile. “Trust me, it’s my job to read people. And you’ve been a little blue all night.”

  Her heart sank. “I’m sorry.” God, did he think she invited him out just to dump on him or something? No, they weren’t going to be lovers, but that didn’t mean she needed to make him her confidant either.

  He laughed, reached over and patted her hand. “Hey, seriously, it’s fine. I could tell after our first date—or whatever that was—that it wouldn’t be there for us. I’m not upset about it. But if you want to talk, I’m here for you.”

  Good grief. Could he be any more perfect? He’d make someone so happy one day. But she wasn’t sure she was ready to tell all her conflicted, painful, resonant emotions about Andrew.

  “Or we can talk about something else instead,” he offered. “Like the old days. Isn’t that what high school friends do during reunions?”

  “I suppose they do,” she said with a chuckle. The tension in her back eased up a touch. “I haven’t really kept in contact with anyone since I left, to be honest.”

  They spent the next half hour talking about people they remembered, antics that had happened in their school that were near legendary. Taking the drive down memory lane made the remaining tension fade away. Like the time Cassandra, as a mere freshman, had faked a detention slip with a super-dirty name, and the principal had read it over the loudspeaker. He’d said a pretty bad cussword in response before he stopped and shut the loudspeaker off.

  Maggie’s stomach hurt from laughing. “The only reason she’d gotten busted was because the principal recognized her handwriting. She had those big, fat girly loops and she hadn’t even bothered to try to disguise them.” Their parents had grounded her for two weeks because of that stunt.

  But Cassandra had become a legend at her school, and even as a fourteen-year-old girl, everyone had wanted to hang out with her.

  “I remember when your brother was trying out for the football team,” David said, snagging an olive and popping it in his mouth. “He weighed about ten pounds soaking wet as a sophomore. And he was several inches shorter than most of the guys on the team. But he was scrappy and fought hard, tackling one of the seniors. He really wanted it, so he made it happen. I still don’t know why I tried out—it was a senior whim, I guess. I did horribly.”

  Robert was a total beanpole until he’d gotten taller and filled out his junior year. Then he’d become a real ladies’ man, and he’d earned himself quite the reputation. Being a football jock had only added to that.

  “Are you sad you didn’t get on the team?” she asked.

  “Nah. I moved on to soccer. That’s where the real men play,” he said with a wink. “Oh, I remember something right after homecoming my senior year. Me, your brother and Andrew—okay, mostly your brother—decided to drive to a country store to buy some cheap beer.”

  At the mention of Andrew’s name, she stiffened slightly.

  Of course, David noticed. One eyebrow rose, and he smirked. “Ah, so it appears there are still some old wounds there, huh?”

  He knew about how Andrew had dumped her then froze her out—everyone did. The gossip had passed among their friends, mingled with whispered spurts about Cassandra’s disappearance—for quite a while.

  She swallowed, shrugged, trying to play casual.

  His eyes turned to pity. “Or maybe not so old. I’m guessing you two have encountered each other a few times during this inheritance competition.”

  Maggie’s mind flashed to the number that had been in Andrew’s pocket. Maybe she could talk to David about it, see if she was really overreacting or if there was something fishy going on.

  “I need to talk to you,” she finally said and leaned in to lock gazes with him. “Off the record, please.”

  Chapter 24

  Maggie hadn’t realized how good confession was for the soul until she spilled her guts to David. For twenty minutes she talked on and on, getting everything out that she could, th
ough she skimped on the details of her sexual relationship with Andrew. Talking about her angst with her parents, her brother and Bethany hooking up, her concerns with the case . . . her concerns with Andrew too.

  The whole time, he stayed silent, nodding her on to keep going and paying close attention.

  When she had run out of words, she stopped to draw in a big drink of wine, giving a self-conscious laugh. “Holy crap, I can’t believe I said all of that,” she said.

  “Apparently you had a lot to get off your chest.” He grinned then waved the waitress over to bring another bottle of wine. When she left, he said, “First things first. Do you have any suspects yet on who might have broken into your room?”

  “Wouldn’t it have to be one of the other three?”

  He rubbed his chin. “Probably, unless they’re hiring outside help. Most likely they’re keeping it to themselves. Bethany is your most obvious suspect, but it could have been anyone. I think you’ve been handling this whole situation as well as you can, given what I know.”

  She shrugged. “But it hasn’t gotten me anywhere. I don’t know what to think about Andrew. Where to go from here.”

  “Have you seen any indication from him that this is about money?”

  “Not really.” Though would he actually tell her if it was?

  “Does he have any financial issues you’ve learned of? Did you have your detective dig into his background?”

  The PI had done an initial background search but nothing had cropped up. That action had made her feel a little guilty, and she’d been hesitant to pry too deeply—she hadn’t told Andrew that she’d had him researched, assuming he’d probably already done the same to the others as well. But maybe she should have her PI take another look at him—and at Bethany too, while he was at it.

  “Maggie.” His voice was gentle, and she looked up. “My job is to be suspicious of everyone for the most part. It’s hard when you don’t know who to trust. Believe me, I know. I’ve been lied to right to my face by people before, and when I’ve busted them, they just shrugged it off. They were only sorry they’d gotten caught. How did he react when you confronted him?”

  “He was upset,” she admitted. “Very upset that I didn’t trust him. He gave me an explanation for the number in his pocket.”

  “What does your gut say?”

  The waitress showed up with the new bottle of wine, refilling their glasses and walking away.

  Maggie sipped. What was her gut telling her about Andrew? Her head said to not trust him because of the money. But her heart said he was a good man, that he felt bad about how he’d hurt her when they were younger. That he’d meant it when he’d said he’d forgotten about the number. That he really wasn’t in this for the ten million . . . and that he wanted to move forward and let the past go.

  “Um-hmm,” David said knowingly, arching an eyebrow. “Your face tells me everything I need to know. You’re falling for him again. Yes, he hurt you back then when he dumped you. But don’t judge the current Andrew based on who he was back then. People do change.”

  Maggie had been clinging to this phone number thing because she was afraid of Andrew crushing her hopes, her feelings, once more. She’d never really trusted Andrew from the start, so he’d never had a fair chance of proving himself to her.

  Because despite how different he seemed now, she kept expecting him to dump her once he got what he wanted—information that would lead him to the inheritance. She hadn’t fully accepted that he’d changed the way he’d said he had. Hadn’t believed him when he’d said he’d forgotten about that phone number. Awareness blossomed in her chest.

  She pressed a hand over her mouth and stared at David. “Oh my God.”

  “You know, I was jealous of you two for a long time,” David admitted with a light laugh. “There was something between you guys in high school, something I never found with anyone myself. You guys had a spark. Chemistry. But beyond that, there was a . . . comfortable familiarity. You and Andrew belonged together. And when you broke up, Andrew walked around in a daze for a long time after that. He didn’t seem the same. Like he’d lost his best friend. No,” he corrected, “like he’d thrown away his best friend.”

  Andrew had basically said as much, had admitted his deep regret about their breakup, but hearing it from David put a different spin on the matter. He’d explained why he’d dumped her—that he’d been scared of this thing between them. But Andrew the man claimed he was different than Andrew the teen.

  “How do I trust what he says?” she asked. “How do I know he won’t hurt me or use me?”

  “Can you ever really know except to give it a try?”

  She pondered that for a moment, sipping her wine. It was the same thing Andrew had said, how someone could never fully know, but had to put faith in a person. To take a chance.

  “For what it’s worth, here’s what I think.” David snagged a cracker and scooped a big pile of goat cheese on top. “Have your PI look Andrew up again, dig a little deeper. If he finds any red flags in his background check, then stay cautious and hold your cards close. But if things check out clean . . . then maybe you need to let go of your past and take him at his word, not keep making assumptions that he could be lying to you. Because it sounds to me like you’re agonizing over not trusting him when what you really want to do is let him in.”

  “You are so smart,” she said, almost breathless. “I just . . . I don’t even know what to say.”

  He gave a wide-toothed grin. “A thank-you is fine.”

  Some tension in her chest eased up, and a genuine smile slid on her face. Yes, she’d email her guy later tonight and get him on it. And while she was at it, Albert could dig deeper into Bethany’s background too. Maybe things weren’t as dire as Maggie had thought. Maybe she could let down her walls and let Andrew in.

  If he still wanted her.

  Only one way to find out.

  “Enough about me and my woes,” Maggie said, reaching over to pat his hand, then grabbing a cracker. Suddenly she was famished. “Let’s talk about you.”

  ***

  On Sunday, Maggie strolled down Target’s women’s section, looking for a couple of T-shirts. She was getting tired of wearing the same handful of outfits around the house, over and over again. And since she’d finished the website on Friday afternoon and invoiced the client, money was coming her way soon. She could pay her bills and still have some cash for clothes.

  Her phone vibrated in her pocket. She tugged it out. A text from her PI:

  Mr. Brownstone is clean. No major debt, no bankruptcies, no liens. Nothing notable that raises a red flag for me. Will work on Ms. Pegati tmrw.

  Her heart gave a painful thud in relief. In her message to Albert, she’d agreed to pay him an extra fee if he’d run the search today. David’s words came right to mind about giving Andrew a chance. Her fingers shook as she started a new text message before she could talk herself out of it. She typed Andrew’s name into the send line and said, We need to talk please.

  Then she sent it and crammed her phone back into her jeans before she could obsess over it. Done. Now she could focus on getting a few shirts.

  After trying on half a dozen and finding a couple she really liked, she headed to the checkout lane and breezed through, paying with her card and heading to the in-store Starbucks. Her phone vibrated, and her heart began its rapid throb behind her rib cage as she moved out of line.

  It was him.

  “Hello?” she said.

  “Hey.” There was a hint of wariness in his voice. “Everything okay? What did you need to talk about?”

  She swallowed. “You busy? Maybe we can . . . talk?”

  A TV shut off in the background. “I’m at home today. Wanna come over?”

  Her heart rate picked up even more, her heart threatening to beat its way out of her chest. My God, she was nervous. She shouldn’t be, but she was. “When?”

  “Whenever you want,” he said. She couldn’t tell how he was feeling; his
voice was cool and even. “I’ll be here all day, just working on a few things around the house.”

  They hung up, and she headed right for his condo. The ride seemed to take forever—where was all this morning traffic coming from? She tugged her mock turtleneck away from her throat, letting a slip of cool air touch her skin.

  Okay, she was anxious. Afraid she’d blown it with him. And strangely afraid that she hadn’t.

  She turned into his development. The gates were open, so she drove through and pulled into his driveway. After wiping her damp palms on the thighs of her jeans, she strode to his door and gave it a firm knock.

  Stop being ridiculous, she ordered herself. Andrew was a fair person. She’d simply be honest with him about her realization and see what he had to say. If he wanted to work with her again, then good. If not . . . well, at least she gave it a try.

  The door opened, and Andrew was there, barefooted and wearing nothing but a pair of jeans that rested right below his hip bones. He gave a brief grimace when he saw her before schooling his expression. “Sorry,” he said. “I was getting ready to do some cleaning, and I didn’t want to get my shirt dirty.”

  She tore her gaze away from his slim, defined torso to focus on those ocean-blue eyes. Her mouth dried up. He was so unbelievably hot. And her mind went completely blank as she stared at him. All she wanted to do was press her body against him, feel him take her mouth.

  “Um.” She cleared her throat. “May I come in?”

  He held the door open, letting her sweep past him. Then he grabbed a light green shirt hanging over the back of the couch and tugged it on. He kept his face neutral as he studied her. “What’s going on?”

  “I . . . I’m sorry about not trusting you before,” she said, playing with her fingers in her lap. “You gave me a sensible explanation about the number, but I didn’t believe you. And that wasn’t fair. You said you were being honest. You gave me no real reason to think you’d lie about it.” She sat down on the edge of his couch and paused, stared at her hands. “You were right. My issues went beyond just the phone number. I’d told myself I was over us, that the past couldn’t hurt me anymore. But that wasn’t true. I keep feeling like if I trust you, if I let my walls down . . .”