The Widow and the Will

by J. Thomas-Like

  Tess glared at him and looked around. “Lilly, get me another one!”

  Lilly started to move, but Ford shook his head and she stayed still. He turned back to Tess and squatted down. “Hudson’s here now. Your sister’s here. Tell us what happened.”

  Ford caught her eyes and held them with his own. He didn’t blink and he didn’t move, willing her to focus. After nearly a minute, he could almost see the fog lifting from her face. It was replaced by a look of confusion so profound; Ford felt a stab of guilt in his gut. He hated having to be the bad guy, but if Hudson was going to help her, then she needed to say it all.

  Speaking slowly, Tess recounted Hudson’s earlier visit and how she found the box now resting on the coffee table. He took that moment to lift the lid.

  “Holy shit!” Hudson hollered.

  Ford leaned around and peered into the box. “That’s a lot of cash,” he said, whistling softly.

  “Tell me about it,” Tess snapped. “I guess Jack hid it for a reason, but don’t ask me.”

  “Did you count it?” Hudson reached over to thumb through one of the rubber banded packets.

  “Yep. There’s a hundred grand there.”

  “Show them the emails, sis.” Lilly nodded at her and Tess sighed.

  “Emails?” Hudson looked from one woman to the other.

  Tess pointed to the computer on the desk in the corner. “Have at it.”

  Ford let his brother practically jump over the coffee table to get to the computer desk in the corner. “What about that laptop of Jack’s? Do you still have it?”

  Tess looked at him and frowned. “Yeah, but I think it might be broken.”

  “Let me take a look.”

  “Okay.”

  When she returned from the bedroom, it was obvious the unit had been damaged, but it didn’t look too bad. While Hudson had his nose glued to the screen at the desk in the corner, Ford took the laptop to the dining room table to have a peek. When he tried to lift the lid, it stuck a little and then made cracking noises as the hinges rebelled. He struck the power button, but nothing happened. “How about the power cord?”

  Tess grumbled. “Duh, sorry.” She disappeared again into the bedroom and returned with the black cord. “Here you go.” Instead of going back to the couch, she sat at the table. Ford could feel her eyes on him as he plugged the laptop in.

  “Here goes nothing,” he said, looking at her over the top of the machine. He hit the power button again, and with a little bit of a grinding, whirring sound, the machine booted right up. “Well, look at that. I’m not sure how long it will last though. Either the power supply is loose or the hard drive. I’m not much of an expert with laptops.”

  Tess nodded but looked anxious.

  “What’s the password?”

  “Huh?” Tess blinked at him.

  “The logon password,” Ford repeated.

  “Oh, sheesh, sorry. Tess always knows.”

  Ford grinned. “Say that again?”

  “All one word, all lower case letters, tessalwaysknows.”

  He tapped out the letters one at a time, some a little harder than others, but eventually the desktop appeared and he was able to pull up the letter from Jack. Working as quickly as he could, Ford opened a web browser and logged into his yahoo mail account. He sent a copy of the letter to himself with a copy to Hudson. When that was finished, he clicked over to see about Jack’s browser history. As the page began to load, the laptop died. Unless he took it apart piece by piece, there was no way he was going to revive the thing again.

  “Well, that’s that.” He closed the lid and rested his hands on top of it.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s dead. It’ll need more skilled hands than mine to get it going again. But I got what I wanted before it turned up its toes. If you want, I can drop it off with a buddy of mine who fixes these things.”

  “Sure, whatever.” She was picking at the cuticles on her fingers and biting her lower lip. Ford tried to look away, but the sight of her small, white teeth on her reddening lip was sexy as hell. God I’m an ass.

  Forcing his head to turn, he called across to his brother, “How’s it going over there?”

  “I’ll let you know,” Hudson murmured. He’d figured out how to print the emails and the little printer on the computer desk was spitting out page after page. Lilly stood in front of it, scanning them as fast as she could get her hands on them.

  Now there’s a woman for my brother. Ford admired Lilly’s concerned face and hand gripping the sheets of paper. She was more of a spitfire, and the type of girl Hudson would need to keep him in line.

  Ford chuckled to himself and ushered the thought out of his head.

  Tess got up and went to the kitchen. She came back with two bottles and offered him one. Knowing a little more hair of the dog would improve his headache, he gladly accepted. They remained at the table in silence, nursing their beers. Ford wished he could be anywhere else on the planet, yet knew a stack of dynamite couldn’t have blown him out of there if Tess was in distress.

  After another fifteen minutes, Hudson and Lilly joined them with the stack of pages from the printer. Ford couldn’t read the expression on his brother’s face, but Lilly looked furious, like she wanted to punch someone in the face.

  “So what’s in them?” Tess asked, looking from her sister to her lawyer. Ford thought she looked like she didn’t really want to know, but had no choice but to find out. She had already finished her beer and was almost slurring her words.

  “It got pretty nasty toward the end,” Hudson admitted. “The long and short of it is this: Jack was angry and wanted control of his own money and destiny. His father tried to talk him out of taking control. He didn’t come right out and say he’d kill him or anything, but Roger made it pretty clear that he thought Jack was making a big mistake and that he would regret it.”

  “Am I mentioned?”

  Hudson looked at Lilly and their faces gave away the answer. Ford reached for the pages to thumb through them on his own.

  “What do they say?”

  Ford sighed and passed them over to Tess.

  “I’m a gold digger?” She threw the page to the side. “I’m going to ruin his life?” Ford watched another page hit the pile. “Oh and I’m the worst thing that ever happened to him? What the fuck?”

  Tess bounded out of the chair and grabbed the sheets of paper. She crumbled and ripped and tore them up, all the while blasting her in-laws with the filthiest language Ford had ever heard come out of a woman so young.

  “Tess! Don’t!” Lilly shouted. “Hudson’s going to need those.”

  “I can reprint them,” Hudson said quietly.

  Ford felt the situation was spinning wildly out of control and stood up. He walked around the table and took Tess gently by the arm. “Come on. Let’s go outside for some fresh air. I need a smoke.”

  As he propelled her toward the French doors, he looked back at Hudson and Lilly. “I got this.”

  Chapter 24

  Tess allowed Ford to take her outside but she still wanted to scream. She couldn’t believe the hateful, evil things Roger Kingston had written about her. It had started innocently enough with the father counseling the son on how young he was to be getting married. It didn’t matter that they had known each other almost all their lives. They were still young enough that they could wait a while. Wait until Jack had a hold on what his net worth meant. Thank God Jack had defended her, otherwise Tess would have wanted to go dig him up just to kill him again.

  “That’s some pretty heavy shit,” Ford said as he lit a cigarette. They stood at the end of the brick patio, staring out inTO the woodsy fields behind the apartment.

  “Ya think?” she snapped. “I can’t believe Roger wrote those things about me. I never knew about any of it, yet he called me a gold digger. A fuckin’ gold digger!” Tess stamped her foot at the sheer idiocy of the thought. “I loved Jack. We ate ramen noodles and macaroni and cheese for four year
s to get through college. We worked part time jobs in the crappiest places. We paid for our own cell phones and didn’t ask our parents for squat, but I’m a gold digger.”

  Ford stayed quiet while she ranted and raved. Feeling stung, she continued railing on about all the crazy things she’d seen in Jack’s home over the years. “And we can’t forget David. He got into a few scrapes himself, which his father took care of for him. I wonder if the money for the restitution came from Jack’s inheritance. Oh man, I wish I could prove that. I’d sue his ass as quick as hell!”

  Tess felt like she could run a hundred miles on the rage-filled adrenaline high she was on. What she really wanted to do was take a ride over to Roger Kingston’s house and kick him in the balls. Since she couldn’t do that, she continued to curse and bitch about the people who were supposed to have been her in-laws and closest allies, next to her own family. Her alcohol buzz was completely gone.

  After a while, she turned to Ford and frowned. “You must think I’m crazy.”

  Ford only shook his head no as he finished his cigarette and then field stripped it. He put the dead butt into his jeans pocket. “Not at all.”

  “Well, I feel crazy.” Tess grabbed her loose hair and pulled it behind her as if to put it into a ponytail. She would have, but she didn’t have a hair tie handy. Growling, she let it go and then rubbed her scalp vigorously all over until the blond waves were poofed out all over in odd directions. “Everyone said it would all get easier. That in time, things would go back to normal. Is this shit normal?”

  Ford chuckled and shook his head again. “Maybe the new normal.”

  Tess twisted a piece of hair between her fingers and sighed. She flopped down into one of the chairs at the patio table. “I just want to run away. I could take all that cash in there and disappear.”

  “Where would you go?” Ford took the seat next to her and stretched his long legs out in front of him and crossed his arms against his chest. Tess admired the toughness of his cool biker pose and even snuck a peek at his face. His eyes were focused in his lap and she was glad.

  “What?” she stammered. “Oh, I don’t know.” Studying his handsome features was distracting her and she tilted her eyes up to gaze at the clear, starry sky. “Does it matter? Anywhere would be better than here, right now.”

  “What about your family? They’d miss you.”

  “Don’t ruin my fantasy,” she grumbled, hating how he was being logical and realistic. Logic and reality were things to avoid.

  “Sorry.” Ford’s face was blank, but Tess could hear the smile in his voice.

  “I’m serious. I’m throwing a tantrum here and you aren’t supposed to talk me down.”

  He shrugged and lit a fresh cigarette. “Aren’t you a little old to be throwing tantrums?”

  “Oh bite me!”

  Tess tried to glare at him, but his honesty made her laugh instead. “You’re right. I am too old to be acting like a child. I guess twenty-five is the threshold for fits, eh?” She watched him smoke for a minute, transfixed by the movement of his strong hand lifting the cigarette to and from his lips. The light breeze caused his hair to ruffle the slightest bit, and he looked young in the backlight shining from inside the house. “How old are you, Ford?”

  As he leaned back to crush the cigarette into a small patch of dirt at the edge of the patio, Ford tilted his head to look her in the eye. “I’m thirty-five.”

  “Huh.” Tess nodded, taking it in. Not too old, she thought and then frowned. Too old for what? She closed her eyes and let the night air cool her skin as her heart and brain began to settle down. She was actually glad it was Ford who had joined her outside instead of Hudson or Lilly. Her lawyer would have killed her with logic and her sister would have jumped on the rage bandwagon and they would have both been wound up enough to do something truly stupid.

  The slight buzz she had from earlier was mostly gone. Standing up, she walked toward the door, fully expecting Ford to follow and he didn’t let her down.

  “I need another beer,” she said as she opened the door.

  Ford followed her inside and she saw that Hudson and Lilly were back at the computer, reprinting all of the pages she had destroyed. She went to the kitchen and retrieved a beer for herself. “Anyone else want one?” When no one responded, she shut the door to the fridge and then made her way to the couch. Ford sat down in the easy chair kitty corner from her.

  Finally, Hudson and Lilly finished what they were doing and joined them. “Well, it doesn’t necessarily say ‘I’m going to kill you’, but these certainly go a long way to pointing the finger at Roger Kingston,” Hudson said as he shoved the pages into his ever present briefcase. “But that’s only if the tox report comes back with something suspicious.”

  “I know I’m pretty damn convinced the Kingstons killed their own son just to keep his money. What a bunch of whack jobs.” Lilly’s words were dripping with venom.

  “You can think anything you want, Lilly,” Hudson’s tone was stern, “but don’t go saying that to just anyone. People are innocent until proven guilty and it’s going to take a lot more evidence before we can make accusations like that.”

  Lilly gave him a peevish look, but said nothing more as she plopped down beside her little sister. Tess’s eyebrows lowered as she looked at her sister and her lawyer. There seemed to be some pretty strong feelings there, whenever they went at one another. She felt really lucky to have someone like Lilly watching her back. It wasn’t every day that siblings got along as well as they did. Tess knew she could count on her older sister for just about anything, and the coming mess would prove that.

  The room was silent as Tess nursed her beer and the others gave her wary looks. Now that the alcohol was dampening her rage, she felt exhausted. The adrenaline dump was taking its toll. As she felt herself going deeper and deeper into her own mind, a single idea popped into her head, making her sit up straight, nearly spilling the beverage in her hand.

  “Hudson?” Her voice was shaky. “Am I in any danger?”

  Before he could respond, Lilly’s eyes grew wide. “If they killed Jack, are they going to come after Tess? We should call the police!”

  “Don’t be ridiculous–” Hudson held up his hands and took a step toward Lilly, who had jumped off the couch.

  “Don’t tell me what to do!” she shouted back.

  “Hey guys,” Tess tried to interrupt but found it was way more interesting to watch someone else bring on the crazy.

  “You need to get a hold of yourself,” Hudson growled, glaring at Lilly.

  “And you need to grow some balls!” Lilly spat.

  “Hold on, hold on!” Ford threw up his hands. “Just calm down you two. We still don’t know for sure if Jack was even murdered! And because he left everything to Tess, it would revert to your family if anything happened to her. It makes no sense to come after her.”

  “But they’re going to fight the will. If they win, then they get everything. They’ll want me out of the picture.” Tess’s hands began to tremble and she put the bottle on the coffee table where it clinked audibly until it settled.

  “If they win, and I’m sure they won’t, what difference would it make to kill you then?” Hudson was thinking logically, even if he seemed riled up because of Lilly’s outburst. But Tess knew only rage would drive Roger Kingston to try to murder her. It would be a vengeful act, because of the trouble she had caused him, and she told Hudson that.

  “She’s right.” Lilly’s eyes were still shooting daggers at Hudson, but her voice was calmer. She sat back down and threw a protective arm around the younger girl’s shoulders and Tess leaned into her. “If they won the lawsuit and got to keep the money, he’d want to kill her as soon as look at her. We need to call the police.”

  Hudson turned to look at Ford who was picking at the sole of his boot. “Let’s say for the sake of argument that Jack was killed. The Kingstons certainly look the guiltiest right now, but they don’t know you’ve found the emails or
the cash. I think that’s what keeps you safe right now.” Tess glanced at his serene face and appreciated his calm demeanor.

  “What’s the update on the report, brother?” Hudson asked. “Did you get a hold of your friend?”

  “No. I went by there, but she wasn’t in and she’s now ignoring my calls and texts.”

  Tess straightened herself up and reached for the beer bottle again. Draining it, she sighed and rubbed the cool glass against her forehead. “Would it do any good for me to call and ask about it? Maybe they’d respond better to the widow?”

  “You can try, but I don’t know.” Hudson shrugged and leaned back in the other easy chair next to Ford’s.

  “I don’t care what you all think,” Lilly huffed. “Tess should go to the police. Show them the emails she found, the letter Jack wrote, tell them everything.”

  Tess smiled and hugged her sister, basking in the protective vibes coming from her. “What about the money? We haven’t even talked about the box of cash.”

  “I’d take it to the bank.” Lilly took the empty bottle from Tess and went to the kitchen with it. When she returned, she had two more.

  “No, don’t do that,” Ford said quietly. “Put it right back where you found it until we know more.”

  “I agree.” Hudson reached over to the box and closed the lid. “Where did you find it?”

  “In the ceiling above the closet.” Tess rocked her head in the direction of the spare bedroom.

  “This thing fire safe?” Hudson asked Ford and he nodded his head. “I’d put it back where you found it. It’s cash, so unless you do something stupid like tell the Kingstons you have it, then technically it doesn’t exist. You can spend it, but definitely wait for a while and don’t use it for any big ticket items. Changing how you spend money will draw attention.”

  “Can’t she just mix it in with the insurance money?” Lilly asked.

  “No. That check was for a million even. Not a million and a hundred grand.” Hudson sighed. “If anyone ever asks you any questions about a box of money, you don’t know anything about it. Okay?”