The Second Sister

“As far as the house and grounds, absolutely. I lost any affinity for the place after being trapped inside Marcus’s office area while the house was burning down around us.”

Bram squeezed her fingers and Leigh shut her eyes, thinking how close her sister had come to dying for the sins of their father.

“Leigh?” Gavin asked.

She opened her eyes and looked at Hayley. “You could have warned me you were going to do this,” she chided. “I don’t want the place, either.”

“Then we’ll give it to charity.”

“That would be fine with me, but Grandpa would be crushed if he knew.”

“He’s dead. But you’re right,” Hayley agreed reluctantly. “He loved Heartskeep.”

Leigh realized that Bram would never feel comfortable if Hayley accepted the house. More than likely, he’d never ask her to marry him. Her wealth was bad enough, but Bram would hate living at Heartskeep. He’d made no secret of his feelings where the estate was concerned.

“I’ll tell you what,” Leigh told her sister. “I’ll accept Heartskeep as long as I can hold it for your firstborn child.”

“Deal!” Hayley turned to Bram in obvious relief. “And while I love the fence and gate you made, I want those bars off our windows and our stone lions put back. Right, sis?”

“I’m having them repaired as we sit here,” Bram told her.

“Lions?” Gavin asked Leigh.

“Two big stone lions used to sit on brick columns where Marcus had Bram put the wrought-iron gate.”

“I remember now,” Gavin said. “You seem to have some definite ideas about what you want done with the estate, Hayley. Are you certain you don’t want it? Nothing says you have to live there.”

“Good, because you couldn’t pay me to live there again. I really don’t want the estate, Gavin. I don’t want the responsibility.”

“Leigh?”

“My mother loved Heartskeep as much as my grandfather did, so I’ll take care of it for them.”

“Thanks, sis.”

Gavin frowned. “Then I’m afraid we’re going to have to have you accept the property, Hayley, then sign it over to your sister. You’ll get a terrific tax break, but she’ll have to pay.”

“Thanks a lot.”

“I’ll cover the taxes,” Hayley promised.

“I’ll have to draw up some new papers and get back to you on this.”

“Great! I feel a million pounds lighter already,” Hayley beamed.

Which explained why she felt a million pounds heavier, Leigh mused.

“Ah, sorry, but I’m afraid we aren’t quite finished yet,” Gavin told them.

“Marcus’s will,” Hayley said.

“That, too. We can dispense with your part of that pretty quickly. The will on file is dated nearly fifteen years ago. You were both mentioned by name,” Gavin told them. “The language is a bit, uh, strong, but the gist is that you didn’t need his money so you weren’t to get a cent from his estate. He left everything he had to Eden Voxx.”

Leigh sat back in relief.

“Good!” Hayley said. “That should make her happy.”

“I gather that won’t be a problem, then?” Gavin asked.

“Not with us,” Hayley assured him, looking to Leigh for confirmation.

She nodded at both of them.

“Then we can dispense with that part of this meeting. If you have any questions after you’ve looked over his will, feel free to call me. Ira wanted to meet with you on another issue completely.”

Gavin’s expression turned grave. He laid his palms flat on the desk and made eye contact with them.

“You know that Marcus was in charge of caring for Heartskeep under Ira’s supervision. What you may not know is that Ira was confined to a wheelchair for the past two and a half years. He didn’t get around much before that, either.”

“I know,” Hayley told him. “And Marcus never bothered to take care of the grounds or the buildings.”

“No,” Gavin agreed, “He didn’t. But he did bill the estate for hundreds of thousands of dollars in repairs that were never made.”

“What?” Hayley demanded.

“Copies of the receipts are in your packets. Eden’s doesn’t contain this information. I was going to ask her to stay while I told you about this privately, first, but…” He shrugged.

“Marcus bilked the estate?” Hayley asked.

“Ira transferred several hundred thousand dollars into an account managed by Marcus shortly after your mother disappeared. He signed off on all the bills presented to him without sending anyone out to make sure the work was actually done. It wasn’t until I happened to drive past the entrance to the estate one day that I realized something was wrong. We had just paid Marcus a fortune for a completely new driveway that had never been installed.”

“You can say that again,” Hayley told him with asperity.

He held up a sheaf of papers. “I suspect all of these bills are phony. Some of these companies don’t exist except on paper.”

Leigh looked at the photocopy in her folder and nodded. “Computer generated?”

“That’s my guess. As near as I can tell without an audit, your estate has been defrauded of over six hundred fifty thousand dollars.”

Hayley gaped at him. Bram, sitting silently beside her, covered her hand.

Gavin’s eyes, which always seemed to see so much more than they should, pinned Leigh where she sat.

“You and I will need to work closely together. Will you be all right with that?”

Her heartbeat gave a little stutter. She lifted her chin and met his gaze. “Of course. Will you?”

Chapter Three