She parked next to a pale yellow car from yesteryear, her car brand-new compared to the classic beside her. Her stomach clenched as she got out of the car and opened the back door to get the food she’d picked up fifteen minutes ago.
No fake crab, that was for sure. Her credit card knew that.
Glancing around, she took in the detached garage with a covered yacht next to it. She wondered if the elderly woman ever went out onto the sea, and what kind of vehicles she’d find in that garage.
Everything sat pristinely, as someone definitely took care of everything, where Viola used it or not. Janey supposed that was what money looked like, and she couldn’t wait to see inside the mansion.
She climbed the curved steps and rang the doorbell. It clanged through the house, meeting her ears easily. She wondered if that did have to do with Viola’s supposed deafness. After several seconds of anxious silence, the huge, intricately carved door opened.
A man stood there in a white shirt and tie, and he couldn’t be as old as Janey. In fact, she probably had a decade on him. “You must be Miss Forsythe,” he said with a crisp accent that sounded slightly British and slightly Irish.
“Yes,” she said.
“Miss Martin is expecting you.” He reached for the food she carried, and she handed it to him. He backed up and she stepped into the house. The foyer stretched up toward the heavens, with a ceiling that had been carved and painted into delicate roses and other flowers.
The walls that ran toward them stared back at her with perfectly white faces, and the only art showed gardens and waterfalls. The hardwood floor absorbed all the color, and Janey would never pick a wood this black, but with the flowers, the walls, and the art, it all worked together.
“This is lovely,” she said.
“Thank you,” the man said. “My name is Miles, and I’ll get the food onto plates and bring it into the library.” He nodded to a wide, arched doorway to her left. “Right through there. Miss Martin is near the windows.”
Janey faced the library, the scent of parchment and books already in her nose. She drew in a breath and told herself she needed answers. She knew Dennis Martin wasn’t her father, but Viola was the only person connected to her mother she could talk to right now. She didn’t trust Riggs or Bobbie, and Esme hadn’t even known about her.
The library contained thousands of books, deep bookshelves, a grand piano, several rugs on the floor in a variety of colors, and a pair of windows and high wingback chairs on the far side that created a reading nook.
Janey approached that, and as she did, an elderly woman rose from the chair on the right and turned toward her. Janey put her professional smile on her face, the one she used to charm CEOs and CFOs and the toughest of financial supervisors who did not want to write checks with six figures on them.
“Miss Martin,” she said, going with the name Miles had used. “I’m Janey Forsythe.”
The older woman had bright blue eyes, and all the color in her body had settled in those eyes. With white hair, pale skin, and nearly zero body fat, she looked absolutely wraith-like. “You look lovely today.”
Viola wore what Janey would describe as a kimono with loud, bright flowers covering it. The woman clearly adored flowers and gardens, and Janey wished she’d paid more attention to Mom as she’d talked and talked about the flowers she put in her garden at the cottage.
Janey shivered to think about telling Viola she and Tessa had pulled everything out of the garden, leaving the beds like raw, dark smudges against the house and around the trees.
“Where’s lunch?” Viola asked, and Janey’s smile faltered.
“Miles is bringing it in.” She reached Viola and extended her hand.
Viola looked at it for half a beat and then shook it. “Do sit down,” she said, her propriety taking over. “I understand you have some questions about my brother.”
“Yes,” Janey said, perching in the flowery chair and facing Viola as she practically fell back to her chair. “Dennis and my mother were together for several years before his death a couple of years ago.”
“Yes, Lydia,” Viola said, her head nodding. “Lovely woman. She—a” Viola cut off and looked at Janey. “My goodness, child. You look just like her.”
Janey reached up and touched her dark hair, which had been very much like Mom’s. “Do I?”
“Her eyes were a bit lighter,” Viola said, and she seemed to come more alive for some reason.
“My father—” Janey cut off, her throat suddenly too tight to speak. She’d often told people her darker eyes came from her father, but now she wasn’t sure she could say such a thing. She cleared her throat, getting enough of the emotion out of the way to make room for the words. “Did you know my father?”
Confusion furrowed her brow. “I don’t think so.”
“But you knew my mother. They came to the island for years. Decades, really, as my mother inherited the cottage from her mother, who bought it in 1950.”
“I met Lydia in 2014,” she said. “Dennis brought her to lunch here once. They lived in the city.”
“Did you know they were married?” Janey asked, determined to keep her talking while she could.
The disgusted look on her face said she did. “Of course I knew. Now I’ve got all of his offspring calling me at all hours of the day and night.” She reached up and touched her perfectly set hair. Footsteps approached, and Miles appeared with a tray with two plates on it.
“Lunch, Miss,” he said, sliding the tray onto the coffee table between the two chairs. He continued to get the TV tray and position it in front of Viola, then he placed her plate on it. He did the same for Janey, who watched him with interest. How did someone like him get a job here?
“Thank you,” she said once he’d put her halibut in front of her. He smiled and walked away, leaving Janey to watch Viola take her first bite of the crab cakes from Lester’s she’d requested.
“Mm,” she said, her eyes rolling back in her head. “The sauce for these is delicious.” She swiped another bite of food through the thick, light green sauce.
“Dennis’s children are calling you?” Janey asked, hoping to get back to the topic. She swiped up a piece of fish and rice pilaf, her mouth watering at the salty, warm scent of her food.
“All the time,” she said. “Their in-laws, even all the bastards in the family.”
Janey nearly choked, though her white fish was the most delicate morsel she’d ever put in her mouth.
“I’m sorry?”
“Oh, our family has quite the sordid past,” Viola said, and Janey would eat her plate if there wasn’t a bit of excitement in Viola’s expression now. “Didn’t you know?”
“I did not,” she said with a smile she hoped would encourage Viola to spill all the secrets.
“My father had three wives,” Viola said. “Some people got left out of his will. There have been vipers after the Martin fortune for decades.”
Janey simply took another bite of fish, this time with a green bean stabbed on her fork with it.
“Lydia was Dennis’s third wife too. Because the calls didn’t start until now, I can only assume he left her everything.”
“Seems like perhaps he did,” Janey said.
“Mm.” They ate in silence for a few minutes, and when Viola finished her crab cakes, she gazed out the window instead of moving onto her filet mignon. “I remember Lydia saying her first husband’s father had been married several times as well.”
“Oh?” Janey said, her synapses firing now. “But you didn’t know my father.”
“No,” Viola said. “She just said that when they came for lunch.” Viola waved her hand and picked up her fork. “Of course, there’s that infuriating man who won’t leave me alone. He thinks he has a claim to my fortune through both Dennis and Lydia.”
Janey’s eyebrows drew down as she studied Viola. She cut her steak and wiped it through the sauce on her plate. “He claims to be entitled to a piece through Dennis, because he was my fath
er’s second wife’s son. But he came along after their divorce.” She shook her head and ate her steak.
Several pieces, in fact, each one accelerating Janey’s pulse.
“And through my mother?” she asked.
“Really through your father,” Viola said, delicately cutting her steak again. “One of his father’s previous wives.”
“So he and my dad were siblings?”
“No.” Viola scoffed. “Step-siblings. If that. It’s just like with my family. He came with one of the wives, then departed when the marriage ended. There’s no blood relation at all. That’s what I keep telling him. No blood. No money.” She popped the meat into her mouth.
“Who is it?” Janey asked, almost not wanting to know.
“Richard Friedman.” Viola practically bit the name out.
Janey fell back into her chair, her mind unable to truly make sense of what she’d said. Finally, she asked, “Riggs?”
“Loathsome man,” Viola said. “I’ve got someone looking into him, and we strongly suspect the man spent some time in prison.” She nodded as if rumors were fact, and that she alone would reveal the truth.
Janey had no idea what to say, and though she hadn’t eaten even half of her food yet, she couldn’t take another bite.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Janey clicked again and then again, trying to find the wives of Earl Clarke, her grandfather. She’d tracked down her grandmother easily. They’d been married for thirty-seven years before Mary Clarke had died.
Then Earl had married another woman named Donetta. No children between them, though she’d had four kids of her own from a previous marriage. All of the searching Janey had done at the library in downtown Nantucket had not revealed any Richards or Riggs.
So Earl had to have been married again. That would make Riggs and her father step-siblings.
And if he wanted to get technical, Riggs could say he was entitled to Lydia’s assets through her first husband, Greg.
She sighed and sat back, frustrated with the tediousness of this search. “Maybe you should look into Dennis’s father,” she said. “If Riggs is saying he’s entitled to the assets through both parties, wouldn’t his mother have been married to both Earl and Dennis’s father?”
She started typing and clicking again, and because the Martins were such a prominent family on Nantucket, their records were easy to find.
She jotted down the first name and clicked to reveal the others.
Betty Friedman stared back at her, setting her heartbeat clanging like a gong.
She wasn’t sure how long she sat there staring at the computer screen, but once she came back to her senses, she clicked on the woman’s name, and sure enough, she had two children. Both sons: Paul and Richard.
Her other marriages included one to Brian Friedman, who was the father to her two boys. Then Jonathan Martin. No children, and Janey noted that they were only married for three months before the divorce had been recorded.
Then Earl Clarke.
“So it’s true,” she whispered, and she suddenly felt like her lungs had way too much air in them. She tried to push it out and pull in new oxygen, but it didn’t happen very easily.
She paused and pressed her eyes closed.
“Okay,” she said, drawing in a deep breath through her nose. “Riggs and my dad were step-brothers, but only through marriage. No blood.” She started drawing a chart on her note paper, putting Earl at the top and adding his wife and their children. That was the line Janey came through.
Supposedly, if Gregory Clarke was her father.
But Earl had married Donetta Downs. She had four children from someone else. They had no children.
Early had then married Betty Friedman. Again, she had two boys from someone else, including Riggs. They had no kids together.
On the other side of the paper, she listed Victor Martin and Julia Papilion. That was who Mercy, Viola, Dennis came from. Then he’d married Betty Friedman for three months—again where Riggs factored into the Martin side of the equation. Then another woman Janey hadn’t investigated yet.
She didn’t need to.
Riggs thought he should have access to Dennis Martin’s assets, as well as Mom’s assets through both sides of that marriage.
“What a nightmare,” Janey said. She needed to talk to someone about this. She needed to know what would happen if he sued. Would he win?
She printed everything with Betty Friedman on it, paid the fee for using the computer and the printing, and called Sean as she left the library.
“I have to show you something,” she said. “I need your legal advice.” She wanted to say she needed him to comfort her, but the words wouldn’t quite come out.
“I’m at my office,” he said. “Come on over.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
He absolutely could win.
Sean’s words rang through Janey’s head when she woke the following morning. She’d met with Sean with her printouts, and she’d paced in his office while talking a mile a minute.
He’d reviewed everything and he said that yes, Riggs had a real case to make before a judge for why he should have some claim on anything belonging to the Martins or the Clarkes.
“At least if things are left up in the air with the wills,” he’d said.
Janey needed to sign the papers to get the will executed and done. The problem was, she still didn’t know which set of papers she wanted to put her name on.
No matter what, Riggs Friedman was not going to get his greedy hands on anything her mother hadn’t wanted him to have. Not the cottage. Not the money. Not the house on Long Island.
Nothing.
She rolled over and checked her phone to find Tessa had gone to town to get bagels, smoked salmon, and cream cheese. She showered and went out to the porch with a cup of coffee, wishing she knew what move to make.
She watched the ocean, so she didn’t see Riggs approaching until his stomping footsteps came down the front sidewalk. Janey pushed away from the pillar where she stood, gripping her coffee mug like it would transform into a sword she could use to defend herself.
We strongly suspect the man spent some time in prison.
“You got that car?” he demanded.
“Excuse me?” Janey asked, staying down in the corner of the porch, though there was no escape here.
“That is a Mercedes Benz, and it has hardly any miles on it.”
Janey simply blinked at him.
“That is my car.”
“I wasn’t aware you bought it,” Janey said coolly. “What are you going to do with a twenty-year-old car?” She laughed, which probably wasn’t her smartest move.
Riggs took a step toward her, and she faced him fully. “Do not come any closer to me, Mister Friedman. You should leave.”
Anger flashed through his eyes and raged across his face. “You girls can’t keep everything from me.”
“I think we can,” she said. “As Mom left it all to us, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
He laughed, the sound cruel and high-pitched for a man with such a low voice. “You’re such a fool,” he said.
“Why do you think that car is yours? My mother bought it with someone else.”
“Right,” Riggs said. “Dale Harton, right?”
Janey didn’t confirm or deny. It made sense that Riggs would know about Dale and Joan. They’d all been friends years ago. Janey had seen all of them—her mother and father, Dale and Joan, and Riggs and Bobbie—in the photographs.
“He’s not your father,” Riggs said, taking another menacing step forward.
She held up her hand, and he stopped again. “My father was Gregory Clarke.”
“No, he wasn’t,” Riggs said, and he actually looked like he was enjoying himself. “I’m your father.”
“No.” Janey shook her head instantly, horror moving through her. “That’s not true.”
“Your mother only used Dale to buy the car, because he had so much money, and I�
�d just lost my job.”
“Stop talking.”
“Your dad had just died, and she hadn’t gotten into the life insurance yet. She needed a car, and Dale co-signed. That’s it.”
“I don’t care,” Janey said.
“The Hartons left the island after that,” Riggs said, and she wanted to throw her coffee mug at him. “He and Joan sold their cottage, and they haven’t been back to Nantucket.”
“So what?”
“Bobbie and I thought it was actually Joan keeping them here, because she was in love with your dad, and with him gone…” He let the words hang there, and Janey’s mind raced.
Dale and Joan had disappeared after Daddy’s death. Janey had seen that in real life, and the photographs catalogued it too. Could it be because Joan was in love with Daddy?
Or because Dale didn’t want to break up his marriage to be with Mom?
Or some other reason entirely? She hadn’t kept up with the Hartons. They were her parents’ friends, not hers.
“Are you going to keep the cottage?” Riggs asked.
“Yes,” Janey said.
Riggs’s face transformed into something frightening, and he growled. “I’m owed something from this estate,” he said. “The cottage, the car, the bank accounts. Something.”
“You’re delusional.”
“You’re my daughter!” he boomed, and Janey flinched. She backed up, but she met the porch railing behind her.
“You need to leave,” she said, her voice strong but her insides shaking. “Right now.” She reached into her pocket. “I’m calling the police.”
Riggs came even closer, and Janey worked hard not to whimper. Her fingers shook as she tried to get her keypad up to dial.
“I just want the car and at least one hundred thousand dollars.”
Shock coursed through Janey, enough to make her look up. “What makes you think we have that much money?”
“Please,” he said. “I know what Dennis was worth.” He gave her a cruel smile. “Give me the car and the money, and I’ll leave you and Tessa alone.”
“Get off my porch,” Janey said.
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