Her Deadly Inheritance

by Beth Ann Ziarnik

  On the other hand, when Lenore wanted anything, she wouldn’t let a mere matter of her husband’s displeasure stand in her way. To outsmart her aunt the next time, Jill would need more information. “So how does it work?”

  “The keypads are inside the front and back doors and in the master bedroom. You can lock every door and window from any one of them. Once the system’s engaged, you need a key to enter the house.”

  So one of the keypads was in Lenore’s room? How convenient. Jill hugged herself against the evening chill.

  Clay removed his thick cardigan and wrapped it around her shoulders. “I take it you don’t have your key with you.”

  She pulled his sweater close. Its soft volume wrapped her in his lingering warmth and masculine woodsy fragrance. “I didn’t know I’d need it.” That, and she had left in a hurry.

  He shrugged. “You could’ve knocked.”

  “And wake the whole house? I’d rather stay outside all night.”

  His eyes regained that annoying amusement. “I wouldn’t advise it.”

  He was right. Not a good choice on a wilderness island.

  “If you want, you could use the phone line between the main house and gatehouse to let your uncle know you’re locked out. It’s operating now.”

  At her astonished reluctance, Clay squelched a smile—spunky enough to try and scale the house but balking at using a phone?

  “Or I could call for you.”

  She bit her lower lip, taking her time before nodding.

  The moon shone bright overhead and ground fog swirled around their feet. He paced himself beside her as they walked the graveled drive toward the gatehouse. “How is your kitten doing?”

  Jill looked up at him with those large, expressive eyes. “Button loves everything you brought.”

  “Button?”

  “Don’t ask,” she shot back as if he didn’t need to know everything. A few steps later, she bent her head. “Okay, he’s so curious, he reminds me of myself when I was growing up. Button was my nickname.”

  “Button, huh? Well, one thing’s sure. You’re both fast on your feet.” He grinned.

  Her cheeks pinked as she slid him a sideway glance then shrugged. “I was merely taking a walk.”

  Right! “Pretty fast walk.”

  “Walk. Run. It’s all exercise.” She lifted her chin and picked up the pace as if to prove her point.

  Since she had closed the subject, he’d drop it for now. He picked up his own pace to catch up with her. She was a feisty little thing when she wanted to be. It would either serve her well or get her into even more trouble if she stayed. Good thing she planned to leave soon.

  Clay opened the gatehouse door and stood aside, allowing her to enter first. A nightlight near the kitchen sink cast a soft glow and outlined her shapely silhouette. He flipped on the overhead light and grabbed a poker to coax life into the dying embers in the cottage’s fieldstone fireplace.

  As he added a log to the fire, pages rustled and he tensed. Jill had wandered to his drawing board and its blueprints.

  “Windtop?” she asked.

  He nodded. “Do you read blueprints?” Please say you don’t.

  “I learned the skill to help with my research on house histories.”

  His gut clenched as she peeled back another page. He steeled himself against stopping her. He’d have to distract her before she went too far. “An interesting hobby.”

  “It’s my job. I write up house histories for interested clients. It’s a type of genealogy.”

  “I know.” He also knew her skill could spell danger for both of them. “Let’s take care of your phone call.”

  Moonlight glowed across the landscape and the house loomed ahead as Jill strolled beside Clay. The unmistakable current flowing between them made no sense. Neither was staying around long enough to develop a meaningful relationship. She would leave in a day or two and he’d finish his work here and go back to his life, wherever it was. As attractive as he was, she wouldn’t get involved with this Clay Merrick.

  To be honest though, she was curious. Where did he live? What kind of life did he know away from Windtop?

  He broke the companionable silence. “You’re leaving soon.”

  She glanced up and caught his scrunched brow. Was he hoping she might stay? She shrugged. “That’s the plan.”

  His shoulders relaxed. Was he relieved? So much for his possible interest in her, and maybe it was best. The last thing she needed was another relationship so soon after Brian.

  “And then?”

  Clay’s intense gaze caught her off guard. She pulled his sweater close. “Back to Chicago. How about you? Where’s home when you’re not working on a restoration project?”

  He thrust his hands into his windbreaker’s pockets. “Willowbrook.”

  Jill peered up at him. “Illinois?”

  He nodded.

  Not far from Nona’s. “Quite a distance from here. How did you hear about this job?”

  He continued to walk, focusing ahead. “Word of mouth.”

  “And there’s no one back home to keep you there?”

  Stopping, he stared at her with such dark intensity she regretted the flippant question. “If you’re asking about family, they’re all dead.”

  Jill’s breath caught in her throat. Everyone? How awful for him. “I’m—I’m so sorry.”

  He barely nodded, but she’d already glimpsed his pain. So that explained his quiet sympathy at the cemetery and the kindnesses he had shown her since. He understood grief.

  She stared into the night, hurting for him as well as herself as they approached the house.

  Long fingers of light pierced the windows of Windtop’s entrance hall and flooded the porch. She paused at the bottom step, reluctant to end her time with him. “Thank you for helping me.”

  His gaze lingered, his eyes solemn. “Good night, Jill Shepherd. Be careful.”

  She stared at him. Careful of what?

  Before she could open her mouth, he strode away. The night shadows swallowed him even as the front door opened. Uncle Drew stepped out.

  “Jill, is it you?”

  Lenore hovered behind him in a red satin nightgown and wrapper, her eyes bright with too much interest. Clay’s troubling words followed Jill as she hurried up the porch steps.

  Uncle Drew moved aside to let her enter before closing the door. “I’m sorry for all this trouble, Jill. If only you had told us you were going out.”

  A smug smile clung to her aunt’s lips. The woman’s dark brown eyes sparkled with a cold mischief.

  Jill shook her head. Trying to befriend her aunt was a wasted effort, just as Uncle Drew suggested.

  She turned to him. At least she could talk to him. “Why didn’t you tell me about the security system?”

  “Why, I … it slipped my mind, Jill. We haven’t used it since—” He closed his mouth, and a trace of gray followed his jawline.

  Lenore lifted her chin and smiled. “Since Susannah died.”

  Jill clenched her fists. Why did the woman continue to goad her? She’d never done anything to earn her aunt’s animosity. At least nothing she knew of.

  Uncle Drew leveled a stern gaze at his wife. “From now on, Lenore, we will refrain from using the security system.”

  “If you say so.” Her aunt’s cool gaze flicked to Jill. “Anyway, little good it did your mother, locking out help while she bled to death in plain sight.”

  Jill’s knees buckled. She grabbed the back of a nearby chair to steady herself. Her mother hadn’t died of an overdose? Hadn’t died in her room as Jill supposed?

  In a swirl of red satin, Lenore turned away. “I’m going back to bed, Drew. Please don’t be long.”

  As his wife withdrew, Uncle Drew put an arm around Jill’s shoulders. “I’m sorry you heard it this way, Jill. Come on. Isn’t it time you let me tell you how your mother died?”

  Jill let him guide her into the parlor where he switched on the Tiffany table lamp be
side the couch. He helped her to sit and took the space beside her.

  She peered at him, trying to fathom what her aunt had said, trying to wrap her mind around it, but couldn’t. Her uncle was right. It was time she knew how her mother had died. It was time to stop running from her pain.

  Leaning forward, he placed his forearms on his knees and examined his short, square hands. “My sister—your mother—wasn’t well her last year. The doctor said she had become deeply paranoid, afraid of everyone but Mrs. Pierce.”

  “Paranoid?” Before Jill left, her mother had only cut herself off from her brother and his family out of necessity. How else would she find peace from Lenore’s verbal attacks?

  As for her mother trusting Maggie Pierce, that made sense. Their long-time housekeeper had been their staunch and loyal protector, no matter what trick Lenore attempted. A protection her mother failed to experience from her brother.

  He cleared his throat, drawing Jill’s attention back. “The day your mother died, Mrs. Pierce had gone to town on errands.”

  Jill pictured her mother waiting alone in this house, easy pickings for anyone.

  “Only for a few hours, and before she left, she made sure Susannah activated the security system.” He shook his head. “If only she hadn’t. Everyone tried to talk Susannah out of installing it, including Merrick.”

  Clay? “What did he have to do with it?”

  “He hired the subcontractor and oversaw its installation to make sure it didn’t alter Windtop’s historic value. He also made sure it was everything Susannah wanted.”

  Jill imagined the metallic racket of locks and bolts slamming into place though she was certain home security systems made no such noise.

  “He explained how dangerous it might be if Susannah were alone and the house caught fire. Or she had an accident. But she insisted and signed legal papers absolving Merrick and the subcontractor of any liability.”

  Jill bit her lip, not wanting to hear more, yet knowing she must. How else could she put Maggie’s suspicions to rest? How else would she find peace about her mother’s death?

  Her uncle’s face pinched as if he were in pain. “Mrs. Pierce insisted Susannah was happy that morning. She even accompanied her to the front door and said she would be all right.”

  A strange change because before Jill left, her mother would beg Maggie not to leave the house. She would pace and agonize until the housekeeper returned.

  “When Mrs. Pierce returned, she found the house locked and Susannah lying at the foot of the stairs. She searched her purse but couldn’t find her key. She rapped on the window and shouted, but Susannah didn’t move.” His voice choked off.

  Strength drained from Jill’s body, yet as difficult as it was listening, she had to know the rest. “Please go on.”

  “Are you sure?” His gaze held great concern.

  Bracing herself, she nodded. No more running. No more hiding. No more pretending.

  “Mrs. Pierce found Merrick at the gatehouse where he was packing. He’d already turned in his key, so he drove her back to the house and ran to the garage to find Windtop’s handyman.”

  “Sam?”

  “Yes. He had a key, but by the time they got to Susannah, she was barely alive. She died before the sheriff and the emergency medical team could get to the island. The sheriff and the coroner determined Susannah had jumped from the second-floor railing.”

  Jill moaned. So her mother had committed suicide. And, Lord, I’m to blame. If only I hadn’t run away. If only I had come back sooner.

  She sat beside her uncle in muted silence until chimes from the grandfather clock invaded their grief. He wiped his eyes with a monogrammed handkerchief and blew his nose. “I should go. Lenore is waiting. Will you be all right?”

  All right? She’d never again be all right. Yet she nodded. Uncle Drew carried enough of his own pain. He didn’t need to carry hers too.

  Looking somehow older, he stood and rested a hand on her shoulder. For a long moment, he looked into her eyes, then turned and walked away.

  Seeking the comfort of darkness, Jill flicked off the lamp and wandered to a nearby window where she stared into the night. What had compelled her mother to install a system of protection that proved so dangerous? What had happened to convince her it was necessary?

  Those last years while Jill had lived at home, her mother refused to see Lenore and Uncle Drew, but not because she was afraid of them. She didn’t even hold ill feelings toward them. She had simply grown tired of the struggle over Windtop and decided it was best they go their separate ways.

  Why install this security system? The easy answer said the doctor was right. Her mother’s mental health had degenerated while Jill searched for her birth father.

  “Lord, is that right?” If so, her plan to find her father in order to help her mother had gone so awry, and she was too tired to think about it anymore tonight.

  She turned from the window and walked through the shadowed room into the light of the entrance hall. Rest. She needed it badly, but would she ever rest again?

  Murder! Murder! Murder!

  Maggie’s accusation rang in her tired head as she climbed the stairs. She covered her ears. No! Lord, there has to be another answer. Maybe an accident and she could prove it. Clay was right. She was her mother’s physical likeness, definitely the same height.

  Trembling, she approached the second-floor railing. What if she was wrong? What if she was simply refusing to accept the truth?

  She held back, moistening her lips, and stared at the polished railing. It seemed to mock her with her distorted reflection gleaming on its surface. Her too-pale skin and widened eyes. Please, Lord, let it be an accident.

  Slowly, she leaned against the railing and bent forward. With a sickening wrench in the pit of her stomach, she backed away. The railing was too high. Her mother’s death was no accident. She would’ve had to climb over the railing.

  Or be thrown over.

  The grandfather clock tick-tocked in the silent hall below while the carpeted floor beneath her seemed to undulate until she thought she might throw up.

  Then a door clicked softly behind her, raising the hairs on the back of her neck.

  Chapter Seven

  Another moment and that stupid girl would’ve caught me. What was she doing haunting the hall railing at this hour?

  Ha! As if I don’t know. All her sweet talk about coming back to confess her lie. She didn’t fool me for a minute. She knows … or at least suspects. Either way, I’m not waiting around to find out which.

  Too bad she’s not more like her mother. Susannah made it easy by staying in her room. Not this one. I have debts to pay, and she could hamper me. From now on, I’ll plan more carefully, and if she makes the same mistake her mother did, she’ll have to go. In the meantime, I’ll work on a right way to get rid of her.

  A way she’ll never see coming.

  Jill tucked her bedspread into place, her mind utterly elsewhere. She had whirled around last night, only to find an empty hall. Yet the soft click behind her hadn’t been her imagination. Someone had been watching.

  Was it her mother’s killer?

  She would need irrefutable proof before she would believe anyone at Windtop could do such a thing. Neither would she just walk away from the truth and spend the rest of her life wondering.

  Wasn’t it hard enough knowing her mother’s death could only be murder or suicide? She couldn’t accept either, which left her with no other choice but to dig out the facts. She’d had plenty of practice in the last three years while working for Nona, but this time, she’d have to do it without alerting anyone. Not an easy task in a small town.

  Adjusting her purse strap on her shoulder, Jill made a quick check of her room and spotted Clay’s sweater. She picked it up from the dressing table and held its brown folds to her face, breathing in the clean, masculine scent. He had wrapped her in its warmth last night and seen her safely into the house.

  As she sighed, she caught
her image in the mirror. Her reflected eyes widened.

  For a moment, her face had held the same wistful expression as her mother’s whenever Jill had asked about her father. She couldn’t be attracted to Clay this soon, could she? He was just a kind stranger, nothing more.

  One thing was sure. She didn’t need another Brian Caldwell in her life. She’d promised herself as much.

  That didn’t stop Brian’s mesmerizing blue eyes and commanding presence from swimming through her memory with as much force as the day he walked into Nona Anderson’s agency. The young, up-and-coming lawyer arrived on business but wouldn’t leave until she agreed to have dinner with him.

  How quickly they fell in love and began planning their future. To Brian’s credit, he stayed with her through the shattering grief of her mother’s death, but when she became a Christian, the climate changed.

  “Bible study and church,” he groused. “That’s all you care about these days.” He reached for her hands, urgency radiating from his handsome face. “If you keep this up, Jill, how can we be right for each other? I haven’t changed. Please. Don’t ruin it for us.”

  Though she tried to make him understand, every attempt ended in an argument. They strained in opposite directions until finally, they agreed. Their engagement had to end.

  She had wept for days before she made up her mind. Never again would she be torn to shreds like that. From here on, any man who came into her life would have to love the Lord as much as she did.

  So why this attraction to Clay Merrick—someone she hardly knew? He was kind, but if he loved God, he hadn’t said so, and she wasn’t ready for a relationship so soon after Brian.

  Be careful, Jill.

  Maybe Clay’s words last night had been God’s way of warning her. Was she to guard her heart against a risky entanglement with Windtop’s restoration contractor?

  As she laid the folds of Clay’s sweater over her arm, a tug at her shoelaces demanded her attention. Button. She lifted him to eye level and kissed the top of his soft, furry head. She’d almost forgotten him.