Now Robin was looking less skeptical but as he swallowed he said, “Maybe...? House like that does have a crazy amount of upkeep. Back when I was living with Janey in her monstrosity—” his sister still lived in a rambling old Hollywood estate, and Robin had lived there with her, back before he’d met Jules “—there were so many things we could not DIY. After you pay a team to patch the roof, then you need to rewire, or fix the plumbing. And then you start with the roof again. It’s endless. So... Could be...?”
Sam pulled the copy of Devonshire’s note to Emily closer to him and read it again.
Thanks for the new experience, Emily.
Oh, except this document I’ve just signed makes it the same old-same old, doesn’t it? Money. It’s always about more money.
So I win. Too bad for you.
Enjoy the freaking work of art—or burn it to the ground. I’ll be dead and will care even less than I currently do.
The asshole who just left you a fortune.
“I dunno,” Sam said. He looked up to find Robin reading over his shoulder.
“That man loved two things,” Robin said. “And only two things. His estate and his money. Must’ve sucked royally to be Milt Junior.”
Sam glanced at him again—they both had had fathers who’d failed epically when it came to loving their children. So, yeah. He had empathy for the royal suckage that Milt the Junior had surely endured—but that didn’t mean he believed him.
And liars often begot liars—this note reeked of Dead Milt’s insincerity and hostility and general nastiness.
“I just can’t make this be about Emily Johnson, professional roofer,” Sam admitted. “Or even interior decorator or plumber or...” He shook his head. “I agree that she must’ve saidfreaking work of art, which makes me think she was a visitor to the estateandyounger than him by decades, but... I can’t make the rest of this be about anything but sex.”
“If shewasa sex worker, Emily Johnson’s probably an assumed name.”
That was true.
Which meant that even if she was listed in Dead Milt’s little leather bound address book in the top drawer of his oak desk in the estate library, they might get no further than obtaining an out of service phone number or a defunct email address.
And also...
“A man like Devonshire would surely know that,” Sam said. “Which means...”
“Maybe he’s just screwing with you,” Robin correctly finished his thought. “Or with Wig-Milt and the lawyer. Old asshole might be dead, but he’s still causing problems, stirring things up. Laughing his ass off in hell, because he’s for damn sure not in the good place.”
Sam laughed. “I knew you’d have a unique take on this.”
“Suitcase full of cash,” Robin reminded him as he threw his apple core in the trash. “Also, hearing Jules laugh...?”
“Yeah,” Sam said. He knew.
“I just wish he could sleep—and yes, I know. I’m giving him time.” Robin smiled. “Good luck today,” he said and headed out of the kitchen, no doubt in search of Jules.
Pasadena, California
“How exactly are we gonna do this?” Sam asked as they approached the home of the very first Emily Johnson on Jules’s list.
Because this part of the Valley was densely populated, the neighborhoods varied from ritzy and gated, to working class suburban, to luxury apartments, to lower income housing. And then of course there were the ADUs or Accessory Dwelling Units. They were former garages—separate from the tiny 1940s-era three-bedrooms-one-bath-yet-somehow-million-dollar houses—that had been made into miniature rental apartments because housing in this part of the city was so hard to come by.
Their very first Emily lived in one of those, down a narrow driveway between the main house and the neighbor’s. It was barely wide enough to park a compact car, let alone the giant trucks that so many people drove these days, so it really was more of a glorified sidewalk to the back unit. Someone had planted lilies on either side which made the clean new construction of the ADU look a bit like a tiny fairy tale cottage down at the end of a magical garden path.
Today was their very first day of knocking on doors and saying... What?
Sam’s was a good question.
If they opened with “Hello, are you the Emily Johnson who is named in Milton Devonshire’s will,” it was hard to imagine anyone not sayingyes. Or at least,I could be. Someone who was as crazy-pants eccentric as Dead Milt had apparently been, could very well have chosen an Emily who didn’t know him. That wasn’t impossible, which was why they needed access to the old man’s papers, diaries, calendars, notes—all of which they hoped they’d find when the fourth and final housekeeper, Rene Williams, unlocked the library door later today.
“I think we try to incite a mix of healthy curiosity with a soupçon of greed,” Jules said, ringing the doorbell. “All while stretching the truth just a tad. Allow me to demonstrate.”
