Fatal Inheritance

by Sandra Orchard

  Becki set it on the hall table so she’d remember to look for its mate when she got back and, spotting a long white glove that had also tumbled from the scarf, scooped that up.

  A necklace spilled out.

  Her breath caught in her throat.

  This couldn’t be what it looked like. Becki slumped to the floor. Gran must’ve taken the necklace and earrings off while away and stored them in her gloves for safekeeping, then forgot about them.

  Except...Becki held the glove by two of its fingers and gave it a shake.

  Cuff links, a pair of earrings and a matching necklace and bracelet tumbled to the floor.

  No! Becki lifted one of the black onyx cuff links. An M was monogrammed on it in tiny diamonds. Montague. The name blazed through her mind along with the image of this very piece—the image she’d seen in the newspaper article about the jewelry theft.

  The sound of Josh’s truck door slamming cut through the air.

  Her heart hammered. She couldn’t let Josh see these before she figured out what to do. She stuffed the cuff links back into the glove, then scrambled to scoop up the other items.

  The front door burst open. “I grabbed your mail. Are you just about—”

  Becki’s gaze snapped to Josh, her fingers tightening around the fistful of stolen jewelry.

  “Are those—”

  She sprang to her feet and backed away from him. “I was going to tell you.”

  He slapped the mail onto the hall table and halved the distance between them. “Where did you find these?”

  “This can’t be what it looks like.”

  “Where did you find them?” he repeated.

  She pointed mutely to the deacon’s bench. Before she could stammer out a word, he started pulling out hats and mitts and scarves.

  “They were inside the evening glove.”

  “Where’s the other glove?”

  She scanned the pile he’d emptied from the bench, shook out the scarf. “I don’t know. Gran usually kept the gloves with her costumes in the trailer or in the cedar chest in her room.”

  Josh commandeered the single glove and jewelry and motioned her to the kitchen. He laid the items out on the table. “Why would you hesitate a second to tell me you found these?” He sounded like a father scolding a six-year-old, but apparently the question was rhetorical, because without waiting for an answer, he pulled out his cell phone and scrolled through his contact list.

  “We can’t turn them in yet,” she blurted.

  “Why on earth not? Don’t you realize what this means? Your attacker must have been after the jewelry all along and may be more desperate than ever to recover it.” He put the phone to his ear. “We turn them in. The media reports they’ve been recovered, and he’ll have no more reason to bother you.”

  “No.” She snatched away his phone and hit the power button. “If we turn them in before we figure out how they got here, the police will blame Gran and Gramps for the robbery.”

  “Bec, I’m a police officer. I can’t not turn them in!” He pried the phone from her fingers.

  Okay, she was upset and, yeah, probably being unreasonable, but... “How can you let Gran’s and Gramps’s reputations be destroyed?”

  Josh stroked his thumb across her knuckles. “I promise we’ll figure out a way to clear their names. I’ll ask the investigating officer to keep the source of the recovery quiet. Chances are no one around here would ever learn of your grandparents’ connection anyway.”

  “They’re not connected! See, even you’re talking as if they stole them.”

  “Bec, you know I don’t want to believe that, but how do you explain their being in the house?”

  “Maybe the guy who broke in planted them.”

  Josh cocked an eyebrow. “Planted them?”

  “Okay, that doesn’t make sense, but he searched the car first, right? So he must’ve put them in there, and when he couldn’t find them, he figured Gramps had taken them inside. Gramps probably found the scarf in one of the door pockets and figured Gran had just forgotten to bring it in.”

  “Sounds reasonable. I’ll suggest as much to the investigating officer, and he’ll look into it.”

  “No, he won’t. He’ll pin this on Gran and Gramps because it saves him work. It lets him close the case in a neat and tidy package.” The twitch in Josh’s jaw confirmed her fear. Budgets were stretched to the snapping point these days. If they could close a case, they would.

  “I doubt the detective will keep quiet about the source, either.” Becki twisted the necklace between her fingers. “The robbery made network news. The recovery will, too. They always sensationalize everything.”

  “We’ll make sure the truth gets reported.”

  “When? Three weeks later when the news stations have moved on to the next major story? No one will hear that Gran and Gramps have been cleared of any wrongdoing unless we prove it before we turn in the jewelry.”

  Josh shook his head. “We can’t hold on to stolen goods. I understand your fear, Bec, but it’s illegal.”

  “I don’t care!” Why did he have to be so...responsible?

  “You could go to jail. Is that the kind of legacy you want for your grandparents?”

  “Are you going to arrest me?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Then if I figure out who stole these before I turn them in, it won’t matter what they do to me.”

  “You’re being reckless. This is not some elaborate childhood scenario we’ve concocted around a campfire. These are real stolen goods. There’s a real thief out there looking for them. You have no concept of the risk you’d be taking.”

  “I am not a child!”

  He clasped her hands. “Your grandparents wouldn’t want you to put your life at risk to clear their names.”

  The tenderness of his touch, the pleading in his eyes, clutched at her heart, but she couldn’t let him change her mind. “I need to do this,” she whispered. “Don’t you see? They were the only people who ever accepted me just as I am.”

  His grip on her hands tightened, his expression pained. “Not the only ones, Bec.”

  She gave her head a violent shake and yanked her hands free. “You don’t understand.”

  “I do. I want to clear their names as much as you, but I care more about keeping you safe.”

  She surged to her feet. “I am not some bird with a broken wing that you can lock away in a cage for my own good.”

  “That’s not what I’m doing.”

  “Yes, it is. It’s what people have done to me my whole life. I’m tired of everyone else deciding what’s best for me. I’m doing this.”

  Josh caught her arm. “I can’t let you.”

  She lifted her chin defiantly. “Can’t or won’t? Because I thought you were someone I could count on.”

  After a long pause, he shook his head. “Has anyone ever told you how obstinate you are?”

  She quirked a half smile, certain the resignation in his voice meant he’d play this her way.

  “It wasn’t a compliment,” he huffed.

  “But you’ll help me?”

  “Yes, just not the way you’re asking.” He snatched a Baggie from the kitchen drawer and swept the jewelry into it.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Turning in the recovered property. I’m a police officer. That’s what police officers do.”

  For a moment, she couldn’t utter a word, just stared at him in disbelief. “If you do this, I’ll never speak to you again.”

  * * *

  “Real mature,” Josh said, as if Bec were still the kid she was behaving like. She’d used the same I’ll-never-speak-to-you-again line on him dozens of times, usually just before he tossed her into the swimming hole.


  She planted her hands on her hips. “I mean it.”

  Yeah, she used to say that, too. He never should have argued with her this long. “I’ll be back as soon as I can. Stay inside and keep the dog with you.” He turned away and forced himself to open the door and keep walking. There was no reasoning with her when she got like this.

  As he unhitched the trailer from the truck, he second-guessed his decision a dozen times. He climbed into the truck and slammed the door. He had no choice. Hopefully, by the time he returned, she’d be cooled down enough to keep the truck cab from overheating for their trip. Then they could discuss how they might go about clearing her grandparents of any suspicion.

  Not the conversation he’d hoped to have during their drive this evening.

  Her rant about being tired of everyone else deciding what was best for her roared through his mind as he sped off.

  He had a bad feeling she wouldn’t get over this as easily as being thrown into the swimming hole.

  * * *

  What was she supposed to do now?

  From the living-room window, Becki frowned at the trail of dust still swirling from Josh’s hasty departure. The man was downright infuriating.

  She snatched up the mail he’d tossed onto the table. At the sight of the insurance company’s return address on the top envelope, she sucked in a breath. Her hands shook as she slid a thumb under the flap. She unfolded the paper and her gaze stopped on the second word—regret.

  “No!” She slumped onto the bottom step.

  Bruiser rested his head in her lap and nosed her hand with an apologetic whine.

  “It’s okay, boy. You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s...” She crumpled the letter in her fist. “Why, Lord? I don’t want the money for me. I want to help my sister.”

  Bruiser retreated to the doormat.

  Becki stared up at the ceiling as if God might actually answer, but no answer came.

  After a long while, she lifted the skirt of her gown and trudged upstairs. The last thing she felt like doing now was attending the evening reception. She hung the gown back in Gran’s closet and pulled on jeans and a T-shirt.

  Her cell phone jangled.

  He changed his mind! She grabbed the phone. “I knew you wouldn’t let Gran and Gramps down.”

  “What are you talking about?” her sister asked. She sounded as if she’d been crying.

  “Sarah, what’s wrong?”

  Sarah sniffled. “I left him.”

  Clutching the phone to her ear, Becki dropped to a chair. “What happened?”

  “It doesn’t matter. I just needed to warn you.”

  “Warn me?” Becki’s thoughts whirled to the gunshots, the car accident, the bruises on her sister’s face. “Where are you? I’ll come get you.”

  “No, your house will be the first place he’ll look for me.”

  Her heart clenched at the tremor in Sarah’s voice. “Do you have money?”

  “Becki, I didn’t call to ask for money. I’m sorry I ever asked you to sell the house. You shouldn’t have to pay for my mistakes.”

  The regret in Sarah’s voice stripped away the last of Becki’s irritation with her. She’d misjudged her sister terribly. How had they drifted so far apart?

  “Maybe one day, when it’s safe,” Sarah went on quietly, “I can come back.”

  “Come now. I can’t bear to lose you, too.” Becki swallowed a sob. She’d made such a mess of everything.

  “I can’t, Becki. I just can’t. I have to get far away. Go somewhere that Rowan wouldn’t think to look for me. I’m sorry.”

  The real-estate agent’s card stared up at Becki from where she’d tossed it next to the phone all those days ago. She picked it up, set it down, picked it up again. “I’ll sell the house,” she heard herself whisper into the phone.

  “What? No, you can’t do that. You love that house. And what about Josh?”

  Crushing Winslow’s card in her hand, Becki stifled a sob.

  “What’s wrong? What did he do?”

  “He betrayed me.” Becki pressed her bunched hand to her mouth. She hadn’t meant to say that. Sarah had enough problems without getting into hers.

  “How?” Disbelief laced Sarah’s voice.

  “Oh, Sarah.” The pressure building in Becki’s chest erupted like a volcano. “There was a jewelry theft. At the last tour Gran and Gramps were on.”

  “Gran and Gramps would never be involved in anything like that.”

  Becki stuffed Winslow’s card into her pocket and swiped at the tears leaking from her eyes. “We found the jewelry here in the house, in one of Gran’s gloves in the hall bench.”

  Sarah gasped. “A glove?” she said faintly.

  “I begged Josh to help me find the real thief before he turned in the jewelry. But he refused. Gran’s and Gramps’s reputations are ruined.”

  “The police think they stole the jewelry?” Sarah’s voice cracked.

  “That’s how it looks! Josh said he’d tell the police they didn’t, but... Oh, Sarah, I know he’s a cop, and he has to do the right thing, but...”

  “Why couldn’t you come first for once?” Sarah finished softly.

  Yes. Becki traced the image of her father standing with Gran and Gramps in a photo sitting nearby. “Maybe we could’ve lured the thief to reveal himself at the car tour somehow. Now I don’t know how we’ll ever prove their innocence.”

  “I have an idea.”

  Becki’s heart leaped. “What?”

  “You’ll see! This tour starts with a reception at the Grand Hotel, right?”

  “Yes.” Becki tipped aside the curtain on the window facing Josh’s house. “We were about to leave for it when I found the jewelry.”

  “Okay, I’ll meet you at the hotel.”

  “But what about Rowan?”

  “He’ll never think to look for me there.”

  “Josh isn’t back yet.” Becki surged to her feet. After his “real mature” quip, she wasn’t all that anxious to ask for his help, but she’d eat crow a hundred times over if it would help clear their grandparents’ names.

  “All the better. Come alone.”

  “I can’t tow that monstrous trailer!”

  “Don’t bother with it. You can ride along with other drivers. It’ll be all the better for your article. Give you a chance to experience a bunch of different cars and gather the owners’ stories.”

  Her article! She’d been so concerned about clearing her grandparents’ names she’d completely forgotten about the freelance opportunity. Not that she’d need to win over the editor once she sold the house. Her heart hitched at that thought.

  Outside, gravel crunched and the purr of a car engine went silent.

  She jogged down the stairs. “He’s back.”

  “Is he coming to the house?”

  A head bobbed past the living-room window.

  Becki sucked in a breath. “It’s not Josh. It’s Neil.”

  “That’s perfect. Ask him to drive you. Didn’t you say he was a car fanatic, always going to car-club shows?”

  “Yeah, 1960s sports cars, not horseless carriages.”

  “Still, you know he’d jump at the chance to spend the weekend with you.”

  The doorbell rang, and Bruiser went ballistic.

  Her heart thudded against her rib cage. “I don’t want to give him the wrong idea,” she whispered frantically even though Neil couldn’t possibly hear her.

  “Leaving your car in the driveway will throw Rowan off my trail. Besides, might be good for Josh to see you out with someone else. Make him jealous.”

  Becki’s jaw dropped. That would be immature. “All I care about is protecting our grandparents’ reputations.”

  “Then head out now wit
h Neil, or alone. It’s getting late. If you don’t hurry, we’ll miss the reception.”

  The doorbell rang again.

  “I’ll see you in two hours.” Sarah clicked off.

  “Quiet,” Becki ordered Bruiser and grabbed his collar before pulling open the door.

  “Whoa.” Neil backed up a step.

  “It’s okay.” She released Bruiser’s collar and patted his behind. “Go on out, boy.”

  Neil stepped inside without waiting for an invitation.

  Becki pasted on a smile. “Neil, what a surprise.” She hitched her thumb over her shoulder. “I’m afraid I was heading out. I have to meet my sister for a car-tour reception.”

  His gaze traveled up from her ratty jeans to her wrinkled T-shirt and stopped on her face, probably splotchy from crying. “Like that?”

  “I was about to change.” She backed up a step, feeling oddly uneasy. She wrote it off to Sarah’s jealousy comment about Josh and drew in a deep breath. After the way Josh had ignored her pleas and walked out on her, she shouldn’t be the one feeling guilty. “Was there something you wanted?”

  Neil took in the foyer, front room and eating area in one sweeping glance. “Doesn’t look like you’ve changed the place much.”

  “No, I like it the way it is.”

  “Was the dog your grandparents’?”

  “No, he’s new.”

  Neil nodded, looking as discomfited by their stilted conversation as she felt. His gaze drifted around the room again, then settled on the hall table. “Wow, this is an impressive piece.” He picked up an earring—the stolen earring she’d found in the scarf!

  In all the rigmarole, she’d forgotten to add it to the rest. Funny that its match hadn’t turned up, either.

  “Your grandmother’s?” Neil asked, holding it out.

  “Yes,” Becki said automatically, then bit her lip at how easily the lie had slipped past.

  Neil rolled the earring between his fingers. “Looks like it could be worth a bit. You shouldn’t leave it lying around.”

  “You’re right.” She scooped it from his hand. “I’ll put it back now.” She took another step backward toward the base of the stairs, even though she knew she couldn’t go up until she got rid of Neil.