by Kelly Irvin
Her forehead wrinkled, mouth drawn down in a perplexed frown, Grace shook her head. She turned to Nina. “I don’t understand.”
“Wait, let her finish.” Nina squeezed her hand. “Let’s hear it all, then we’ll talk.”
It didn’t make sense. Texas was a community property state. Everything that belonged to Dad belonged to Grace.
“Judge Fischer knew you would have questions. He wanted to make it clear that these were his wishes and he asked that you abide by them. He assured my father that you would understand and you would do it. He mentioned you had your own income. He also reminded you of the agreement that you signed when you married.”
“That was thirty-five years ago, and it only pertained to the house—”
“Grace.” Nina rubbed her hand. “This is hard for everyone. Let’s just get through it, okay?”
Miserable. The divvying up of a man’s life. Geoffrey had been more than the sum of his stuff. He was a man, a human being. He made mistakes. Terrible mistakes.
Her parents had a prenup. An unbelievable fact. It was unheard of in that day and age, surely. And neither had been rich. Dad had been a junior partner at a law firm. He inherited some money from his parents, but not a fortune by any means. Why on earth would he want a prenuptial?
Tamera put one manicured nail on the paper in front of her as if finding her place. “To Trevor James Fischer, my only son, I leave my 2016 Prius, my book collection, my gun collection, my computers, and seventy-five thousand dollars.”
Trevor leaned forward. His skin turned bright red. His hand slammed on the table. “That’s it? That’s all? The man had assets up the wazoo and he left me a bunch of law books and guns he knows I wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole—”
“Mr. Fischer, please, if we could just get through this. I know you have questions, but I’d like to get it all out on the table first.”
Jan scooted her chair closer to Trevor and put her arm around him. “Do you really want his money? You’ve made your own life. You can be proud of that.”
Jan was a smart woman.
Trevor subsided in his chair, but his breathing came in noisy bursts. Grace started on another tissue.
“To my sister, Elizabeth Marie Fischer, I leave nothing.”
No surprise there. Still a tiny pinprick stung a place close to Nina’s heart. The if-onlys sang in her ears. If only they’d been allowed to answer those letters. If only he could forgive his sister for her weaknesses, her addiction, for running away. If only some of his wealth could’ve gone to rescuing his sister and making her whole again instead of feeding his own addiction.
If only he could recognize that he was no better than his sister.
Reconciliation. Maybe Nina could find her. Maybe.
“To my granddaughter, Brooklyn Grace Shelton, I leave a fund of three hundred thousand dollars to be held in trust for her college education. If she chooses not to attend college, the money shall be given to the San Antonio chapter of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.”
“He never gave up on trying to manage lives, did he?” Jan drank from the tall bottle of Dasani she’d brought with her. Tears rolled down her cheeks. She did nothing to stop them. “Brooklyn will go to college. She’ll make him proud.”
“To my daughters, Nina Simone Fischer and Janis Lyn Shelton, I leave the remainder of my estate, to include my family home and all my remaining assets, to be shared fifty-fifty with the proviso that one of them must live in the house at all times with my granddaughter. The house must be maintained in good standing in the King William District. Pearl Safire and Abel Martinez must continue in their employment as long as they are willing and able. In addition, Pearl and Abel each shall receive honorariums of five thousand dollars. These are my wishes, and I ask that you follow them down to the last letter. Failure to do so, and all assets will be sold, and the proceeds will go to the San Antonio chapter of the ASPCA, with the exception of the house, which would be deeded to the San Antonio Conservation Society to be maintained as a museum in perpetuity.”
Trevor lurched. His chair flew back and hit the wall with a resounding thwack. He smacked the cup of coffee. Liquid spilled in all directions. “I can’t believe he would be such a jerk to you and me, Mom.” Spittle sprayed from his open mouth. “They aren’t even really his kids. But they get it all. They get it all.”
Knocking empty chairs left and right, he slammed from the room.
Blessed silence followed.
Not really his kids. After all this time, her brother’s true feelings were revealed. Not really his kids. A true statement that hurt more than broken bones. Their father had left them that which he valued most—his family home. Not to the son who would carry on not only his bloodline, but his name.
Trevor had a right to be angry, but the audaciousness of Geoffrey Fischer’s generosity toward two little girls who’d grown up continued to astound Nina.
Or was it his way of apologizing for keeping something so monumental from them? He couldn’t forgive his sister. He never gave her children a chance to do it.
Jan laid her head on the table and sobbed.
Grace rose and trotted to her. “It’s okay, sweetie. He knew I had my own money. I didn’t need his. He also knew I intended to leave him, to divorce him. To be honest I’m relieved.”
“But surprised.” Nina sucked in a breath. Her legs weren’t working or she would go to Jan too. “You didn’t know about this, did you?”
“No, but I never wanted the family mausoleum. The truth is, I already put a deposit down on a condo in New York City. I did it right after I discovered your father’s deceit.”
“New York.”
“To be close to my agent and my publisher and to the world.”
“Are there any questions?” Her expression unperturbed by these family admissions, Tamera removed her glasses and rubbed her eyes. She looked about sixteen. “Anything I can do to help? When my father gets out of the hospital, he’ll meet with you again to go through the details.”
Grace shook her head. “Thank you for being so kind and for putting up with our histrionics.”
“It’s a difficult time. It always is.” Tamera tapped a stack of papers against the table until they were perfectly aligned. “You have my number if there’s anything we can do for you in the meantime.”
Nina smoothed her fingers over the scarred leather of her backpack purse. It held her Leica, her billfold, and the key Serena had given her. “Did my father say anything about a safe-deposit box?”
“No. A spreadsheet of his assets is attached to the will. You’ll have a complete copy of everything before you go.” Tamera stood. “I’m sorry for your loss. We’re at your disposal as you work through the legalities of the judge’s passing.”
Nina offered her thanks and waited until the lawyer left the room. “Do you know anything about a safe-deposit box?”
Grace shrugged. “Your dad didn’t talk about things like that. Why?”
“I just wondered if everything had been covered.”
“The will’s only six weeks old. You think there’s something more recent?”
“No. No, it’s nothing.”
“We should go home.” Jan blew her nose. “Sorry I got all mushy. As much as I fought with him, I still—”
“Loved him.” Grace patted her head. “He loved you both. No matter what else he did, he loved his children.”
“So why cut Trevor out?”
“Geoffrey felt the need to take care of you two. He always did. From the minute he saw you in that awful foster home in Miami. He wanted Trevor to learn to take care of himself. To stand on his own two feet.” She turned and went to the windows overlooking downtown San Antonio. The Tower of the Americas stood in the distance, a monument to far thinkers and the 1968 World’s Fair. She moved toward the door. “Maybe I’ll take him to New York with me. I think he’d like that.”
And he would never have to learn to stand on his own.
; Grace looked back. “Are you coming?”
“Jan will go with you. I’ll try to find Trevor, try to talk to him.”
But first, she would find Aaron and find out why he had stopped talking to her for no apparent reason. If it was grief, they could work their way through it together.
She needed him. She hoped he needed her too.
27
When all else failed, work. Aaron grabbed his gear and shoved through the station’s double glass doors. Sporadic fat drops of rain hit his face. Great. Nothing like shooting in a downpour. September was one of the few months when San Antonio received a decent amount of rain. He shouldn’t complain. The aquifer that fed their water supply needed refilling after a long summer. At least his assignment did not involve a funeral. He’d had his fill of shooting family members filled with agony and despair over the sudden, premature loss of a loved one.
First Nina—he was not thinking about her. Of course, that meant he could think of nothing else the entire trip to and from San Diego. And in between he thought about the frailty of Melanie’s mother, who’d fainted on the church steps after the ceremony.
This assignment was simple. Shoot a protest at the Federal Courthouse over the SB 4 sanctuary city bill. The mayor and the county commissioner’s court judge would be there. Spray the crowd. Sound bites with whomever.
“Wait for me.” Kimberly Jenkins ambled after him. She was a decent reporter with a fair eye for detail. She was also seven months pregnant, miserable, and trying not to show it.
“Sorry.” He leaned against the door with his body while she squeezed through. “Do you have an umbrella?”
She shook her head. “It’s gonna be a bad-hair day.”
Her obligatory reporter ’do frizzed on her shoulders. No amount of product could withstand South Texas humidity. “I keep a couple in the truck.”
A good place for them when a person needed to make a dash from a building to the truck.
Kimberly laughed. “Good place for them.”
At least she still had a sense of humor. His was missing in action. Kimberly had just come off the evening shift and didn’t know Melanie well. She could still laugh.
“Aaron.”
Two syllables and he would recognize that voice anywhere. He forced himself to turn. Nina strode across the parking lot toward him. No umbrella. Her face and hair damp. Her smile questioning. “Hey.”
“Why haven’t you been answering my texts? Or my calls? I thought you would call me as soon as you got in from San Diego. How did it go? How are Melanie’s parents doing?”
“As well as can be expected.” He glanced at Kimberly. She clearly expected him to introduce this person. “Can you give me a minute?” He tossed her the keys. She caught them despite the enormous watermelon belly that preceded her every move. “Thanks.”
“Sure, but we don’t have much time.” Her curious gaze went to Nina. “If it starts to rain hard, the protesters may scatter.”
“Not these folks. They’re a determined bunch.”
With a murmur of assent, she put her bag over her head to shield it from the rain and waddled toward the marked unit that sat three rows over, wedged between a Dodge Ram and a Toyota Corolla.
Aaron turned to Nina. “It was tough. Her mother ended up in the emergency room.”
“Poor thing, I feel so bad for them—”
His stomach twisted at the image of Rick’s hands all over Nina’s face and neck and arms. “I have to work.”
“I can understand that. I don’t understand you not calling or answering my texts.” Her voice went flat. She didn’t seem to notice the rain that wet her pink cheeks or soaked her thin, silky blouse. “We have to go to the bank to see what’s in that deposit box. It may tell us who had a reason to murder my father.”
“I have to work.”
“Why are you being so short with me?”
To protect his heart. To keep from saying things he couldn’t take back. To keep from exploding. “You heard Kimberly. We’re headed to a story. Miss story, lose job. That’s the way it works.”
“I thought you wanted to help me figure out who killed my dad.”
“You seem to have this under control. I figured Rick was helping you.”
The confusion on her pretty face fled. “You saw us on Wednesday, didn’t you?”
“You said you wanted me to come over.” He whirled and headed toward the truck. “My gear’s getting wet.”
“It’s not what you think.” She scampered alongside him. Her hand grabbed his arm. “Aaron, stop. He kissed me.”
“That was hard to miss.” Aaron tugged away and kept walking. “Looked to me like you kissed him back.”
“We have a lot of baggage. You know that.”
“Does baggage include letting him stick his tongue down your throat and grope you?”
“Don’t be a jerk.”
He opened the hatch and shoved his camera inside. “Me? I know I’m just your sidekick, but I don’t go around kissing all the girls.” It had been years, literally, since he’d kissed a woman. Since he fell in love with the one standing in front of him. “I thought you knew that—knew me. When I do, it means something.”
“I know that. Believe me I do. I was overwrought.” She wiped strands of hair from her face. Her eyes were bright with unshed tears. “A mess from the interview with King. From seeing Melanie’s body. I needed you.”
“But you figured you’d take Rick instead. I get that. A lawyer with a BMW.” Bitterness welled up in his voice like acid. The feelings had been simmering all weekend. Now they boiled over, engulfing him and her. “He’s a way better catch than a photographer living in a one-bedroom apartment and driving a fifteen-year-old SUV on its last leg.”
She looked as if he’d slapped her. “You know I’m not like that.” Shaking her head, she backed away. “Whatever.”
She whirled and ran to her VW Bug.
Banging his head on the 4Runner seemed the best option.
Kimberly stuck her head out the window. “We need to go. I’d like to get the story before I have this baby.”
“Coming.” He grabbed his yellow rain slicker and hustled into the driver’s seat.
“Was that Nina Fischer?”
“Yah.”
“Isn’t she a suspect in that judge’s murder?” Kimberly rubbed her stomach and winced. “Baby thinks it is. She thinks it’s a big story.”
“No. Yes. I don’t know.”
“What happened to her face?”
“It’s a long story.”
She grabbed a bottle of water from her bag and took a swig. “Baby’s thirsty.” Did all pregnant women talk like that? “Did you get an interview?”
“No.”
“Why not?” Kimberly’s eyes widened. She shook her head. “You’re dead meat if Claire finds out, or Greg. Even worse, karate-chopped dead meat.”
“She’s a friend.”
“Oh.” She giggled. Apparently baby thought that was funny. “It didn’t look like it.”
“We had a disagreement.”
“Where I come from, we call that a fight.”
Where Aaron came from, they called it jealousy. The truth of the matter smacked him between the eyes. It didn’t matter if she kissed Rick Zavala or Rick kissed her. Aaron loved Nina Fischer. Nothing would change that.
She needed him. He would settle for that any day of the week.
Because he had no choice.
* * *
Men were stupid, stupid, stupid. Of course, this could not be classified as a breaking news story. Nina slammed the car door and grabbed a tissue from the box on her front seat. She sopped the rain from her face. Just rain, nothing else. Aaron could sit on his high horse and ride off into the sunset for all she cared. A mangled sob died in her throat. She had work to do. She would solve Dad’s murder and, in the process, figure out who killed Melanie. She did not need a man to do that.
With a gargantuan sniff, she pushed the Start button and gunned her little VW�
��s engine. Dad called it a poor excuse for a car. He wanted her to drive something big and safe, not something that would crumple in the path of the Ford F-350s favored by Texans—even those who lived in the city and had no reason to drive pickups. She called it Lady Bug and it suited her fine.
She turned onto North St. Mary’s headed south. Her dad always banked at the Frost Bank downtown location closest to the King William District. The one on Houston Street was only minutes away if traffic cooperated. Which it never did, but particularly not in the rain. After months of drought, autumn seemed determined to fill up the aquifer in one month. People in South Texas did not know how to drive in the rain. Lack of practice.
The notes of “Band on the Run,” which today should be “Man on the Run,” told her Trevor was calling. She pushed the button on her steering column.
“We have to talk.”
The voice loud on Bluetooth filled the car. It was barely recognizable as her brother’s. “I’m so sorry. I know you’re disappointed.”
“I don’t give a flip about his money.”
Not true, but Nina understood the desire to believe it. She never cared about money, but Dad had made it possible for her not to care. Wanting independence and having it were two different things. She’d done her best to make it on her own. So had Trevor. But Dad had found ways to take care of her. Trevor, he’d shoved out the door as soon as possible. “You know Jan and I will do anything we can to help you. It’s a big house. Jan is deployed half the time. We’ll share.”
“I don’t want to live in his house.”
“Then what do you want?”
“I want to feel like my own father respected me. That he loved me.”
“Dad loved and respected you enough to know you could make it on your own.” The painful truth loomed large. “He obviously didn’t think Jan and I could. We needed to be taken care of. You don’t.”
“That’s one way to look at it. The other is he didn’t want to reward his worthless son by giving him something he hadn’t earned.”
“He disapproved of my photography. He disapproved of Jan’s career in the military. He fought for what he thought was best because he cared about us. He was wrong in many ways, but the fact that he loved us enough to fight for it is something not everyone gets from their parents.”
