“Yeah, I figured it out, but I didn’t say anything for a day. Then, the last night he was at my place, I fixed him a beer with a little surprise in it. He staggered off to bed and passed out. And while he was sleeping, I did a little waxing myself.
“I took pictures.” She picked up her phone and scrolled through her camera roll. “Wanna see?”
“Noooo,” Felice and Livvy said in unison.
“Yeah, it’s kinda hard to tell what it is. But if you know, you know.” Chelsea winked, then stood abruptly. “Okay, ladies. It’s been real.”
Livvy and Felice stayed on at the diner after Chelsea left for work.
“Note to self,” Livvy said, finishing her coffee. “Never, ever piss off Chelsea.”
Felice nodded absent-mindedly, then looked up.
“She said she put something in Garrett’s beer that knocked him out. Whoever killed Parrish did the same thing.”
CHAPTER 56
Traci was filling Lola’s food bowl on Sunday morning when she heard Ric’s ringtone on her phone. She eyed the coffee mug she hadn’t yet filled, sighed, and picked up.
“Hi, Ric. What’s up?”
He cleared his throat. Traci dreaded what would come next. Throat clearing was Ric’s tell, a sign that things were about to get ugly.
“With Dad gone now, I want to get something out in the open. The estate’s lawyer is going to be contacting you, but I thought, what the hell, let’s get this over with. I don’t want any bad blood between us, you know?”
Traci’s laugh was mirthless. “You mean, any more bad blood than already exists? Come on, Ric. Drop the act and go ahead and tell me what’s going on. It’s about the will, right?”
“Yeah, if you want to be crass, it is about Dad’s estate. Anyway, a few weeks ago, when I was visiting with him, Dad indicated that he’d been rethinking how he wanted the businesses run long term, after he’s gone. And he’d come to the conclusion that he wanted to hire a new lawyer to handle things. Andy Plankenhorn is getting up in years and he’s definitely not as sharp as he needs to be. With all the new tax laws in effect for estate planning—”
“Let me stop you right there, Ric,” Traci said. “We both know Dad hadn’t been verbal in over a year and he could barely move atall. So spare me the song and dance. I know you brought in a new lawyer. I hear he’s your frat brother? How convenient.”
“Who told you that?” Ric demanded. “That goddamn Alberta—”
“It wasn’t Alberta, not that it matters. I know you brought in your buddy and somehow got your dad to change his will. I heard you even videotaped it?”
Ric was getting heated. “This is exactly why I had it videotaped. So there could be no question about the clarity of Dad’s mind. He was sick, yes, but Dad knew exactly what his intentions were, and as his only surviving heir, it was up to me to make that happen.”
Traci put her phone on speaker and poured her coffee. She added half-and-half and sugar and sat down at the kitchen table.
“Skip to the important stuff, why don’t you? You obviously can’t wait to tell me how you’ve managed to screw me over.”
At the other end of the line she heard the clinking of ice cubes and liquid being poured. She surmised Ric was having a Bloody Mary kind of morning. And now she wanted one too.
“I resent that,” he said finally. “I’ve treated you as a member of the family since the day you and my brother got engaged, and for you to insinuate that I’m somehow involved in some kind of skulduggery as far as Dad is concerned, is way, way off base.”
“Fine. Just tell me what you called to say.”
He cleared his throat again, and she felt her gut clench.
“As you know, years ago, when Hoke and I were kids, Dad created Saint Holdings, our parent company. I was given control of the real estate and development piece of the business, and Hoke got the hotel and resort. When Dad set it up, he gave Hoke and me each twenty-four point five percent of the business. Dad retained the rest of the company stock.”
“And when my husband, your brother, died, he left his holdings to me,” Traci said, trying to sound bored, although her pulse was racing.
“Right.” Ric paused and cleared his throat for the third time since the call began. It was, Traci thought, an ominous-sounding pretext.
“Long story short, as Dad’s only living heir, I inherit most of his remaining stock in Saint Holdings, although as a gesture of hisfondness for you, he left you a twenty percent interest, which I found to be a very touching act.”
Traci was doing the math in her head as rapidly as she could. With his original 24.5 percent interest in the holding company, plus the 30 percent he’d inherited from his father, Ric was now the majority stockholder in the family firm.
