Fatal Inheritance (4 page)

Drawing in a deep breath, Becki snatched up the phone. “Hello.”

No answer.

She listened for a moment, expecting an automated voice to kick in with a spiel about how she’d won a cruise to a Caribbean island.

“Hello?”

The line clicked off.

How rude.
If someone dialed the wrong number, they should at least have the decency to say something. Then again...

The caller might have expected Gran or Gramps to answer and been thrown off by her much younger voice. Next time she’d have to identify herself.

Putting the call out of her mind, she grabbed a box marked Bedroom and meandered upstairs, letting memories whisper through her thoughts.

The same frilly pink curtains adorned the window of the bedroom that she and Sarah had shared the summers they’d visited. Gran’s music box still sat on the nightstand, too.

Becki turned the mechanism, and the strains of “My Favorite Things” filled the room. As the last notes died away, Becki returned the music box to the nightstand and wiped the moisture from her eyes.

Thank goodness Josh wasn’t there to see her sniffle over every knickknack. It was one thing to cry at a funeral. Everyone expected that. But almost a month had passed since her grandparents’ deaths.

She glanced out the window. Across the yard, Hunter stood, scrutinizing the cameras he’d positioned. Josh wasn’t taking any chances on missing her prowler the next time around.

If only he’d been as diligent investigating the cause of Gramps’s headache.

She bit her lip, ashamed by the thought. Logically, she knew her grandparents’ deaths weren’t Josh’s fault. She certainly didn’t blame him. But...

Ever since Anne had told her about Gramps’s headache, Becki couldn’t stop thinking about how differently things could have turned out if only...

She shoved the pointless wish from her mind and unpacked the box she’d carried up. She set her jewelry box and hairbrush on the dresser next to the flip book of Bible promises that had been there for as long as she could remember. The visible page, yellowed and curled at the edges, read, “And we know that all things work together for good to them who love God...”

Becki tossed the book into the empty box and trudged downstairs. Passing the thermostat, she flicked it off.

If the weather hadn’t been so humid the night her grandparents had died, Gran would have had the windows open instead of letting Gramps turn on the air conditioner. The carbon monoxide wouldn’t have had a chance to build up and claim their lives. If God really cared, He would have worked things differently.

Josh’s promise to pray for a new job whispered through her thoughts. How could he be so confident God would answer that prayer when He hadn’t protected Gran and Gramps?

The phone’s ring fractured the silence. She drew in a deep breath, mentally prepared her greeting, then lifted the receiver. “Hello, Graw residence, their granddaughter Becki speaking.”

Again silence greeted her.

“Hello, is anyone there?” She strained to hear any background noise. The faint whirr of traffic maybe. Was Josh calling from the quarry and unable to hear her? “Hello,” she said more loudly.

The line clicked off.

She dialed star sixty-nine to find out who her caller was. The automated computer voice informed her the number was private.

Had the caller deliberately blocked his or her identity?

What if it was the prowler calling to see if anyone was home?

Now he knew who she was!

A knock sounded at the back door. She jumped, sending the phone toppling off the end table. She grabbed the phone and peered around the corner to try to catch a glimpse of who was there.

“Miss Graw? It’s Hunter.”

Her breath whooshed from her chest.
Of course.
Idiot.
The phone call had scrambled her brain. She set down the phone and hurried to the back door. “Sorry, I was—” she waved toward the other room “—on the phone.”

“No problem. I just wanted to let you know the cameras are up and I’m heading out. You can hang on to them as long as you need them.”

“Will do. Thank you so much. Can I get you a coffee or something before you go?”

He tipped his cap, his mouth spreading into an amused grin. “That’s okay. Maybe some other time when Josh is around.” He winked, then strode across the yard back to his SUV.

Great, now he’d think his friend’s new neighbor was a nervous Nellie. Of course, if he was in the habit of always dressing like Rambo, he probably got that reaction a lot. She flipped the dead bolt and returned to her unpacking.

A door upstairs slammed shut, making her jump yet again.
It’s just the wind, you ninny.
She should probably shut the windows now that she was alone again.

She made quick work of the downstairs ones, then grabbed another box marked Bedroom and climbed the stairs. She wrestled the end room’s window closed first. It opened to a meadow with a stand of trees beyond. Movement in the trees caught her attention. She squinted, hoping to spot a deer and her fawn. She’d have to find Gran’s binoculars.

The phone rang as she reached her grandparents’ bedroom. She snatched up their bedside extension, an old-fashioned rotary dial. “Hello.”

Once again, an ominous silence greeted her.

“If you don’t want to talk to me, stop calling.” She slammed the phone down with a satisfying thwack. If the creep called one more time, she’d have him blocked. There had to be a way for the phone company to do that, even if he was hiding his number. She shut the back windows and was about to move to the front bedrooms when the phone rang again.

If she had a whistle, she’d be tempted to let it blast. She smiled to herself, then puckered up and put her thumb and forefinger between her lips as she lifted the receiver. She didn’t say a thing and when the person on the other end didn’t either, she let loose for a full ten seconds.

After a second’s pause, a voice came on the line. “Bec? Is that you?”

“Josh? Uh, sorry about that. Someone’s been calling here and not saying anything and then hanging up. I figured I’d give him an earful.”

“When? How many times?”

His staccato questions set her pulse racing all over again. “Three times in the last half hour or so. I tried star sixty-nine, but the guy blocked his information.”

“I’m on my way now. That’s why I called. If the phone rings again, don’t answer it. When I get there, I’ll get hold of the phone company and have them trace the call.”

Outside, Tripod started barking.

Sure, where was the dog an hour ago when Rambo showed up? “Your dog’s going nuts over something outside.”

“Probably a cat again. Can you see him?”

Becki unwound the phone cord from behind the night table and moved to the window to try and see what had him riled. A noise sounded from downstairs. The dog?

She couldn’t see him from the window. From his barking, it sounded as if he was prancing back and forth along the west wall. She moved toward the bedroom door, straining to hear if the sound had really come from inside.

Another thump sounded.

“Josh,” she whispered, “I think someone’s in the house.”

“Where are you?”

“Upstairs.”

A voice spoke in the background, and then Josh barked orders to send a cruiser to her address. “Help is on the way, Bec. I’m fifteen minutes out.” Through the phone, a siren whirred to life, while at her end, silence reigned.

The dog’s not barking.
She clenched the phone to her ear. “Josh, the dog’s not barking!”

“It’s going to be okay. I want you to hide in the bathroom. Lock the door.”

“But I’m on an old plug-in phone, I’d have to hang up.”

“Listen to me. You need to hang up. If the intruder sees a light on the downstairs phone, he’ll know someone’s in the house.”

Her fingers tightened around the receiver at the thought of breaking the connection.

A loud pop and whoosh cracked the silence.

She gasped.

“What is it? What’s going on?” The urgency in Josh’s voice sent her pulse careening.

“A... It sounded like a gunshot. Outside.”

“Are you sure it wasn’t one of the bangers that scare birds from the vineyards across the road?”

Her heart pummeled her ribs as she tugged the phone as far as it would reach and tried to see out the front windows from the hallway. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

A second shot sounded. And a puff of dirt kicked up in the yard.

She dropped to her belly. “No, it’s real. Someone’s shooting at the house!”

FOUR

A
t the sound of dead air swallowing Bec’s whispered “Hurry,” Josh floored the gas pedal. What kind of car thief shot at a house?

Josh tightened his grip on the steering wheel. Was he reading the situation all wrong? Were the note, the incident in the barn and these shots really about scaring Bec off her grandparents’ property?

He banked the corner too fast. His wheels bit into the graveled shoulder. He cranked the wheel hard to the left, then right, pulling the car straight, wishing he could get a grip as easily on what was going on.

The guy Bec had surprised in the barn had to believe she could identify him, or else why expose his proximity by shooting at the house?

Seven minutes out, his police radio blared to life. “We’re on-site. No sign of an intruder outside. But no one’s answering the door.”

Josh snatched up the radio. “I told her to hide in the upstairs bathroom. Use the bullhorn.”

Twenty long seconds later, an officer came back on. “Okay, we see movement... The front door’s opening... A lone woman, Caucasian, curly hair.”

Relief washed through him. “Yeah, that’s her. Rebecca Graw,” he confirmed.

“She’s fine,” the officer assured him.

A second voice cut in. “Need first aid. West side of the house. Hurry.”

“Hunter?” Josh careened onto his road, a whole other fear welling inside him. “What you got?”

“It’s Tripod.” The harsh rattle in his friend’s voice clutched at his throat. “He’s been hit.”

Josh screeched to a stop behind the row of police cars and raced to the side of the house. The circle of uniformed officers opened, and the officer in charge ordered a search for the shooter.

Bec was kneeling in front of a whimpering Tripod. She stroked the pup’s head. “What a brave boy you are. A real guard dog.”

Josh stared at them, his heart pummeling his chest.

Hunter, dressed in street clothes—he must have picked up the call on his police scanner—glanced up from examining the dog’s lone back leg. “He’ll be okay. Just a graze. The force must have knocked his foot out from under him.”

Josh let out a breath and nodded. Hunkering beside Bec, he squeezed her shoulder and ruffled Tripod’s ears with his other hand. “You did good, bud. Real good.”

He cleared the emotions clogging his throat and rubbed slow circles on Bec’s back. “You okay?” he whispered close to her ear.

She shook her head, moisture clinging to her eyelashes. “Why would someone do this?”

“I don’t know. But I promise you we’ll find him.”

Hunter swabbed the dog’s wound with antiseptic. “He should be as good as new in a day or two.”

When Josh nodded his thanks, Hunter held his gaze. “We need Miss Graw to answer some questions.” The unspoken question in his eyes asked if Josh could handle the job without becoming emotionally involved.

The answer was no, and Hunter clearly recognized as much. This was little Becki Graw, the girl he’d been getting out of scrapes since she was knee-high. Of course this was personal. “I’ll take care of it,” Josh said. “Can you run a trace on incoming calls over the past hour?”

With a brisk nod, Hunter disappeared around the house.

Josh gently scooped Tripod into his arms. “We’ll talk inside.”

As they approached the front door, Hunter came out. A squirming cat leaped from his arms. Tripod tried to jump after it, but Josh held him fast.

“How’d that get inside?” Bec asked.

“Not sure. Found it cowering in the basement when I came in. Probably squeezed under the root-cellar door to get away from the dog. Knocked a canning jar off one of your shelves by the looks of it.”

“That must be what you heard in the basement,” Josh said to Bec before turning his attention back to Hunter. “See if the cameras picked up anything useful, will you?”

Bec led the way inside and spread a thick blanket on the carpet for Tripod. “Maybe the shots were from a hunter. Someone might have mistaken Tripod’s movements in the woods for game.”

“You said the shots were directed toward the house.”

She smoothed the edges of the blanket. “I was rattled from the phone calls and Tripod’s barking. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe he got winged by a hunter in the woods and then ran to the house.”

“On the phone, you said you heard the dog barking at the house before the shot.”

“Do you think a hunter could have misjudged the distance his bullet would travel?” Bec asked, clearly grasping for any explanation that would put some much-needed distance between her and this latest incident. Her fingers worried the edge of the blanket.

Josh covered her hands with his to still them. “It’s not hunting season.”

“How about a farmer? Aren’t they allowed to take down an animal that goes after their stock?”

“Sure, but they wouldn’t be doing that on your property.” He decided against mentioning his suspicions about the abandoned car they’d found at the quarry. She was upset enough.

By the time Josh had gleaned every detail she could remember from the afternoon, Hunter had reappeared at the door. “The cameras didn’t pick up anything, but we got a couple of numbers for those phone calls. Last one was yours. The other three came from a cell phone, but the number couldn’t be traced.”

“A pay-as-you-go?” Criminals’ phone of choice.

“Yeah.”

Josh rubbed his chin. “Could they tell how long ago the phone was activated?”

“Yesterday.”

Bec’s face blanched.

Josh motioned for Hunter to give them some privacy. After the door closed behind his friend, Josh touched his finger under Bec’s chin and tipped her face toward him. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

“Someone’s going to a lot of trouble to scare me off this property.”

Josh searched her eyes. “Do you still think it’s your sister? That she hired someone to do this?”

“It’s the only thing that makes sense, but I just can’t believe she’d go this far. I mean...those were real bullets!”

Josh rubbed his palms up and down her upper arms. “Tell me about Neil.”

She croaked out a laugh. “It couldn’t be him.”

“From where I was standing, he looked like exactly the kind of guy who’d stoop to scare tactics to get what he wanted.”

“We’re not even dating.”

Josh dropped his hands to his sides. “Looked to me like that wasn’t his choice.”

Her face flushed a bright red. “He accepted my decision.”

“On the surface maybe. But deep down, I’m thinking he figured you’d eventually come to your senses. Only, now you’ve moved outside his sphere of influence, so to speak.”

She shook her head vehemently. “He doesn’t own a gun. At least...I can’t imagine him owning one.”

“They’re easy enough to come by.” Josh’s hand skimmed his own holstered weapon as he tried to tamp down his irritation that she was defending the guy.

Her chin dropped to her chest. She reached out a trembling hand and ruffled Tripod’s fur. “I can’t believe he’d...He wouldn’t shoot a dog.”

So she conceded that he might shoot off a gun to scare her into fleeing back to the city?

Josh pressed his lips together to stop himself from saying it. He definitely needed to do a background check on the creep.

The more he thought about it, a guy like Neil was exactly the type who’d take an interest in a collector’s item like the 1913 Cadillac parked in the barn, too. He’d probably snuck into town ahead of Bec and planted that note in the mailbox, then got caught nosing around the barn and panicked.

“I was thinking...” Bec pushed the hair from her face and stiffened her spine. “Whoever made those calls must have been phoning to see if the place was empty so they could come back and steal the car.”

“If he’d called once, maybe. But three times so close together? Not likely.”

Her gaze drifted to an old family picture on the mantel of Bec and her sister. The muscles in her jaw flexed. Then suddenly she snatched up the phone.

“Who are you calling?”

“Sarah.”

“I’m not sure that’s such a—”

Wes, the officer directing the search, poked his head around the door. “Josh, can I have a word with you outside?”

“Be right back,” he said to Bec. He joined the other officer on the porch. “What’d you find?”

“Two possibilities. Seems your dog’s been ripping through the neighbors’ farmyards chasing cats. One of your neighbors said it wouldn’t be the first time a farmer’s taken a potshot at a roving dog.”

“He say which farmer?”

“Nope, but we found these in the dirt around the house.” Wes held out his palm.

Josh examined the small hunks of metal. “Air-rifle pellets.”

“Yup. Looks like our shooter was a kid playing around or someone who just wanted to scare the pup off.”

“Or Becki.”

Wes clapped his hand closed around the pellets. “My advice is that you keep your dog tied up and you won’t have any more trouble.”

Josh squared his jaw. “You said there were two possibilities?”

“Yeah.” Wes glanced toward the barn. “Hunter said Miss Graw had an intruder last night messing with her grandfather’s antique car.”

“That’s right.”

“A few weeks back we got a call from a police officer in the Ottawa area, asking questions about Graw and his car.”

“What kind of questions?”

Wes hesitated, his reluctance to say etched in his face.

“What kind of questions?” Josh repeated.

“Like if Graw was the kind of man who could pull off a jewelry heist.”

“A jewelry heist?” Josh almost laughed at the absurdity of the idea.

“Seems they had some expensive pieces lifted from a museum that the antique-car club toured. A tour Graw was on. A tour he’d left two days early.”

Josh shook his head. “You know Graw would never have been mixed up in anything like that.”

“I know.”

“So what did you tell the officer?”

“That Graw was dead.”

* * *

“Are you nuts?” her sister screamed. “What kind of person do you think I am?”

Becki jerked the phone away from her ear. “The kind who’d go to any lengths to ensure I sell this house so that you get a bigger piece of the pie.”

Sarah gasped. “I’d never threaten you. Never.”

“You threatened to go to the lawyer if I didn’t cave...and then did!”

Josh walked in the door, his expression grim.

“The police officer’s back. I’ve got to go. But make no mistake, if they find proof it was you, I don’t care if you are my sister, I will press charges.” Becki disconnected before Sarah could respond.

Josh’s mouth twisted to one side. “I take it she denied any involvement.”

“Yup.”

“Do you believe her?”

Becki hesitated. “I don’t know. Her horrified gasp sounded real enough.” Becki turned the phone over in her hands. “And she was home, so clearly she didn’t pull the trigger. But maybe she just couldn’t believe what her hired henchman would do. What did that officer have to say?”

Josh glanced away, and Becki recognized the tic in his cheek. He’d had the same reaction the time her favorite kitten had been hit by the hay wagon and he didn’t want to tell her. He’d always gone above and beyond to try to protect her, even as a teenager. Given how insensitive her parents had been, Becki had always appreciated Josh’s acute regard for her feelings.

“I’m a big girl now,” she reminded him, setting the phone back on the table.

He took a seat. “It’s good news, in a way.” Leaning forward, he clasped his hands between his knees. “The shots came from an air rifle, which means they weren’t intended to do more than frighten.”

“Me or the dog?”

“I’m not sure.” The concern in his gaze made her heart stutter. “Wes thinks the dog. One of the neighbors said as much.”

“But you still think it’s Neil?”

That muscle in his cheek twitched again. “I just don’t like coincidences. Those phone calls are suspicious. I still want to check into his whereabouts. How soon did he leave here this morning?”

“Not long after you left.”

Becki snatched up the phone again.

“Who are you calling?”

“Neil’s house number. If he’s home already, then there’s no way he could be the one who fired those shots.”

Neil picked up on the second ring.

Becki let out a breath of relief that her former relationship hadn’t morphed into a
Fatal Attraction
remake. She quickly fabricated a story about feeling bad that she’d sent him off so quickly after he’d traveled so far to visit her, then thanked him again for the flowers.

“My pleasure, Rebecca. I’ll try to make it down there again soon, and you can show me the sights.”

Becki cringed at how he’d instantly mistaken her apology for interest. “Uh, there’s not much to do but watch the grass grow here, remember? Not your idea of a good time.”

“Any time with you is good.”

She swallowed a gag, which wasn’t fair. He sounded sincere...unfortunately. Becki threw Josh a desperate look, but he was absorbed in a conversation on his cell phone. “Uh, sorry, Neil, I’ve got to run. My neighbor just came to the door.”

Neil’s snort and terse goodbye left no doubt as to his opinion of Josh.

Good.
Maybe that would stave off any more surprise visits.

“You’re certain?” Josh clutched his phone with white-knuckled fingers, piquing Becki’s curiosity. He glanced her way and quickly ended the call.

“Who was that?” she asked.

“It’s not important.”

“It sounded important.”

He tucked his phone into his pocket. “Nothing for you to worry about. So what did Neil say?”

“Since he was home, I didn’t want to mention what happened. Would only fuel his arguments against my moving here.”

Josh nodded, but he looked as if he wanted to say more.

“Maybe that officer is right about the shots.” Catching herself nervously twisting her necklace, she pressed her palms to her thighs. “I was so worked up with everything that happened yesterday and then the phone calls that I freaked. Obviously a car thief isn’t going to start shooting at the house and draw attention to himself. He’d just wait until I’m out.”

Josh squeezed her hand. “It’s always better to call for help than regret it later. And don’t forget one of those pellets winged Tripod.”