John Lescroart - The Motive

"No. But he'd made the decision. He was coy about whether he'd already done it."

Theresa asked. "But he didn't say he hadn't done it, either, did he?"

"He said he had scheduled a meeting with his partner-what's his name…"

"Bob Townshend," her husband said.

"Right. Bob. They had an appointment for next week, to talk over some of the issues, he said. He just kept saying that the main thing was that he was going to marry her. He loved her. She loved him."

A chorus of muttered negative reaction stopped her. When it died down, she went on. "Whether or not we believed any of it, of what they had together, he told me we weren't going to talk him out of it, or into some kind of prenup, either. And when he married her, she would become his heir. She'd had a very hard life, and he was going to make it up to her. We buzzards could stop circling. That's really all he said."

This brought more tears to Mary's eyes. "Did he really say that?" She looked around at her family. "But he was our dad, you guys. It wasn't all about his money."

Theresa wasn't having that. "Your children, my grandchildren, deserve that money more than Missy did, Mary, even if you didn't care about it." She threw her imperious gaze around the room, daring anyone to contradict her. "All of your children, my grandchildren," she repeated, "absolutely deserve the benefit of his wealth- for college, or medical care if any of them get really sick. Or housing. If they need a down payment on their first home, who's going to be able to help them?"

Into the small silence, Beth said, "So we still don't know?"

"Not until we see the will, we don't," Will said.

"In the meantime," Theresa said, "I think for my grandchildren's sake that it's critical, absolutely critical, that we consider possible scenarios and come to unanimous agreement about our response to each of them."

"Well," Aaron the lawyer spoke up. "It's pretty straightforward, Theresa, really. If Paul didn't change his will yet in favor of Missy, then the last we heard the estate goes in equal thirds to the three kids. Anybody have an estimate of what ballpark we're talking about?"

Catherine Hanover spoke up. "Fourteen million dollars."

Beth snorted. "Is that before or after the renovation?"

"That's as of Wednesday, so after."

Carlos sat forward on the couch, looked across to Catherine. "It sounds like you two had a pretty substantive talk."

Catherine gave him a flat look. "I was motivated," she said, then turned quickly to her other brother-in-law. "You were outlining options, Aaron. First was thirds to the three kids, if nothing had changed. But what if he'd already rewritten it in favor of Missy?"

"Well, then we don't know for sure until we see it, but I'd say the most likely scenario is that he'd just move her up in front of the kids. His kids, not the grandkids. In which case the secondary beneficiaries would be Will, Beth and Mary anyway, and everything would go back to being the same as it was before he met Missy. That's assuming they died at the same time, Paul and Missy."

"But what if he died first?" Mary asked.

Aaron shook his head. "That won't be an issue, even if the coroner concludes that one of them killed the other, which I gather they've ruled out."

But Mary wasn't convinced. "How can you know it won't be a problem, Aaron? What if, just hypothetically, she lived after he did, even for a minute, then wouldn't her heirs inherit?"

"No, because Paul never would have left his will vague on that point. Any good estate lawyer-and fourteen mil buys good help, trust me-covers it. Usually it's ninety days."

"What is?" his wife asked.

Aaron sighed. "The amount of time a beneficiary- Missy-needs to survive after Paul before her heirs get the inheritance."

"Who are they anyway?" Will asked. "Her heirs?"

Everybody looked at each other, and then Aaron said, "I don't think anybody knows, but I promise it won't be an issue."

"If there's a ruling that she died after him," Theresa put in, "we'll find out who they are soon enough, believe me. Cousins and uncles and siblings she didn't even know she had."

"Well, maybe," Aaron said. "But the greater possible concern for us, I think, and what we should be prepared to litigate if necessary, is if he changed the will in favor of Missy…"

Theresa turned on him angrily. "Must you keep using her nickname, Aaron?"

He shrugged. "It's nothing personal, Theresa. It makes it clearer for everyone. But if he changed the will in her favor, then it's likely he changed the rest of it, too, maybe in favor of some charity, or to the kids, and I mean our kids. Your grandkids, Theresa. That's what we ought to be prepared for."

"That would be fine with me," Theresa said. "That's who I'm in this for."

"We're all in it for them, too, Mom," Will said with some asperity.

"Well, he didn't mention any of those other possibilities to me, Aaron." Catherine sat rigidly in her chair. "He told me it was going to Missy. That's what he wanted. It really wasn't any of the family's business."

"That's so ridiculous and just so like him," Theresa said.

"Easy, Mom, okay?" Will said.

"Well," she shot back, "you tell me. How could it be any more the family's business? We were certainly all well enough aware that it was before… well, before this week."

"Okay," Will said, "but it's still Dad."

"I'm sure it was mostly her," Beth said, "not him. She had him so fooled. I can't believe he intended to cut us out completely."

"You can believe anything you want, Beth," Catherine said, "but the fact of the matter is that once the marriage happened, the whole financial picture was going to be different. And we all know what that was going to mean in practice, even if they hadn't died."

"But they didn't just die," Mary said. "Somebody killed them."

"Well," Theresa said, "of course I'm sorry about your father, but all I can say about Missy is good riddance."

"Mom!" Mary exploded. "God!"

"What?" Theresa said. "If you're honest, I know you're all saying the same thing inside yourselves. Thank heaven that woman is out of the picture." The matriarch threw her gaze around the room, daring anyone to disagree with her. "I've heard all of us say one time or another that we wished she would either go away or just die."

Catherine spoke up. "If we did, of course we were joking, Theresa. What do you think?"

"No. Obviously. I was just making the point that we knew what a danger that woman was to all of us."

"Well, she's not now," Aaron said.

And at that truth, the family went silent.

Will was forty-five years old, with an athletic frame and a conventionally handsome face that had not yet gone to slack or jowl. Still wearing his Dockers and short-sleeved Tommy Bahama shirt, he was sitting on the bed as his wife came into the room carrying a load of folded laundry. "Hey," he said.

"Hey," she answered with an uninflected, mechanical precision.

"How are you doing?"

"I'm doing fine, Will. How are you doing?"

"Good."

She stood still for a moment, looking at him. Then she exhaled and went over to the dresser, put the pile of laundry on the chair next to it, and opened the top drawer. She wasn't facing him. "So," she said, "no fish?"

"None. No keepers anyway. Isn't that weird? We're out two hundred miles, feels like halfway to the Galapagos, and there are no fish. I've never been completely skunked before on one of these trips."

"How many of you were there?"

"On the boat? Just three of us, plus the captain and crew."

"Nice guys?"

"Okay, I guess," he said. "The usual. Good 'ol boys. Tim and Tom."

"Easy to remember." "What does that mean?"

"Nothing. Never mind." She closed the top drawer, opened the next one down. "I wish you'd have called, though. Not being able to reach you was terrifically frustrating."