A Deal to Die For

by Josie Belle

  Maggie knew that hearts in St. Stanley would be breaking when these four young men grew up and went to college and that one of the hearts in question would be their mother’s. As stern as Ginger was with her boys, Maggie knew that she loved them unconditionally, and it was that love that had turned them into the fine young men they were proving to be.

  While they watched, Aaron and Dante resumed raking, while Roger and Byron were bagging, and Caleb was still up on the ladder, but he had moved down the side of the house and was almost done.

  All five men glanced up and waved, wearing matching ingratiating grins. Ginger gave them a dubious grunt before she continued on down the steps.

  As they climbed into Maggie’s Volvo, she turned to Ginger, and said, “I love your family.”

  “Me, too,” Ginger said, and she smiled.

  The ride over to the Madison estate was short. It was on the north end of town, just past the town center and on the edge of the historic district.

  The house had been built in the early eighteen hundreds. Much of its charm was inspired by Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s famous estate in central Virginia. A sprawling lawn, which boasted lush gardens in the spring, led up to the house, which was three stories of red brick with white trim and boasted a modest dome in the center. It was not quite as opulent as Jefferson’s home, but it had definitely been influenced by the former.

  “How did Buzz Madison’s family come to acquire this house?” Ginger asked.

  “It was won in a poker match,” Maggie said. “Apparently, Buzz’s great-grandfather was a bit of a gambler, and one night he found himself at the table with Clement Stuebens. Clement was so sure he had the winning hand that he put up his house, and he lost it.”

  Ginger winced. “Wonder how his wife took that?”

  “She shot him,” Maggie said.

  Chapter 12

  Maggie and Ginger parked in front of the house and climbed out of Maggie’s car. Maggie gestured to the long windows on the right side of the house.

  “Right there in the solarium,” she said. “Clement’s wife shot him and then herself. They had no heirs, so it was pretty simple for the Madisons to move in after that.”

  “I remembered there had been a suicide here,” Ginger said. “Forgot about the murder part, though.”

  She held her cake in front of her and shuddered.

  “I wonder how Bianca is doing in that house all alone?” Ginger asked.

  Maggie studied the house as it loomed above them in not the most welcoming manner. She’d only been to the Madisons’ house for Vera’s biannual parties. Vera had always hosted a holiday party and a summer party, but she’d only attended her parties for a half hour, leaving Bianca to attend to the guests. Maggie had always suspected that Vera hated hosting the parties but felt as if it was an obligation, since she was the richest woman in town, to open her doors to the commoners at least twice a year.

  “She grew up here,” Maggie said, “so, I imagine she’s used to it.”

  “Still, all those rooms for one person,” Ginger said. “It’s ridiculous.”

  “Apparently conspicuous consumption never goes out of style,” Maggie said.

  They exchanged a mystified look and shook their heads. The Good Buy Girls were all about living well with thrift. It was partly because Maggie and Ginger had both grown up poor and were very conscious of the cost of things and the difference between I need and I want. But it was more than that.

  Both Maggie and Ginger had learned that true happiness didn’t come from the size of their houses or cars, but from the family and friends they surrounded themselves with. Maggie wouldn’t trade her lifelong friendship with Ginger for a bigger house in a nicer neighborhood. She had found that having enough to get by without worry was enough to make her happy. And if she had extra, well, then, unlike Vera Madison, she didn’t consider it a chore to share with her friends and neighbors. She was happy and grateful to be able to do so.

  The large oak front doors were taller than average, and, like everything else on the estate, they were not welcoming, but felt more like their purpose was to act as a barrier.

  Maggie reached up and grabbed the antique iron door knocker. It was heavy and cold in her hands, and her fingers slipped off the rounded edge, letting the iron ball fall gracelessly against the iron panel on the door.

  She and Ginger stood quietly for a moment. Maggie wondered if Bianca was in a part of the house where she couldn’t hear them. She wondered if they should leave and come back another day, and she was about to say as much to Ginger when the door slowly opened with a soft whoosh.

  Expecting Bianca or her housekeeper, Molly, Maggie was taken aback when a woman with long, dark brown hair, which cascaded down past her shoulders in artistic waves, leaned against the doorjamb and studied them. She slowly drew on her cigarette and blew a stream of smoke out past the two of them.

  Ginger moved her cake to the side so as not to let it get polluted.

  “Can I help you?” the woman asked.

  She was a striking woman with prominent cheekbones, large blue eyes and a small nose over full lips. She wore a body-hugging red cashmere sweater with a pair of Mudd jeans and UGG boots.

  “We’re here to see Bianca,” Maggie said. “Is she in?”

  The woman gave them a pouty look. “Little sister? Yes, she’s probably here somewhere.”

  Maggie and Ginger exchanged a shocked glance.

  “Oh, didn’t you know?” the woman asked, catching their look. “I’m Courtney Madison, Bianca’s big half sister.”

  Maggie’s jaw dropped before she could stop it. Courtney laughed.

  “I know, it’s crazy, right? Poor Bianca had no idea I existed. Can you imagine?”

  “Uh…” Maggie was at a loss for words. She glanced at Ginger, who looked equally dumbstruck.

  “Oh, did you bring us cake?” the woman asked. “How thoughtful. I’d forgotten how nice small-town folk can be.”

  She took the cake from Ginger’s arms with one hand and stepped back. “Do come in. I’m sure Bianca would love to see some friendly faces.”

  Maggie stepped into the house with Ginger right behind her. The entrance to the Madison estate was an eye-popper, with an Italian marble floor, teak wainscoting and a chandelier that sparkled. Maggie always felt like she should be wearing a full-length ball gown and gloves to be allowed to enter and, of course, after having worked all day, she felt especially frumpy.

  Courtney turned toward the wide staircase that swept up the right side of the house to a balcony above, and shouted, “Hey, Bianca, you’ve got company!”

  Maggie and Ginger waited. The sound of footsteps running upstairs echoed in the oddly quiet house. Bianca appeared on the landing.

  “Molly, is it you? Are you back?” she cried. When her gaze landed on Maggie and Ginger, she gave them a weak smile. “Oh, hi.”

  “Hi, Bianca,” Ginger said.

  “We just came by to see how you’re doing,” Maggie said.

  Bianca made her way down the stairs with the swift ease of someone who knew each step from years of hurrying up and down them.

  “Thank you,” she said as she stopped beside them. She said nothing else, and they stood in awkward silence for a moment.

  “Bianca, surely Vera raised you better than this,” Courtney chastised her. “Introduce me to your friends.”

  Courtney gave her an angry glance, and when Bianca didn’t say anything, she said, “It goes like this: Courtney Madison, this is—”

  Courtney stared at her, and Bianca got the hint, and said, “Courtney, this is Maggie Gerber and Ginger Lancaster.”

  “A pleasure,” Courtney said with a smile that looked forced. “Now, I’ll just take this cake into the kitchen so you three can have a nice chat about me, shall I?”

  Maggie raised her eyebrows at Courtney’s blunt words.

  “I grew up in Manhattan,” she said. “We tend to call it like we see it.”

  She swept from the hall, leavin
g the other three women watching her. Courtney Madison had presence by the bucketful.

  “Would you like to talk in the library?” Bianca asked.

  “Sure,” Maggie said, and they followed her. Where Courtney had sashayed her way down the hall, Bianca took quick, timid steps that gave her the appearance of a sandpiper on the shore darting into and out of the waves.

  Maggie couldn’t help but notice that Bianca was the complete and total opposite of her sister. Her long, mousy hair was held back in a messy ponytail, her glasses were bent as if she’d fallen asleep while wearing them and her clothes were drab and ill fitting. If the two women were night and day; Courtney was the promise of a sultry, passionate night, and Bianca was a foggy, rainy day.

  Bianca closed the door behind them and led the way to the settee and chairs by the fireplace. The fireplace was gas, and Maggie appreciated its warmth, as the room felt chilly from the crisp November air, or perhaps it was just cold from the tragedy that seemed to blanket the house.

  “Bianca, I don’t mean to pry,” Maggie said, “but what’s happening?”

  Bianca glanced up from the fireplace where she was staring at the flames.

  “She showed up in the middle of the night last night,” she said. “I had no idea she even existed.”

  “Bianca, she could be a con artist,” Ginger said. “Maybe she heard about Vera’s death on the news and decided she’d con you into taking her in.”

  Bianca shook her head. “I called the family attorney this morning. She’s real. She has her parents’ marriage license and her birth certificate and everything.”

  “But when?” Maggie asked. She had lived her whole life in St. Stanley, and it was not a big enough town to keep a secret like Buzz Madison having been married before Vera quiet for that long.

  “Apparently, Courtney’s mother, Audra, was an actress,” Bianca said with a derisive sniff worthy of Vera. “Dad wasn’t close to his parents, and when he left to go to college at Columbia in New York, he saw Audra in an off-Broadway play and fell hard. When she became pregnant, they were married in secret.”

  “That’s some skeleton to have rattling in your closet,” Ginger said.

  “A skeleton with really great hair,” Bianca said sourly.

  Maggie had to give her that. Courtney had a fabulous head of hair.

  “Anyway, when my grandfather died, Dad wanted to move back to St. Stanley, but Audra wouldn’t hear of it. She was a city girl born and bred and had no intention of giving up her glamorous life.”

  “So he left her?” Maggie asked.

  “No, she left him. She took Courtney, who was just a baby, and moved to Los Angeles. Within months she was married to Bennett Alexander, the film producer. She raised Courtney as Courtney Madison Alexander.”

  “So, growing up, Courtney never knew—” Ginger broke off.

  “That she was Buzz Madison’s daughter? No.”

  “What does Molly have to say about this?” Maggie asked.

  “Yeah, she’s known your mother forever,” Ginger said. “If your dad had a former wife, she’d know.”

  Bianca glanced up. Her face was the picture of misery. “Courtney fired her this morning.”

  “What?” Maggie and Ginger both gasped.

  “She said she couldn’t live in the house—” Bianca abruptly broke off as the door to the library opened.

  “With one of your mama’s spies underfoot,” Courtney finished the sentence for her. “That’s right. I won’t have a domestic who was in the employ of the woman who tried to cut me out of what is rightfully mine.”

  “But Molly has worked here forever,” Maggie said. “She is a single mother with a disabled son. She needs this job.”

  Courtney studied her fingernails, assessing her manicure.

  “So not my problem,” she said. “Now, since you’ve all had a nice little catch-up, how about we get down to business?”

  “Excuse me?” Maggie asked. She was feeling a loathing well up from deep inside of her that was usually reserved only for Summer Phillips. “What sort of business would we have?”

  “You need to return my things, all of them,” Courtney said with a toss of her glorious hair. “Or I’ll have you arrested for stealing my property.”

  Chapter 13

  Ginger rose up out of her chair with her fists clenched. “You want to repeat that?”

  “I don’t think that’s necessary,” Courtney said. “Maggie—it is Maggie, right?—yes, well, Maggie knows she made off with Madison property, and I expect it to be returned by the end of the day tomorrow, or I’ll call the sheriff.”

  “That should be an amusing phone call, since it was the sheriff who asked me to hold on to Bianca’s things for her.” Maggie rose to stand beside Ginger.

  Courtney gave her a closed-mouth smile that chilled the marrow in Maggie’s bones.

  “Make no mistake,” Courtney said, “now that I know who I am and what I’m entitled to, I’m staking my claim, and there is nothing you or anyone else can do to make me go away.”

  She sent a hateful glance at her sister and turned to leave. She paused at the door and looked back over her shoulder. “Oh, and I’ve changed my mind. You have until tomorrow morning or I’ll call the authorities.”

  She slammed the door, and it shook in its frame with the force of her departure.

  Bianca burst into tears, and Maggie really couldn’t blame her. First, she lost her mother, and now she had the half sister from hell showing up to lay claim to all of her inheritance. It had to be a nightmare for the quiet-natured woman.

  Ginger and Maggie flanked Bianca. Ginger handed her a tissue out of her purse while Maggie gently patted her back.

  “It’s going to be okay,” Maggie said. “Really.”

  Bianca sobbed harder, and Ginger gave Maggie a worried glance. Maggie shrugged. She knew she was offering hollow platitudes, but really, what else did she have? This was a disaster of sinking-cruise-ship proportions.

  “Now, listen,” Ginger said. She was using her professional-accountant’s voice. “Right now, Courtney is all talk. She’s trying to take the offensive and scare the baloney out of you.”

  Bianca stopped sobbing and gave a healthy blow into the tissue. “Well, it’s working. I feel like I’m going to be motherless and homeless in a matter of days.”

  “Nonsense,” Maggie said. “We’re not about to let that happen.”

  “How can you stop her?” Bianca whispered. “She’s like her own personal wrecking ball.”

  “Well, the first thing we need to do is get Molly Spencer back,” Ginger said. “I’m pretty sure you can muscle Courtney into taking her back or else she’ll face Molly’s lawsuit for wrongful termination.”

  Bianca’s face lit up. “Oh, that would make me feel so much better, and Molly needs to be here. She needs this job to pay for Jimmy’s therapy.”

  “See?” Ginger said. “This is all manageable. We just have to handle what comes one step at a time.”

  “Thank you,” Bianca said. She wasn’t a huggy type of person but she wrapped an arm around Maggie and one around Ginger and squeezed them tight.

  Maggie and Ginger hugged her back and rose to go.

  “I’ll let you know as soon as I’ve spoken to Molly,” Maggie said. “Don’t let Courtney intimidate you. You grew up here. This is more your home than hers. Don’t forget it.”

  “I won’t,” Bianca said. She waved to them as they left through the front door and walked to Maggie’s car. Maggie couldn’t help but notice that, like Alice Franklin, Bianca Madison looked as if she, too, had been diminished by the events of the past few days.

  “Well, how do you like that?” Ginger asked as they headed down the drive. “Buzz Madison married before Vera? I never would have guessed.”

  “I can’t believe no one knew,” Maggie said. “My mother, your mother, Mrs. Shoemaker, who lives down the street from me…one of them had to have known. Don’t you think?”

  “If they did, they certainl
y kept it a secret.”

  “I still think the best bet is Molly. If Vera told anyone, it was Molly,” Ginger said. “Shall we head over there?”

  “Why not?” Maggie asked. “She’s got to be completely freaked out, thinking she’s lost her job.”

  Maggie turned out of the Madison estate drive and onto the road that would lead them down to the bungalows that surrounded the old wire factory. It was mostly an artists’ community now, and Molly lived on the same cul-de-sac as Claire. The houses were small but well made, and the neighborhood was quiet and safe.

  “I hope we can convince her to go back,” Ginger said. “She may be afraid to work for Bianca if Courtney Madison is going to be there making her life difficult.”

  “Oh, we will,” Maggie said. “I’ll have Max draw up some papers full of scary legalese that will make Courtney’s big brunette head go gray.”

  Ginger chuckled.

  “What?” Maggie asked.

  “Nothing,” Ginger said. “I’m just glad I’m your friend and not your foe. You are one tough cookie.”

  Maggie smiled. “It takes one to know one. I thought you were going to pop her when she accused me of stealing.”

  “It was very tempting,” Ginger said. “I do not take kindly to people trash-talking my friends.”

  Molly’s bungalow was at the end of the cul-de-sac. Maggie parked on the street, and together the women made their way up to the front door.

  The compact house was tidy but showed small signs of neglect, as if the people who lived there didn’t have the time or resources to touch up the paint that was beginning to peel or trim the hedges that had begun to sprout out random leaves in a show of going wild.

  Maggie knocked softly on the storm door, not wanting to disturb Molly’s son, as she knew he was sensitive to noise.