Read the book: «The Inheritance»

CHAPTER ONE

“THAT’S MY INHERITANCE? A rose?”

Randall Taylor, solicitor and executor of the estate of Ida Mae Petersen sighed from the other end of the line.

“Miss Baines, your aunt was concerned about keeping the family home in the family.”

“A bit late for family,” Roslyn cracked. “I haven’t seen nor heard from this Great-Aunt Ida and her side of the family my entire life.” She edged forward in her chair, setting her elbows on the desktop. “That’s the part I don’t understand. Why the contact after all these years? And why me? Can you give me some help here, Mr. Taylor?”

“Please, call me Randall. I’ve a feeling we’ll be having more conversations after today. The Iowa rose has been in the family for generations. Ida didn’t want to see it perish from neglect or be uprooted.” He paused. “I’m afraid I can’t comment on any other family uh…difficulties.”

“Randall, then—I don’t expect you to comment on the peculiarities of my family, but you have the advantage of knowing my aunt and the rest of the family in Iowa. I don’t understand why she’s left me anything at all, frankly, since my parents have had nothing to do with the Iowa relatives. Most of all, I’m puzzled by the inheritance itself. I mean, a rosebush? Was she some kind of eccentric recluse—or worse?”

Randall chuckled. “Some considered her eccentric, certainly. But she had all of her faculties, believe me, and a few to spare.”

“And she couldn’t get anyone in the whole of Plainsville to take on a plant?”

“That wasn’t the point. She made it very clear to me when we drew up the will that the rosebush had to stay in the Petersen family. When Ida read your mother’s obituary last year in a Chicago newspaper, she decided to change her will. There were no other living relatives more immediate than you. Plus, as she explained to me, she wanted to set the record straight on a few things.”

“Set the record straight?” Roslyn frowned. “What does that mean?”

Randall sighed. “Frankly, I don’t know. Ida Mae was a very private person and detested anything that might have been construed as prying. I assumed that she was referring to some family matter.”

“Well, I certainly wouldn’t know anything about a family matter. When I was growing up, the only family I had were my parents and grandparents in Chicago. I didn’t even know my grandmother had a sister, let alone a twin.”

“To tell you the truth, I never knew myself until I helped Ida make up this new will. My predecessor at our law office here in Des Moines had been her personal lawyer up until the last few years.”

After a moment’s pause, Roslyn asked, “Exactly what is the complete estate, then?”

“All right, let’s go over it again. Do you have time?”

“Certainly, my next appointment isn’t until one-thirty,” she said, without mentioning it was for lunch. Her fingers drummed lightly on the wooden desktop.

“Ida was sole owner of the Petersen family home in Plainsville, Iowa. Current market value is about three hundred thousand dollars. That’s the value of the house of course, and it stands on five acres of prime land in town with another hundred acres adjoining and stretching into the outskirts. Plainsville’s become a kind of distant satellite community to Des Moines, so the eventual value of the land could be quite high.”

Roslyn checked the time. “Go on.”

“Well, except for some old stock certificates and what’s in Ida’s savings account, the cash assets of the whole estate come to about thirty thousand, on top of the house. Now, I haven’t factored in the land because that part of it is purely speculative at the moment. Someone in your line of work can relate to that.”

“Sure,” she mumbled. Her fingers settled on the desk. She closed her eyes and massaged her brow. Then she glanced at her watch again. She had about twenty-five minutes. Why was she wasting her time going through all of this again? Why didn’t she just say, “Thanks, but no thanks” and get off the phone?

As if reading her mind, Randall said, “I know this is a lot to take in but I’ll go over the conditions once more, as well. Then I’ll leave you to your appointment.” He cleared his throat and Roslyn pictured him squinting through his reading glasses at the document. “So, the main condition to inheriting the entire estate is that you must live in the house and take care of the rosebush. Should you decide not to reside permanently in the house, your share of the inheritance will only be a cutting from the plant.”

Roslyn snorted. Great-Aunt Ida had to be some kind of crackpot. “And may I ask what happens to the estate in that event?”

“The estate will be offered to Jack Jensen of Plainsville, Iowa. Under the same condition.”

“Who’s he? Some distant cousin?”

“No relation at all. But the Jensen family is as old and well-known in the community as your aunt’s. Apparently young Jack and Ida Mae forged a strong friendship in her latter years.”

“So why didn’t she just leave everything to him in the first place?”

“Because they’re not family—there’s no blood connection. She wanted you to have first refusal.”

“That’s a good way to put it.” She thought for a moment and then added, “What’s to stop me from agreeing and then selling the house once it’s legally mine, without permanently moving in?”

“You must actually reside in the house for a year before the deed is officially signed over.”

“A year? In Plainsville?”

“Your aunt explained to me that taking over the home ought to be a true commitment, both to the town and to the family heritage. I suggest you take the weekend or longer to think all of this over. Don’t make a decision over the phone.”

Roslyn barely acknowledged his comment. A year in Plainsville was all she could focus on. What on earth could this great-aunt have been thinking?

WHEN ROSLYN finished her summary of the telephone conversation with the lawyer, she reached for her wineglass and leaned back into her chair and looked at her boss.

Ed Saunders poured the last of the wine into his own glass and reached into the inner pocket of his pinstripe suit. “Mind?” he asked, withdrawing a slender aluminum tube.

“Come on, Ed. That’s why we had our luncheon here—so you could light up at the table afterward.”

His grin was sheepish. “Got me there, I’m afraid. Well, this great-aunt of yours sounds like a real character.” He shook his head again and chuckled. “A rosebush! What was that line about a rose garden? Something from the seventies, wasn’t it?”

Roslyn shrugged. “I think it was a song—or a book or something. Anyway, so much for luck, eh? First time an unexpected inheritance falls into my lap and it turns out to be a cutting from an old rosebush.”

Ed rolled the unlit Cuban beneath his nose before moistening the end in his mouth. Roslyn peered down into her glass. She wished he wouldn’t light it, but didn’t have the nerve to object. They still hadn’t got to the heart of their meeting and she wasn’t going to jeopardize her chance to be a new junior associate of Saunders, McIntyre and Associates Investments over a cigar.

She heard the metallic click of a cigarette lighter and looked up as a large smoke ring drifted across the table.

“Thank heavens for my club,” Ed murmured, savoring his first puff. “Nothing like a decent Cuban after a fine meal.”

“Isn’t that ‘decent’ Cuban illegal?”

Ed winked. “Shhh! Not so loudly. ’Course—” he strained to glance over his shoulder “—I’m sure there are more than a few on the premises as we speak. Illegal, but not impossible to obtain.”

“All adding to the enjoyment, of course,” Roslyn said.

“That’s what I admire in you, my girl.”

Roslyn tried not to wince.

“Your quick and very insightful wit. And intelligence,” he added. “Which brings me to the purpose of our meeting.”

Roslyn gripped the stem of her wineglass. She raised it casually to her lips before responding. Swallowing the slightly fruity wine, she tilted her head in mock interest and raised an eyebrow. “Yes?”

“As I intimated to you several weeks ago, Saunders, McIntyre and Associates Investments are taking advantage of the terrific market of the past year and the board has given the go-ahead to expand our operation. We’re setting up a new branch on the south side and want you to be in on it with us. As junior associate, with all the benefits and perks that come with the title.”

The tension in Roslyn’s stomach melted in a rush of excitement.

“So,” Ed continued, taking another drag on his cigar, “you’ve got to make a decision about this inheritance of yours, I suppose.”

“Not really, Ed. I mean, can you see me in Plainsville, Iowa?”

“I take your point,” he commented. “But before we leave, there is one more thing.”

Catching the ominous tone in his voice, Roslyn had a feeling she was about to hear the string attached to her promotion. After all, it had been a day of conditions.

HOURS LATER, on her way home, Roslyn let her forehead rest against the train window. She knew she ought to be feeling jubilant. Wasn’t making associate her primary goal since joining the investment firm five years ago?

She sagged against the plastic seat. Her eyes swept across the commuters leaving the heart of the city almost two hours after the peak of the rush hour. They all looked as wrung out as she felt. An inner voice scolded her for yielding to such a dark mood on what ought to have been the best day of her career so far.

She loved the erratic pace of her work days—the frenzy of buying and selling; urgent phone calls and spinning from one monitor to the next, checking stock prices around the world. Everything at her fingertips and everything demanding now, now!

Then there were the calm times—the interludes of sanity that Roslyn and her co-workers dubbed the eyes of the hurricanes. Those rare moments gave them time to replenish before the next storm.

You love it, she told herself. The unpredictability of it all. So why the funky mood? Roslyn wondered. Ed Saunders’s face floated through her mind. “There’s a problem at the firm,” he’d said. “Looks as if someone’s been skimming from client accounts.”

Roslyn’s immediate reaction had been simply shock, until Ed had mentioned that he believed that person might be Jim Naismith. Then her disbelief became nausea. She’d dated Jim a few times and liked him.

She thought back to the night almost five weeks before when she’d stayed to finish off the Wallis account and had bumped into Jim at the copy machine. The paper cartridge was empty and he’d shown her where the office receptionist kept a secret supply.

Their easy bantering had led to a late supper together. Although Roslyn had always avoided socializing on a personal level with the staff at the firm, she liked Jim’s easygoing manner and had gone out with him a few times. She’d been content to keep their friendship platonic but after she turned down his invitation to accompany him on a Caribbean cruise, their dating had come to an end.

The train squealed into Roslyn’s station. She headed for the platform in a daze. Another weekend loomed ahead. There was plenty of work to do, but none of it appealed to Roslyn in her present mood—not even her Saturday morning sleep-in followed by a run around the harbor.

She pushed her way through the turnstile and stood on the pavement outside the El station. The news about her strange inheritance had been sponged from her thoughts. All she could focus on was Ed’s request at the end of lunch.

I know you can’t—or maybe won’t—believe Naismith is our thief, but promise me one thing. If you see or hear him engaged in anything suspicious, let me know immediately, won’t you? In complete confidence, of course. Just between partners.

Was there a hint in that message somewhere, implying she’d have more access to Jim’s movements than anyone else in the office?

And she couldn’t keep back the second question that sprung to mind. What would her previous involvement with a suspected embezzler mean to her new promotion? However the events of the next few weeks played out, Roslyn knew there was no way she’d escape untouched. She couldn’t bring herself to spy on a colleague and friend; at the same time, how could she refuse her boss’s first big request of her—partner to partner?

I’m beat either way, she thought. All I can do is try to come out of this clean. She looked up and down the street, hoping to hail a cab for the short distance to her condo. But rush hour had finished and most of the cabs were going farther into the city for evening events.

Roslyn sighed, turned up her trench coat collar against the bite of a brisk April breeze, and, sidestepping puddles from the recent shower, headed home. It seemed an appropriate end to the day.

THE CONGRATULATORY messages were already coming in via phone and e-mail by the time Roslyn walked off the elevator at eight-thirty Monday morning. Her secretary, Judy, looked up in surprise.

“I was beginning to think you weren’t coming in today. Too much celebrating on the weekend?”

Roslyn grinned. “I wish. Too much traffic, not to mention too much rain.”

“I know,” Judy agreed. “Do you believe this weather? I mean, April showers bring May flowers and blah-blah-blah, but this is ridiculous. Anyway, the word is out on your promotion and there’s a stack of callbacks waiting for you.”

“You’re a pal, Jude.” Roslyn was halfway into her office when the telephone rang. Judy waved her fingers, mouthed the word coffee and turned away. Roslyn shrugged off her coat and tossed it over a chair.

“Hello?” She cradled the receiver against her left ear and sat down in her black leather swivel desk chair. Before the caller could speak, she’d already reached for the stack of messages that Judy had left for her and was shuffling through them. The day’s work had just begun.

“Miss Baines? Randall Taylor here.”

Randall Taylor? Roslyn closed her eyes. Friday afternoon’s revelations had completely erased Great-Aunt Ida and her prized rosebush from her memory.

“Oh yes, Mr. Taylor. Sorry, I wasn’t expecting you to call so early.”

“Randall,” he reminded her. “Well, I have to leave Des Moines on business for a few days and I thought I’d check with you before I left regarding your thoughts on the inheritance.”

Roslyn sighed. “I’m afraid I haven’t made a decision. Something came up at work later on Friday, and I spent most of the weekend reflecting on that. Uh, when will you need a definite yes or no on this?”

There was a slight pause. “There’s no real rush, of course. Although I must admit I’d like to have things settled as soon as possible. Once the will has been probated, I should really move ahead with finalizing things. However,” his voice shifted to a less businesslike tone, “may I give you some friendly advice?”

Roslyn pushed aside the phone messages. “Certainly.”

“I know that to someone who’s spent her whole life in a place like Chicago, Plainsville, Iowa isn’t much of a draw.” He chuckled. “In fact, probably Des Moines itself isn’t a grabber.”

Roslyn nodded her head in silent agreement. She wished the man would make his point so she could get to some of her telephone calls.

“But please, take a few days and visit your aunt’s house before you decide.”

“Visit Plainsville?”

“It wouldn’t be that bad, seriously. Late April isn’t the best time of year for Iowa, I’m afraid, but you ought to see your aunt’s home before dismissing it.”

Roslyn sighed again. He must have been reading her mind. She’d been about to inform him to call Jackson or Johnson or whoever the other beneficiary was. “Randall, I’m really very busy here. I seldom have time to take a day off, much less a few days.”

“The house is very special. Trust me. It’s a heritage house, Roslyn, and is well-known in the county.”

“I doubt that would be a selling point with me, Randall. Living in a tourist attraction doesn’t appeal.”

“It’s not like that. People here are too respectful of other folks’ privacy. But the Petersen name is almost as famous as the house and a visit would be an opportunity to get to know that side of the family.”

“There’s got to be a good reason why my side of the family chose not to know the other, Randall. I think I’ll go with my parents and grandparents’ judgment on this.” Irritation bristled in her voice.

“I’m really botching this, I’m afraid. But any businessperson will attest that a property should never be turned down sight unseen. As a potential investment for you, the house in Plainsville ought to be given that chance at least.”

She admired his strategy, knowing it was one she’d have used with a client herself. “Tell you what, Randall, I’ll think about a visit. I believe I have your number in Des Moines—is there an e-mail address on the card?”

“’Fraid not. I personally avoid the computer as much as possible. Should you decide to visit before I return, I’ll leave instructions and a key with my secretary.”

Roslyn made her goodbyes and gave Randall’s suggestion a few seconds of her time until the telephone rang again. Then she retrieved her sheaf of messages and let the day’s business take over. Until shortly after lunch, when there was a gentle tap at her door.

It swung open at her “Come in” to reveal Jim Naismith standing in the frame and clutching a dozen red roses. Roslyn’s stomach pitched. A crescending drumroll pounded at her left temple. Feeling a rush of heat suffuse into her face, she managed a surprised smile and blurted, “For me?”

ROSLYN DIDN’T get a chance to confer with Ed Saunders until late in the afternoon. For hours, she’d sat in her office staring at Jim’s bouquet of roses, stuck somewhat unceremoniously in an empty coffee can. All the while, she kept replaying his gracious congratulations. Something had changed in his manner, she decided.

The old Jim would have hung around longer, teasing her about moving up the corporate ladder. All of the banter would have been delivered with sincerity and pleasure at such a reward of her hard work. The handful of times they’d dated had taught her that about Jim Naismith.

Or had it? she suddenly asked herself. Because this Jim hadn’t lingered for small talk and had, after giving her a quick hug, pulled back immediately. He’d been evasive about her general inquiry about his weekend, mumbling that he’d been into the office, and had become defensive at the surprise in her voice. He’d blurted that some people in the office had been dealt a bigger workload than others.

His reaction had startled Roslyn. Jim had never seemed to be the type of workaholic who felt that he was the only one with a heavy load. And when she’d casually asked him what account had kept him in the office all weekend, he’d simply shrugged and left her office. By the time Roslyn closed Ed Saunders’s door behind her later that day, she was beginning to think she might have been wrong about Jim.

“I’ve been thinking about what you said on Friday,” she began.

Ed frowned.

“About Jim Naismith.”

Her boss placed the pen in his right hand onto the desk. “Go on,” was all he said.

Roslyn swallowed. She couldn’t go through with it. Even after checking security’s sign-in log over the past three weeks and noting that Jim had come into work every weekend, she couldn’t ally herself with Ed against Jim. There had to be an explanation, even if it was the standard one—that all the investors were overworked and desperate to earn their commissions and bonuses.

But there was more to her emotional response, she knew. Staring at Ed’s florid face, the shock of white hair and rugged good looks that had many younger clerks swooning in his wake, she realized that she was reluctant to voice her thoughts about Jim simply because she feared jeopardizing her promotion. Still, experience had taught her that the truth would always come out in the end.

“I don’t think I’m going to be much help to you—about Jim, I mean,” she stammered at the question in his face. “You see, Jim and I’ve…well, dated a few times and although we’re just good friends, I thought our socializing might…well…”

“Prejudice your involvement?”

Dry-mouthed, Roslyn nodded.

Ed leaned forward, resting his chin on his right thumb and index finger. He thought long enough to convince Roslyn he might be pondering a way to rescind Friday’s promotion offer.

“I appreciate your frankness as well as your ethical integrity here, Roslyn. Of course, I won’t expect you to give me information on a colleague whom you’ve been seeing in a social context.”

“A casual social context,” she blurted, afraid that this breach of an unspoken office rule would seal her fate.

But Ed smiled. “Whatever. I won’t put you in any position of conflict of interest here.” He paused, glancing down at the paper lying on his desk. “However, I do have a favor to ask.” He raised his head, fixing his watery blue eyes directly on hers.

Roslyn felt her face color. “Yes?”

“Needless to say, I expect you to keep all conversations about this matter in the strictest of confidence.”

“Of course.”

“The board has decided to conduct its own internal inquiry into Naismith’s accounts before calling the Securities Exchange Commission or…the police,” he added softly.

The police. The impact of what all of this would mean to Jim suddenly hit her. Roslyn could only nod.

Ed narrowed his eyes at her. “Perhaps, if you’ve got nothing immediately pressing on your desk, you might even want to take a few days’ holiday. Things might get a bit tense around here. Your…uh, friendship with Naismith will place you in an awkward position.”

Roslyn glanced away from the intensity of his stare and the insinuation in his voice. Did he think she might be involved in the fraud as well? Get a grip on yourself, Roslyn. The man is only trying to be considerate of your feelings. And she had to admit, he had a point. She’d already felt very conflicted about Jim’s gift of roses.

Roses! Her response tumbled out. “Actually, the lawyer I was speaking to on Friday—the one who called from Des Moines about my inheritance,” she clarified at the frown on Ed’s face. “He advised me to visit Plainsville to check out the house, before making a decision about taking it.”

“Excellent idea. Take a few days—even a couple of weeks. By then, we’ll know whether we have enough to go to the Exchange Commission or not.”

Roslyn backed toward the door. “Fine,” she said. “I’ll have Judy arrange for my current files to be monitored by someone else.”

“Not Naismith,” Ed quipped.

Roslyn smiled, but hated the touch of conspiracy in the gibe. She closed the office door behind her, leaning against it long enough to catch her breath. Ed was right about one thing, she realized. She definitely needed to get away from the office. And right at that moment, Plainsville, Iowa didn’t look half-bad.