The Bequest

by Nancy Boyarsky

  Reading this, Nicole could see the tabloid had reached the bottom of the barrel. She couldn’t imagine how they could keep the story alive much longer without a new development. After breakfast, Josh disappeared into his study. Then, at 10:30, he went upstairs to change clothes for his meeting. A short time later he reappeared, looking handsome in khakis, a yellow polo shirt, and a black sports coat. He went into his study and reappeared, carrying a zippered leather folder with his proposal inside. He kissed Nicole goodbye and said he’d be home by 1:00 or 1:30 p.m. “Whatever you do,” he said, “don’t answer the door or the phone.” Then he added, “If I need to call you, I’ll let it ring three times, then hang up and call again. Then you pick up.”

  She made tuna salad for their lunch and put it in the refrigerator. That done, she poured herself some coffee, found the book she was reading, and settled down on the living room couch. For privacy, they’d been keeping the blinds closed night and day, and she had to turn on a lamp to read.

  It was 12:30 when the doorbell rang. She got up, thinking it must be Josh, finished early with his meeting. Then she realized that he wouldn’t be ringing the doorbell. He had a key, and he’d told her not to answer the door. She sat down again, feeling a little shaky. This wasn’t about her, she told herself. It was probably a realtor or a FexEx delivery. Nobody knew she was here.

  The bell rang several more times, there was a loud knock, and a few moments later a familiar voice called, “Nicole!” She immediately dropped her book and hurried to the door to look through the peephole.

  It was Reinhardt. When she opened the door, his face lit up with a smile. Speechless, she took a step back.

  His smile faded, and he regarded her uncertainly. “I think we need to talk,” he said.

  She finally found her voice. “I guess we do.”

  She invited him to sit on the couch. Once he was seated, she settled at the other end. “First of all,” she said, “how did you find me?”

  “When I arrived from London, I contacted your sister. She invited me to her apartment so we could talk. While I was there, you called, so of course I overheard. She tried to tell you I was there, but you hung up.

  “I told her I thought I could help you,” he went on, “and we tried to figure out where you might be. That was when she told me about your,” he hesitated, then said, “friend Jude—”

  “Josh,” she corrected.

  “Right, Josh. She said he was an architect in this area, and she had his phone number. With that information, I didn’t have any trouble finding him.”

  “Oh, no,” Nicole said. Her mouth had gone dry, and it was hard for her to form the words. “She didn’t tell that to the police, did she?”

  “She didn’t tell them anything. She called them when you first disappeared—several times. The detective working the case said he’d get back to her. But he never did. Quite a police force you have here. I believe I’m the only one who knows where you are.”

  He looked around the room and then back at her. “Am I right in assuming that you and this Josh chap are more than just friends?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Good god, Nicole. I thought—I mean, I assumed that we—How long have you known him, anyway? Just a few weeks, I gather, from what Stephanie told me.”

  “She didn’t have any business telling you anything. I was going to tell you—if you ever turned up.”

  “Yes,” he said. “I truly apologize about London. My work—well, what I was doing at the time made it impossible for me to contact you. But here I am. The British tabloids picked up the story about Blair’s murder, and I could see you were in trouble. As soon as I could extricate myself, I came.”

  She heard the sound of a key in the lock, and Josh walked in. He froze when he saw Reinhardt. Both Reinhardt and Nicole stood up.

  “Um,” she said, “I guess I should introduce you. Josh, this is Ronald Reinhardt. Ronald, this is Josh Mulhern.” She could feel herself flush. She watched them regard each other with open dislike. Reinhardt was, of course, more classically handsome. But Josh was just as good looking in a less conventional way. He was the taller of the two and more athletically built. He was also a decade younger than Reinhardt, who would turn forty on his next birthday.

  Nicole shivered slightly. It was almost surreal seeing them together like this—comparing them, knowing she’d already chosen one over the other.

  At last Reinhardt broke the silence, addressing Josh, “Pardon me for the intrusion.” His voice was chilly, and he was wearing the same expression he had when Nicole first met him. He’d been a police inspector at the time, working a case that involved the people Nicole and her husband had swapped houses with. At that first meeting, Nicole recalled, Reinhardt had seemed sinister. She had, in fact, been afraid of him.

  “Nicole and I need to talk,” Reinhardt was saying, “and, given the issue of her safety, I can’t very well take her out. I wonder if you’d mind leaving us alone for a bit.” He looked at his watch. “An hour perhaps? We have some matters to discuss.”

  Nicole was mildly surprised to see that he’d put on his cop persona, making the conversation they were about to have sound like police business.

  Instead of answering Reinhardt, Josh turned to Nicole. “You sure you want to be alone with this guy?”

  Nicole stifled a nervous giggle. She knew Reinhardt would take exception to the idea that she might not be safe with him. And he certainly wouldn’t like being referred to as “this guy.”

  “I have to talk to him, Josh,” she said. “You know I do. He’s come all this way.”

  “Fine,” Josh said. “I’ll go back to the office. I have some work to do. I’ll be back in—well, you have my number.” He paused and gave Reinhardt an unfriendly look, then glanced back to Nicole. “Give me a call when you want me to come back.”

  He picked up his leather folder and jacket, which he’d tossed on a chair. Then he walked over to plant a kiss on the top of Nicole’s head.

  As Josh turned to go, Reinhardt moved toward him and put out his hand. Reluctantly, Josh put out his own, and they briefly shook hands.

  “Pleased to meet you,” Reinhardt said.

  “Yeah, right.” Josh didn’t bother to disguise the sarcasm in his voice. Opening the door, he gave Nicole an unhappy glance.

  When Josh was gone, and they’d settled back on the couch, Reinhardt turned to her and said, “Why, he’s just a boy. How old is he?”

  “He’s four years younger than I am,” Nicole said. “What’s your point?”

  Reinhardt shook his head, as if to dispel the thought. “Where were we?” he said. “Oh, yes. I was explaining why I didn’t meet you in London and couldn’t contact you.”

  “You didn’t really explain anything, but it’s not important,” Nicole said. “Well, maybe it is. It gave me a clear view of what our future would be. You know, we really did have something. The time I’ve spent with you was wonderful. And I still have feelings for you. I do. Up until the last few weeks, I thought we could just keep on seeing each other every month or so, and that would be enough. Now I realize it’s not.

  “You told me when we first met that someone in your line of work made poor marriage material. Now this new position you’ve taken—whatever that is—makes any relationship impossible. I can’t live with that kind of uncertainty. I’m thirty-four, Ronald, and I want children and a stable home life. I’m not ever going to have it with a spy who lives half the world away.”

  “I could change that,” he said.

  “You’d resent it; you’d come to resent me.”

  “No, no,” he said. “I’ve already made inquiries. I could take a job at the British Embassy. Right here in the States, in New York. Or at the British Consulate in L.A., if you’d prefer.”

  “Are you saying you’d give up being a spy?”

  He looked at her for a long moment. “I never said I was a spy,” he said carefully. Then he cleared his throat and went on, “If I took a position with an
embassy or consulate, some of my duties would involve travel, sometimes at short notice.”

  “You see?” she said. “That’s exactly what I’m talking about. Maybe you can’t tell me what you do, but can you answer a hypothetical question? Suppose someone is a spy with, say, MI6. And suppose he moves in with a woman or marries her. Would he ever admit to her that he’s a spy?”

  “They—I mean, I’ve heard that anyone who signs up for this type of work agrees not to tell anyone, friends or family.”

  “That’s what I thought,” she said. “But your work isn’t the only reason I’m breaking things off. I’ve met Josh. It’s too soon to be sure, but I think I’m falling in love with him. I feel close to him in a way I never felt with you. There’s a part of you that is very closed off, Ronald. Maybe it’s the spy thing.”

  “I wish you’d stop saying that.” Now he sounded annoyed. “I’m not a spy.”

  “Right,” she said. “But if you were, you wouldn’t tell me, would you?” She smiled at him.

  “No, I wouldn’t.” He didn’t return her smile. “But I’m not.”

  “Well, I guess that about sums it up,” she said.

  She started to get up. But he said, “Wait. You haven’t told me why you’re hiding like this. What makes you think you’re in danger?”

  She told him the whole story, then, at his request, took him into the study, where she plugged Robert’s flash drives, one at a time, into Josh’s computer.

  Reinhardt looked the files over and asked a lot of questions. Then he said, “I agree that you can’t go to the police with this, given the police chief ’s relationship with Blair and Pizer. What are you going to do?”

  She told him her plan to go to the papers.

  “Well, that has its own risks,” he said. “You don’t know this reporter or who he’s allied with. You don’t know what he’s going to do with the information you’ll give him, or even if he’ll write a story. Nor do you know the editors who would be working with him. Something could leak out that would help these people figure out where you are.

  “But,” he went on, “I have to admit that this may be your best option. Perhaps I can help. I do have contacts with people who have some knowledge of your police department. I’m pretty sure they’ll know what your police chief has been up to. It might be to their benefit to have him exposed without their direct involvement. If a reporter is willing to write an article, why don’t you give him my number? I’ll be around for a couple of weeks.”

  He paused to look at her. “I wasn’t planning to spend my holiday alone, but I might as well see the sights here. And if you need my help, all you have to do is call.” He pulled out a card and wrote his latest cell number on the back of it, then handed it to her.

  “How are you going to handle the meeting with this reporter?” he added. “Of course you can’t meet him here.”

  “I’ll meet him somewhere out in the boondocks,” Nicole said lightly. “And make sure no one follows me.”

  “Good.” He looked at her for a long moment. “This certainly isn’t the reception I expected. But I do understand. I’m going to miss you, Nicole.”

  He pulled her into a hug, kissed the top of her head, and held her against him. She realized, to her surprise, that he was trembling. “Truthfully,” he said. “I can’t say I blame you. I’m terrible at long-term relationships.” He relaxed the hug and held her by the shoulders, giving her a long look. “And marriage?” He shook his head. “But I do wish you well. You and Jude.”

  “Josh,” she said, laughing.

  For the first time, he laughed, too. “Josh,” he repeated. “You and Josh.”

  As soon as he was gone, she called Josh and told him the coast was clear. He could come home.

  Nineteen

  Nicole checked her email again. This time there was a message. “Willing to meet,” Greg Albee wrote. “Tell me where and when. Also, can you let me know if I’m actually going to interview Nicole Graves at that time?”

  She was thinking about where they should meet. It had to be in a completely different part of town, not the valley, not anywhere near Josh’s house. She remembered, suddenly, a restaurant in Arcadia, east of the city. Her parents used to take Stephanie and her there as a special treat when they were kids. The Derby was a throwback to another era, with dark wood paneling and red-leather upholstered booths. She remembered its decor had a racetrack theme, and the place wasn’t far from the Santa Anita racetrack. She hadn’t thought of it in years.

  On her iPad, Nicole did a search for the Derby and found several reviews. Not only was it still in business, it was getting good ratings. She was pleased. Some things in L.A. did endure, despite what people said. She messaged Albee back, but told him nothing about whether he’d get the interview or if this was just a preliminary meeting to schedule it. He’d have to wait and see. All she said was, “Meet me at the Derby restaurant near Santa Anita at 11:30 a.m. tomorrow. Please confirm that you received this message and will be there.”

  Just then she heard the front door open. She sent off the message, then rushed into the living room to meet Josh.

  “He’s gone?” Josh said.

  “Gone,” she said.

  “Holy shit,” Josh said, pulling her into a hug. “That was one scary guy. Did you say he’s a cop?”

  “I don’t remember telling you anything about him,” she said.

  “Well,” he said, “I was kind of avoiding the subject, hoping it would go away. What does he do for a living?”

  “He was a police inspector with Scotland Yard when I first met him,” she said. “But he changed jobs and wouldn’t tell me what he’s doing.”

  “Those cold eyes,” he said. “I just can’t picture you with him.”

  “It takes a while to get to know him. There’s the chilly hit-man person you saw. Then he morphs into proper British politeness that makes your skin crawl. But when you really get to know him, he’s—”

  Josh let go of her to put his hands over his ears. “Stop!” he said. “I want to forget about him. I want you to forget about him.”

  She laughed. “Oh, I heard from the Times reporter,” she said. “I told him to meet us at 11:30 tomorrow at the Derby. It’s near the Santa Anita racetrack. Does that work for you?”

  “Sure,” he said. “But couldn’t it be a little closer? Santa Anita is a long drive.”

  “That’s the idea. We don’t want him to know where I’m staying. We have to meet in a completely different part of the city.

  “You’re right,” he said, then added, “Guess what? I’m taking the rest of the day off. We can loaf around and do nothing.”

  It was already 2:00 p.m. and neither of them had eaten lunch. While Josh changed, Nicole pulled the tuna salad out of the refrigerator and made sandwiches. He reappeared in shorts and a T-shirt and set the table.

  After lunch, they spent a lazy afternoon. Both were worn out—Josh from working most of the night, and Nicole from her encounter with Reinhardt. They watched a movie on TV, made love, then watched another movie. Josh, she noticed, seemed to need to be fed every couple of hours. At one point, he got up and made popcorn, drenched it with melted butter and brought it into the living room in two heaping bowls. Later, he warmed some chocolate chip cookies, topped them with vanilla ice cream and gave the larger serving to her.

  “You’re going to make me fat,” she said

  “I’m building you up,” he said. “You lost weight while you were gone. Do you know that?”

  “No surprise,” she said. “Those kidnappers were terrible cooks. And food was the last thing on my mind.”

  Around 8:00 p.m., too lazy to make dinner, they sent out for pizza. When it arrived, they ate in the dining room and made plans for the next day.

  Nicole, who’d thought out what preparations were needed, explained them to Josh. She’d already copied Robert’s files from the flash drives onto Josh’s computer, since she’d be giving the originals to Albee. In the morning, they’d need to
buy a disposable phone for Albee, so she could communicate with him without being traced. And, finally, she asked Josh to rent a car for the drive to the Derby. She didn’t want him to take his own car, she explained, in case the reporter or someone else tried to trace his license plates.

  “I’ll pay for everything,” she said. “The firm gave me quite a bit of cash when they made me take a leave of absence. I’ve still got most of it.” She smiled at him. “We’re all set.”

  That night, despite the confidence Nicole had expressed earlier, she was too anxious to sleep. She kept thinking of things that could go wrong. Her worst fear was that Albee wouldn’t believe her story or that he’d tell her the information on the flash drives lacked the proof necessary to get a story in the paper. And that was true. All she had were the financial records from Robert’s computer, the blackmail lists, and his notes. There were no witnesses, no corroborating evidence. That meant Albee would have to find ways to check out the information she was giving him, and that could take time. Finally, around 3:00 a.m., she got up, made coffee, and tried to think of people who might be able to verify the story. She came up with just two names but she thought that might do.

  This completed, she started looking through the tabloid websites. They were now speculating whether she would actually be able to inherit Robert’s money (if she turned up alive), since the police had discovered some of it was obtained from the crime of extortion. They hypothesized that perhaps all of it was.

  The article quoted a law professor, who said that Robert could leave his ill-gotten gains to anyone he wanted. “Since Blair was never convicted of a crime,” he said, “the government wouldn’t be able to claim the money for victim restitution. He is considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. And he can never be convicted, since he is now dead. The IRS, however, will probably want to collect taxes from the estate. And his extortion victims could sue for restitution in civil court. But that’s unlikely, since it would publicize whatever behavior they were paying Blair to keep quiet.”