A Dangerous Inheritance

by Leona Karr

  Like a purple bathrobe and the contents of that small sack of clothes. Red and purple ribbons and cheap jewelry, Stacy thought, remembering the overpowering cheap perfume that pervaded the clothes.

  “She must have thrown everything away,” he said, adding bitterly. “Just like her life.”

  Stacy was at a loss about what to say to ease his heartache.

  “Very few of her possessions came to light after her death. All those things she told us about Renquist being generous with her were lies.” He clenched his fists. “I’ll find the bastard if it’s the last thing I do.”

  Stacy shivered, not only from the dank chill in the basement, but from the seething anger in his face. His total commitment to revenge chilled and frightened her. He could be the gentlest and most considerate man she’d ever met, and at other times he seemed to be consumed with total hatred.

  Hugging herself, she turned and walked back into the empty wine cellar. Why had she put herself in such a vulnerable position? What did she know about him, really? She had started up the stairs when he called to her to wait.

  Turning around, she saw that he was moving one of the wine racks and reaching behind it. A second later, he triumphantly held up a wine bottle.

  “Victory! I thought I saw a sliver of reflected light. They missed one.” Like a warrior returning with spoils, he was actually smiling.

  As they went down the hall to the large hotel kitchen, Stacy was relieved that his demeanor had changed from the smoldering one that had frightened her.

  “The bottle is only a little cold,” he said. “Do you object to warm wine?”

  “Not at all.” Her spirits lifted. “All we need is a bottle opener.” She looked around the big kitchen. “There ought to be one around here somewhere.”

  They began searching the cupboards and drawers and found a little bit of everything except a bottle opener. Stacy nearly dropped the egg beater in her hand when Josh gave a explosive, “Yahoo, look what I found.”

  She turned around and saw him standing in front of an old-fashioned, freestanding cabinet that stood alone against one wall. Its style was reminiscent of early American cabinets that were now antiques. Built with a flat tablelike surface in the center, there was a series of drawers in the bottom half and small cabinet doors opening to shelves above.

  “What?” Stacy asked, wondering why in the world he was excited about the old Hoosier-like cabinet.

  “Come see for yourself.” He grinned broadly. “I think I’ve found your uncle’s office.”

  She couldn’t believe her eyes. Every drawer and storage space in the old piece of kitchen furniture was chock-full of papers—receipts, articles, notebooks, torn magazines and correspondence. Uncle Willard had kept notes about everything from grocery lists to major decisions about the hotel property.

  “There ought to be some renovation plans in here somewhere,” Josh said optimistically, as they began to unload drawer by drawer, shelf by shelf. They placed the contents on a nearby small table that Willard must have used as a desk.

  Most of the scribbled notes were not decipherable, and a collection of ink sketches were too weird to identify.

  They’d almost emptied all of the drawers when they found a cigar box filled with pencils and paper clips and carefully wrapped in brown paper.

  Disappointed that the contents were so benign, Stacy was about to crumple up the brown wrapping in frustration when Josh grabbed her arm.

  “Hey, wait a minute.” He took the paper from her and spread it out. “Well, I’ll be damned! What do we have here?”

  Stacy’s heart stopped as she stared down at the wrinkled wrapping paper. “Is it—?”

  “Yes, sure looks like it.”

  She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. A drawing of the first floor of the hotel was complete with measurements and details. The changes her uncle had wanted were clearly labeled.

  “Why would he try to hide them?” Stacy asked.

  “Maybe he was afraid that someone might steal his plans for the hotel,” Josh said with a shrug. “Who knows what was going on in that eccentric mind of his. How many people do you know who set up an office in an old kitchen cupboard?”

  As they bent over the drawings, Willard’s plans became clear. Across the top of the paper, in boldly printed words, Stacy’s uncle had made his intentions known for the Haverly Hotel.

  The Willard Museum.

  Stacy mouthed the words aloud as if hearing them would create some suggestion of sanity. “A museum?”

  Josh studied the drawings. Willard had intended to gut the first floor of the building and turn it into a long gallery of some sort. When he pointed it out to Stacy, she reacted in total disbelief.

  “I’m committed to changing this building into a museum?”

  “It looks that way,” Josh answered.

  “A museum for what?” Her voice broke as the absolute absurdity of the situation poured over her.

  “Beats me,” he admitted. “But you don’t have to justify your uncle’s irrational decisions, Stacy. As I understand it, you just have to carry out a renovation and that fulfills the conditions of his will. Then you get your inheritance and are done with it. Right?”

  He made it sound simple, but how could she be a part of this insanity? Was any inheritance worth that? The whole project was the illusion of a twisted mind and she’d be just as crazy to spend a dollar of his money on such an empty project.

  Josh came up behind her, put his arms around her shoulders, and gently drew her back against him. “It’s going to be okay,” he said firmly, and rested his cheek against hers.

  At first, he thought she was going to pull away, exerting her usual show of independence, but slowly the stiffening of her body eased. As she relaxed against him, his thoughts took off in a dangerous direction. He wondered what it would be like to let his hands play over her tempting, supple softness, to caress her, to protect her, to carry her off to bed.

  Are you out of your mind?

  He’d always prided himself on being in complete control when it came to romantic situations. He’d been dating Marci on and off and was ready to call it quits anytime. His affairs had always been casual and of short duration, but as his arms encircled Stacy, he found himself responding to her on levels that made no sense at all. Any moron could see that what he didn’t need at the moment was to complicate a nearly impossible situation. Such sensuous mental wanderings were dangerous. And plain stupid!

  “I don’t know what to do,” Stacy said, turning around in his arms.

  “I don’t think you have a choice.” His voice was husky as he looked into her deep misty eyes accented by winged black brows. He couldn’t resist using a fingertip to smooth a wayward strand of hair framing her face. Her full lips looked all the more voluptuous because of her delicate features. If she’d lifted her head just slightly, his mouth would have found hers.

  She must have read his intentions, because she lowered her gaze and drew back slightly. “Life is always a matter of choices. And we have to live with the ones we make.”

  “Or the ones we don’t make, which is a choice in itself,” he reminded her.

  “If I stay and see this thing through, I’ll get the money, but will it be worth it?”

  “I don’t know,” he said honestly. She looked so lost, so tormented, that he was about to express his aroused feelings for her when a loud knocking jerked their eyes to the back door.

  Chester was peeking through the half window, a smirk on his face. Rob was right behind him, looking irritated and impatient.

  “I told them I wanted to have a talk before we started work,” Josh said, swearing under his breath at the inopportune interruption.

  She stepped away from him without saying anything.

  “What do I tell them? Is there going to be any work?”

  She almost gave him a flat no, but an unspoken appeal in his voice held her back. Alice and Ted had tried to persuade her not to let Josh get involved, but what if she withdr
ew his chance to locate the man responsible for his sister’s death? Would he remain tortured for the rest of his life? How could she do that to him? Even though the thought of carrying out the charade of her uncle’s will sickened her, she couldn’t bring herself to deny this sensitive man the chance to put a deep hurt to rest.

  Taking a deep breath, she nodded and said, “Yes, let’s get on with it.”

  Quickly Josh opened the back door for Chester and Rob, and he noticed with satisfaction that they were both bringing back the tools they had taken. Apparently, having a job had won out over keeping the tools, but if they expected an easy ride like the one they’d had with Willard, Josh knew they might not be sticking around very long.

  “We didn’t have a key to get in the front door,” Chester said in an accusing tone. “So we had to come around to the back and try and raise somebody.” Chester’s curious eyes darted from Josh to Stacy. “Willy didn’t seem to mind letting us have the run of the place.”

  “The back door is fine,” Josh sat briskly. “Are you two ready to start tomorrow?”

  Chester nodded but Rob’s dark eyes were fastened on the wine bottle sitting on the counter. Josh intercepted a questioning look that the older man shot at Chester.

  When Chester shrugged, Josh asked innocently, “Did you two fellows miss a bottle when you cleaned out the wine cellar?”

  “It was nearly cleaned out before us,” Chester retorted defensively. “We just took what was left.”

  “You don’t be needing to blame us for all the stuff that was carted out of here,” Rob jumped in, glowering at Josh and Stacy.

  “That’s right,” Chester snapped in agreement. “The sheriff was slow in getting the place locked up, if you get my meaning.”

  Josh’s muttering expressed the hostility between him and the sheriff.

  Stacy said quickly, “Whatever is gone, is gone. Let’s don’t make waves about it.”

  “Too late to lock the barn, right?” Chester quipped, giving her a boyish grin.

  Returning his smile, she wondered how the not-too-bright young man and the glowering heavyset Rob had happened to team up. Apparently necessity made strange bedfellows.

  Stacy began collecting her uncle’s papers, putting most of them back in the drawers, except for a couple of folders and the brown wrapping paper, which she handed to Josh. She needed to look over the files, but at the moment she just wanted to be by herself and think about the unbelievable curve she’d been thrown.

  “We’ll have this later,” she told Josh as she picked up the bottle of wine and left the kitchen.

  She had been quite aware of the mounting physical attraction between them when he was comforting her, and it was her fault for coming across as a damsel in distress. If they hadn’t been interrupted, no telling how far it would have gone. Complicating an already impossible situation was pure stupidity, she thought as she walked down the hall to the front of the building.

  Muted light came through the dirty windows, giving the floors and walls a dull gray patina. Her footsteps echoed in emptiness as she crossed the open area to the rising staircase against the far wall. She was about halfway up to the landing when an overpowering sensation of someone watching her caused a cold prickling at the back of her neck.

  She jerked around and searched the stairs and room below. Nothing had changed. There was no movement or sound to verify another’s presence. Chiding herself for letting her imagination spook her, she went on up to the landing where the stairs turned back and rose to the second floor.

  Pausing for a moment to collect herself, she looked out the large window on the landing. The last time she’d stood there, her mind had been filled with the memory of the storm and the fright she’d experienced, but today the mountain view outside was reassuring. Golden sunshine deepened the emerald green of needled pine trees and caught the quivering dance of aspen leaves shaken by the wind. The window bench invited her to sit for a spell, but her arms were full of folders and the wine bottle, so she turned away.

  She was nearly to the top of the stairs when she spied something caught at the base of a stairway spindle. As she bent over and picked up a tangle of red and purple hair ribbons, her senses bombarded her with the truth. They looked and smelled exactly like the ones that had belonged to Glenda, and the chilling recognition threatened her in some haunting, terrifying way.

  Chapter Six

  As Stacy held the ribbons, she could almost hear ghostly laughter rising and falling at her expense. Was Glenda’s tortured spirit mocking her? Stacy’s mouth was suddenly dry, and her palms sweaty. You’re dead, Glenda. Dead. Leave me alone!

  Stacy mentally shook herself as common sense asserted itself and mocked her emotional outburst. There was a logical explanation. There had to be. The ribbons could have been tangled around the post during all the trips that she and Josh had made up and down these stairs, and they’d just been too preoccupied to see them. The ribbons could have been there since Glenda had lived in the hotel, couldn’t they?

  There’d been no intense cleaning since her uncle had taken over the hotel. In that case, her logical mind questioned, why wouldn’t the ribbons be dusty instead of bright and fresh? The answer was just as logical. They must have been placed there recently.

  As recently as a few minutes ago?

  Her pulse quickened. What about the feeling she’d had of someone watching her climb the stairs? Had that been her imagination? Could someone have planted the ribbons and been waiting for her to find them?

  Why?

  None of it made sense, and that’s what frightened her. How could she cope with aberrant happenings that defied all normality?

  Hurriedly she climbed the rest of the stairs. Her hands trembled as she let herself into the apartment and locked the door behind her. Going into the kitchen, she shoved the ribbons into an empty drawer and began searching for a bottle opener. When she found one, she opened the wine and poured herself a generous amount.

  After taking several full sips, she took the glass and the wine bottle into the living room and plopped down in a chair near the outside balcony. The commitment she’d made to Josh about going ahead with the renovations weighed heavily on her. Discovering that her uncle had been using a kitchen cabinet as his office was shocking enough, but finding his plans for Willard’s Museum wrapped around a cigar box was devastating. At the moment, she wanted to forget the whole thing.

  Sipping the wine, she tried to balance the benefits and sacrifices of staying or going. As she tried to think things through, Josh’s compelling face kept getting in the way. Sometimes his brown eyes had a lonely, inward-looking darkness, but when he smiled they glowed with a soft inner light. He moved with the masculine grace of someone who had been athletic all his life, and she’d felt the commanding ripple of his muscles when he held her. Knowing that she would probably never see him again seemed to tip the scales enough that making any decision to leave seemed to be the wrong one.

  After refilling her glass twice more, all stiffness eased out of her body and she melted back in the chair. As the wine soothed her nerves like the hands of a masseuse, she was about to close her eyes and give in to the nice floating feeling when she heard a faint recognizable sound.

  She ran a hand across her eyes to clear her vision. The dining room was a little out of focus, but she knew the chandelier must be wavering again because of the tinkling, dangling crystals.

  She rose, a little unsteady on her feet. Moving closer, she squinted intently at the chandelier. Her eyes wouldn’t focus sharply and she couldn’t hear the tinkling any more.

  I’ve had too much wine.

  Deciding fresh air was what she needed, she went out on the balcony. Taking deep breaths, she struggled to calm the churning in her stomach. The surrounding mountain terrain seemed to be revolving around her as she clung dizzily to the iron railing.

  All of a sudden, a yell exploded behind her. Josh came barreling through the opened glass door and grabbed her. He roughly jerked her away f
rom the balcony and pulled her back into the living room.

  “What in the hell—?” he swore.

  “I…had…too much wine,” she stammered. “And…and I was just getting…some air.”

  He shot a glance at the half-empty wine bottle and raised an eyebrow.

  “Don’t you dare lecture me,” she snapped, horrified that he might think she was a lush.

  He spread out his hands in a gesture of innocence as he visibly relaxed. “I wouldn’t think of it. You just gave me a scare, that’s all. When I saw you leaning over that balcony railing—”

  “I know,” she said quickly. It was obvious what had shot through his mind. “I’m sorry.”

  “No harm done, thank God.”

  She dropped down in the chair again because her knees felt rubbery. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

  “Well, you did.” He picked up the wine bottle and took a deep swig of what was left.

  “I’m not a heavy drinker, but I may be before I get out of the place,” she admitted, staring into the dining room.

  “What are you looking at?” he asked, following the direction of her gaze.

  “The chandelier. I thought…I thought it was moving.”

  He chuckled. “I’m not surprised. From your flushed face and glossy eyes, I suspect the whole room was doing a little dance of its own.”

  “Don’t laugh at me,” she said. His flippant response scuttled any impulse to share with him that this wasn’t the first time she’d seen the chandelier swaying. He’d probably just think she was a closet drinker. Indignantly, she said, “I’ll show you something that’s not my imagination or the result of too much wine.”

  “And what would that be?”

  With effort she got to her feet and ignored his helping hand. With as much dignity as her queasy stomach and unsteady steps would allow, she brushed by him and led the way into the kitchen.

  “What you need is some coffee and lunch,” he said, tempted to keep a guiding hand on her arm whether she wanted it or not. “Sit down, and I’ll rustle us up something.”

  “I’m not hungry.”