Janice Carter - The Inheritance

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?