Fatal Inheritance

by Sandra Orchard

  “You said the shots were directed toward the house.”

  She smoothed the edges of the blanket. “I was rattled from the phone calls and Tripod’s barking. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe he got winged by a hunter in the woods and then ran to the house.”

  “On the phone, you said you heard the dog barking at the house before the shot.”

  “Do you think a hunter could have misjudged the distance his bullet would travel?” Bec asked, clearly grasping for any explanation that would put some much-needed distance between her and this latest incident. Her fingers worried the edge of the blanket.

  Josh covered her hands with his to still them. “It’s not hunting season.”

  “How about a farmer? Aren’t they allowed to take down an animal that goes after their stock?”

  “Sure, but they wouldn’t be doing that on your property.” He decided against mentioning his suspicions about the abandoned car they’d found at the quarry. She was upset enough.

  By the time Josh had gleaned every detail she could remember from the afternoon, Hunter had reappeared at the door. “The cameras didn’t pick up anything, but we got a couple of numbers for those phone calls. Last one was yours. The other three came from a cell phone, but the number couldn’t be traced.”

  “A pay-as-you-go?” Criminals’ phone of choice.

  “Yeah.”

  Josh rubbed his chin. “Could they tell how long ago the phone was activated?”

  “Yesterday.”

  Bec’s face blanched.

  Josh motioned for Hunter to give them some privacy. After the door closed behind his friend, Josh touched his finger under Bec’s chin and tipped her face toward him. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

  “Someone’s going to a lot of trouble to scare me off this property.”

  Josh searched her eyes. “Do you still think it’s your sister? That she hired someone to do this?”

  “It’s the only thing that makes sense, but I just can’t believe she’d go this far. I mean...those were real bullets!”

  Josh rubbed his palms up and down her upper arms. “Tell me about Neil.”

  She croaked out a laugh. “It couldn’t be him.”

  “From where I was standing, he looked like exactly the kind of guy who’d stoop to scare tactics to get what he wanted.”

  “We’re not even dating.”

  Josh dropped his hands to his sides. “Looked to me like that wasn’t his choice.”

  Her face flushed a bright red. “He accepted my decision.”

  “On the surface maybe. But deep down, I’m thinking he figured you’d eventually come to your senses. Only, now you’ve moved outside his sphere of influence, so to speak.”

  She shook her head vehemently. “He doesn’t own a gun. At least...I can’t imagine him owning one.”

  “They’re easy enough to come by.” Josh’s hand skimmed his own holstered weapon as he tried to tamp down his irritation that she was defending the guy.

  Her chin dropped to her chest. She reached out a trembling hand and ruffled Tripod’s fur. “I can’t believe he’d...He wouldn’t shoot a dog.”

  So she conceded that he might shoot off a gun to scare her into fleeing back to the city?

  Josh pressed his lips together to stop himself from saying it. He definitely needed to do a background check on the creep.

  The more he thought about it, a guy like Neil was exactly the type who’d take an interest in a collector’s item like the 1913 Cadillac parked in the barn, too. He’d probably snuck into town ahead of Bec and planted that note in the mailbox, then got caught nosing around the barn and panicked.

  “I was thinking...” Bec pushed the hair from her face and stiffened her spine. “Whoever made those calls must have been phoning to see if the place was empty so they could come back and steal the car.”

  “If he’d called once, maybe. But three times so close together? Not likely.”

  Her gaze drifted to an old family picture on the mantel of Bec and her sister. The muscles in her jaw flexed. Then suddenly she snatched up the phone.

  “Who are you calling?”

  “Sarah.”

  “I’m not sure that’s such a—”

  Wes, the officer directing the search, poked his head around the door. “Josh, can I have a word with you outside?”

  “Be right back,” he said to Bec. He joined the other officer on the porch. “What’d you find?”

  “Two possibilities. Seems your dog’s been ripping through the neighbors’ farmyards chasing cats. One of your neighbors said it wouldn’t be the first time a farmer’s taken a potshot at a roving dog.”

  “He say which farmer?”

  “Nope, but we found these in the dirt around the house.” Wes held out his palm.

  Josh examined the small hunks of metal. “Air-rifle pellets.”

  “Yup. Looks like our shooter was a kid playing around or someone who just wanted to scare the pup off.”

  “Or Becki.”

  Wes clapped his hand closed around the pellets. “My advice is that you keep your dog tied up and you won’t have any more trouble.”

  Josh squared his jaw. “You said there were two possibilities?”

  “Yeah.” Wes glanced toward the barn. “Hunter said Miss Graw had an intruder last night messing with her grandfather’s antique car.”

  “That’s right.”

  “A few weeks back we got a call from a police officer in the Ottawa area, asking questions about Graw and his car.”

  “What kind of questions?”

  Wes hesitated, his reluctance to say etched in his face.

  “What kind of questions?” Josh repeated.

  “Like if Graw was the kind of man who could pull off a jewelry heist.”

  “A jewelry heist?” Josh almost laughed at the absurdity of the idea.

  “Seems they had some expensive pieces lifted from a museum that the antique-car club toured. A tour Graw was on. A tour he’d left two days early.”

  Josh shook his head. “You know Graw would never have been mixed up in anything like that.”

  “I know.”

  “So what did you tell the officer?”

  “That Graw was dead.”

  * * *

  “Are you nuts?” her sister screamed. “What kind of person do you think I am?”

  Becki jerked the phone away from her ear. “The kind who’d go to any lengths to ensure I sell this house so that you get a bigger piece of the pie.”

  Sarah gasped. “I’d never threaten you. Never.”

  “You threatened to go to the lawyer if I didn’t cave...and then did!”

  Josh walked in the door, his expression grim.

  “The police officer’s back. I’ve got to go. But make no mistake, if they find proof it was you, I don’t care if you are my sister, I will press charges.” Becki disconnected before Sarah could respond.

  Josh’s mouth twisted to one side. “I take it she denied any involvement.”

  “Yup.”

  “Do you believe her?”

  Becki hesitated. “I don’t know. Her horrified gasp sounded real enough.” Becki turned the phone over in her hands. “And she was home, so clearly she didn’t pull the trigger. But maybe she just couldn’t believe what her hired henchman would do. What did that officer have to say?”

  Josh glanced away, and Becki recognized the tic in his cheek. He’d had the same reaction the time her favorite kitten had been hit by the hay wagon and he didn’t want to tell her. He’d always gone above and beyond to try to protect her, even as a teenager. Given how insensitive her parents had been, Becki had always appreciated Josh’s acute regard for her feelings.

  “I’m a big girl now,” she reminded him, settin
g the phone back on the table.

  He took a seat. “It’s good news, in a way.” Leaning forward, he clasped his hands between his knees. “The shots came from an air rifle, which means they weren’t intended to do more than frighten.”

  “Me or the dog?”

  “I’m not sure.” The concern in his gaze made her heart stutter. “Wes thinks the dog. One of the neighbors said as much.”

  “But you still think it’s Neil?”

  That muscle in his cheek twitched again. “I just don’t like coincidences. Those phone calls are suspicious. I still want to check into his whereabouts. How soon did he leave here this morning?”

  “Not long after you left.”

  Becki snatched up the phone again.

  “Who are you calling?”

  “Neil’s house number. If he’s home already, then there’s no way he could be the one who fired those shots.”

  Neil picked up on the second ring.

  Becki let out a breath of relief that her former relationship hadn’t morphed into a Fatal Attraction remake. She quickly fabricated a story about feeling bad that she’d sent him off so quickly after he’d traveled so far to visit her, then thanked him again for the flowers.

  “My pleasure, Rebecca. I’ll try to make it down there again soon, and you can show me the sights.”

  Becki cringed at how he’d instantly mistaken her apology for interest. “Uh, there’s not much to do but watch the grass grow here, remember? Not your idea of a good time.”

  “Any time with you is good.”

  She swallowed a gag, which wasn’t fair. He sounded sincere...unfortunately. Becki threw Josh a desperate look, but he was absorbed in a conversation on his cell phone. “Uh, sorry, Neil, I’ve got to run. My neighbor just came to the door.”

  Neil’s snort and terse goodbye left no doubt as to his opinion of Josh.

  Good. Maybe that would stave off any more surprise visits.

  “You’re certain?” Josh clutched his phone with white-knuckled fingers, piquing Becki’s curiosity. He glanced her way and quickly ended the call.

  “Who was that?” she asked.

  “It’s not important.”

  “It sounded important.”

  He tucked his phone into his pocket. “Nothing for you to worry about. So what did Neil say?”

  “Since he was home, I didn’t want to mention what happened. Would only fuel his arguments against my moving here.”

  Josh nodded, but he looked as if he wanted to say more.

  “Maybe that officer is right about the shots.” Catching herself nervously twisting her necklace, she pressed her palms to her thighs. “I was so worked up with everything that happened yesterday and then the phone calls that I freaked. Obviously a car thief isn’t going to start shooting at the house and draw attention to himself. He’d just wait until I’m out.”

  Josh squeezed her hand. “It’s always better to call for help than regret it later. And don’t forget one of those pellets winged Tripod.”

  The dog whimpered at his name.

  Becki slipped her hand free from Josh’s reassuring grasp and stood. She couldn’t let herself start leaning on him. “I’d better finish unpacking.”

  Josh scraped his hand over his jaw. “How about I leave Tripod here with you tonight?”

  She tilted her head and squinted at him, but she couldn’t read his expression. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  “Bec, I don’t want you to worry unnecessarily.”

  “O-kay...”

  “Does Neil have call forwarding?”

  “I don’t know.” A lump balled in her throat. “Why?”

  “Because he’s not answering his door.”

  * * *

  You don’t belong here.

  Becki surged from her bed and paced the bedroom floor for the umpteenth time.

  Tripod whined at being disturbed yet again. Josh had left him with her—for company, he’d said, but more likely so the dog would bark if anyone tried to break in.

  Becki scratched his ears. “I’m sorry, boy, but your master has my stomach in knots. First he convinces me it’s got to be Neil who’s terrorizing me. Then he tells me not to worry even though Neil never showed up at his apartment tonight.”

  She inched aside the curtains and peered at the yard bathed in moonlight. Leafy shadows danced on the barn wall. It doesn’t scare you to be out the back of nowhere? With next to no neighbors? And who knows what kind of wild animals stalking those woods?

  She took a deep breath and slowly released it. Neil had just been trying to manipulate her. No one was out there.

  She wasn’t going to let Neil, or her sister, coerce her into leaving. First thing Monday morning, she’d call her old boss and tell him not to bother holding her job as Neil had suggested, and then she’d call Gramps’s lawyer to find out if Sarah had any chance of challenging the will. Relieved to have a plan of action, she crawled back into bed and mashed her pillow into a new shape.

  Something creaked.

  Her eyes flew open. The wispy white sheers fluttered at the window, looking ghostlike with the moonlight shimmering through them. Becki slanted a peek at Tripod. Still sleeping.

  She reined in her galloping heart. If the noise had been an intruder, the dog would have been alerted. Surely.

  The creak sounded again.

  Only, it was more of a whistle. The wind sneaking through the eaves?

  Fixing her gaze on the fluttering curtains, she listened more closely. How had she not noticed the peepers chirruping like a rock concert gone wild outside, punctuated by the bullfrog’s occasional owooga?

  She huffed onto her side and tried to ignore them. Then just as she’d gotten used to the “music,” the critters invited a new voice to the party—the thrumming bass strings of some other amphibian.

  “Aaaah!”

  Tripod instantly lifted his head and gave her a worried look.

  “Sorry, boy. Go back to sleep.” One of them might as well. She snapped on the bedside lamp and shimmied up to lean against the headboard.

  The phone rang.

  She tensed. This couldn’t be happening. Not again. Not at—she peered at the clock—three in the morning. What had Josh told her to do?

  She scrubbed her head, trying to clear her foggy brain.

  The phone blasted again.

  She snatched it up.

  “Bec, you okay?” Josh’s sleep-roughened voice wrapped around her heart and slowed it to an even gallop. “I saw your light come on.”

  She glanced back to the window. Through the sparse line of trees that separated her house from Josh’s, she could just make out a light.

  He sounded as if he’d just awakened, and the thought that he’d been watching her place so diligently that he’d noticed her light come on in the wee hours of the morning chased the chill that had gripped her.

  “Bec?” he repeated, concern pitching the question up an octave.

  She tried not to read more into his concern than there was. He was, after all, a police officer. Protecting people from intruders was his job. “I couldn’t sleep for the frog noises. Do you have any idea how many different sounds they make?”

  He chuckled. “And knowing your imagination, you sectioned them into orchestra parts.”

  “A rock band, actually,” she admitted, heartened that he remembered their evenings sitting around the campfire with Gran and Gramps, making up stories about the night sounds.

  Josh’s laugh eased the last of her tension. “Tripod okay?”

  “Sleeping like a baby. I’m sorry I woke you.”

  His snort suggested that he hadn’t been able to sleep, either, despite the gravelly sound of his voice. She really should let him try. No reason both of them should be
tossing all night.

  “Have you tried counting sheep?” he asked.

  “Just wolves.”

  He groaned. “We’re going to catch this guy. I promise you.” His earnestness wound around her heart the way his strong arms had protectively wrapped around her earlier. Oh, boy, she should so not be going there.

  As noble as Josh was, sentry duty was bound to get old quick. “Um, I think I’ll just read for a bit. Get my mind off...things.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yes.” Who was she kidding? She’d just traded one preoccupation for another. But thankfully, Josh took her at her word and said good-night. The last thing she wanted was for him to feel as if he had to constantly watch out for her like a big brother. She slipped the phone back onto the nightstand. “Or worse, like some rescued stray.”

  Tripod lifted his head and whimpered.

  “No offense, bud. Josh loves you. I’m sure he’ll never get tired of having you around.” Not the way her dad had forced them to give up their one and only dog after less than three weeks.

  Not wanting to remember other things Dad had quickly tired of—including her—Becki pulled one of Gran’s photo albums onto her lap. Mom and Dad had never taken pictures of them, so Becki and her sister had relished posing for the camera whenever they visited Gran and Gramps.

  Gran had written little notes beneath each one, too.

  Becki traced her finger over a picture of Gramps carrying her on his shoulders in front of the house. She couldn’t have been more than five or six. Beneath the picture Gran had written, “Our Becki says she wants to live here always, even when she’s big.”

  Not like her daddy.

  Gran would never have written the words that whispered through Becki’s thoughts, but she knew that Dad’s restlessness had always tugged at Gran’s heart. Becki had never understood why her dad had loathed Serenity so much. He was the polar opposite of Josh.

  She forced her mind away from Josh and back to her dad. He’d rarely stuck around for more than a day when they visited Gran and Gramps, leaving them time alone with Mom.

  Before long, Gran had invited her and Sarah to visit without their parents, which had suited Becki just fine. Poor Gran must have grieved all over again when Mom moved halfway across the country and stopped sending them, too, with her default “it’s for the best” excuse.