Knowing her mother and stepmother had plotted to kill her father—and succeeded—would be too much for anyone.
I stopped and took her hand, giving it a quick squeeze and meeting her eye. “I’ll be there the whole time.”
Savilla squeezed my hand too and lifted her chin. “Thank you.” As we reached the stairs, she changed the subject. “I didn’t sleep a wink last night. I kept replaying everything with Daddy, how he died. I think that seeing Brett brought it all back.”
Her sleepless night had been worse than my reality show dreams.
Tears welled in Savilla’s eyes as we started down the stairs side by side, and she sniffled several times as she ran a hand along the wall. “It’s just… today I’ll find out if Daddy left all of this to me, and I have no idea what to do with it.”
“Do with it?” I repeated weakly. “I mean, you live here, right? At least part of the year.”
Savilla frowned at me as if I could never understand the plight of the enormously wealthy, which was fair. Momma had always said that the richer someone becomes, the less secure they feel, a sentiment I’d tried to debate several times. But maybe she was right. Maybe having and maintaining all of this opulence created burdens I didn’t comprehend.
I’d never expected to know that kind of dilemma, though I did wonder if Mr. Finch might’ve left me some little piece of his wealth. I wasn’t desperate for money like I’d been during the pageant, but I couldn’t deny that cash offered options that a lack of it did not. The pageant winnings had helped so much, but after paying off Momma’s house, paying back Aunt DeeDee for the debts she’d incurred from Momma’s experimental treatments, settling with the credit card collectors, and covering all of my expenses for a final year of school, I only had about ten grand in the bank.
According to my professor, the fellowship in San Diego came with a low but livable salary, or when I graduated, I could get a job with an established practice, but unless I wanted to go into debt again, I couldn’t open my own practice without another influx of cash. I kind of hated that this was where my mind wentas I entered the main vestibule next to my secret half-sister, but practicalities mattered.
The two of us paused as we took in the view from the wide windows at the front of the house. There were my blue mountains, the haze already burning off as the sun rose higher in the sky.
“A man died here.” Savilla breathed out as she turned away from the windows and her eyes scanned her home. Her tears were still coming, and I wondered suddenly if she was emotionally stable enough for the day ahead.
“Have you eaten anything this morning?” I asked, channeling Aunt DeeDee.
Savilla shook her head, but I wasn’t sure if she was answering me or still stuck in her train of thought. “Brett died only four months after my own father died. Here, at my home.” She reached out a hand and grabbed my forearm. “What if Presley is right? What if there’s some kind of curse? On The Rose?”
The statement caught me off guard, but I supposed October was the season to think of scary things going bump in the night. I tried to reassure her with logic.
“Your father died because three people”—three people very close to him, I wanted to add but didn’t—“were determined to get revenge on him, and Brett died because… well, we don’t know, but I’m one hundred percent sure it’s not because of a curse.” I stole a glance at her. “You don’t actually believe in those kinds of things, do you?”
Savilla wiped away tears and studied the ground for a moment as if weighing her answer. “Presley told me last night that she’d been thinking about breaking up with Brett for a while, that she’d even contacted a shaman who told her that she needed to get out of the relationship while she could.”
The idea of a relationship shaman sounded on-brand for Presley. “Were those her exact words?” I asked.
Savilla looked straight at me and then nodded. “She told me that I should meet with this lady, talk to her about my… troubles.”
The last word rankled me even though I knew the response wasn’t fair. Savilla might not have many visible troubles as far as I understood, but she did have numerous family issues. A frustrated mother and a vacuous stepmother who’d actually been sisters working together to kill Savilla’s father. That was enough to keep any therapist employed for years to come.
This wasn’t the thing that bothered me the most about our conversation, though. It was Presley and her desire to get out of her relationship with Brett. I’d learned that people’s murderous intentions could spring from all sorts of reasons, but if the pageant investigation had taught me anything, it was that the impulse often came down to love or money.
Presley, presumably, had once loved Brett—maybe even still did—but she’d also seemed very cozy with Joe last night, whether it was because she was acting as his agent, which I found doubtful, or something more. But if Presley had simply left Brett, a rising star, for Joe, a no-name, part-time, aspirational actor/caterer… how would that decision look to the public? Wouldn’t Presley get more sympathy and publicity by tragically losing the man she loved and, after an appropriate amount of grief and time, falling into the arms of an Ordinary Joe?
Maybe that was reason enough for both Joe and Presley to want Brett dead sooner rather than later.
TWENTY-TWO
By the time we reached Mr. Froble’s office, it was noon, which meant we were right on time for the reading of the will. My heart thudded, and I tried to keep my anxiety at bay, especially as the police escort arrived with two killers who still stood to inherit something from the man they’d murdered.
Gathered in the small assembly were the lawyer, me, Savilla Finch, the police escort, StepMommy Glenda Finch, and Savilla’s biological mother Katie Gilman, aka Nanny Kate. The distinguishing features of the latter two attendees were the orange jumpsuits and the guard between them. The two women had been brought in from the prison they now called home.
The lawyer, Mr. Froble, was an ancient man, nearing a hundred any day now, but he still sported a tidy white mustache and a full head of hair that stuck up in all directions. He’d survived two bouts with cancer, one of them pronounced terminal according to Momma, but he’d recovered from both.
We sat down across from the lawyer, the four of us ladies in a row. Until the will was read, I couldn’t bring myself to meet anyone’s eyes, especially Savilla’s. She was the one whose reaction I cared about, the one who stood to lose the most by having a sibling.
Thankfully, within a minute of arriving, Mr. Froble dove right in, reading from the page in front of him. “I, Frederick Finch, being of sound mind do declare this to be my last will and testament.”
Silence blanketed the room as we listened to the instructions concerning the bulk of the estate. My jaw dropped with each word. All property and financial holdings would be split evenly between Savilla Finch and Dakota Green.
As Mr. Froble finished reading the first section, I dared a glance at Savilla. I’d expected a piece of jewelry at most. Certainly not half of an entire estate. I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry.
