A Dangerous Inheritance

by Leona Karr

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Josh offered to work for me—”

  “And you know why that is, don’t you?”

  “I believe I do, and it has nothing to do with anything personal between Josh and me.”

  “I agree.” Alice nodded her head. “But Josh is hurting bad. And he’s about to open himself up for another heartache, if you know what I mean.”

  “No, I don’t. What do you mean?”

  Alice sighed. “Josh’s dead sister’s spirit just won’t let him go. Now, you’ve come along, giving him the chance to open up all the wounds again. Surely you’re aware of the reason he’s willing to move into the hotel. He’s intent on proving that Glenda’s death was no accident.”

  “Yes, I agree. I think that’s the reason. And what do you expect me to do about it?”

  “You have to stop him from wasting his life on some bitter vendetta.” Alice got up abruptly and walked over to a cupboard. Taking out a box, she came back to the couch and sat down beside Stacy. “Here, look at these.”

  The box was filled with photo envelopes. As Alice took out the prints from one of them, she said, “Glenda came to live with us when she was sixteen and stayed with us for three years.”

  In the early pictures, Glenda was a pretty, dark-haired girl with flashing gray eyes. There was a saucy lift to her head, and her smile was one of challenging impudence. Some of the photos had been taken outdoors, while others had been snapped in the café showing her as a young waitress. Alice and Ted were in several of the photos with Glenda standing between them. From the way they were looking at the young woman, it was obvious that she’d captured their hearts.

  Stacy was startled to see Josh in some of the snapshots taken on a picnic with his sister, Alice and Ted. A different Josh from the one she’d come to know was pictured there. He had a playful expression on his face, as if he’d been teasing his sister and laughing with her. Josh looked so totally relaxed, so devastatingly handsome with his chestnut hair catching the sunlight, that she could see why someone like Marci was crazy about him. Stacy tried to keep her expression non-committal as she wondered what it would be like to be around a man like Josh was when he was happy and carefree.

  The last few photos of Glenda showed the change that had occurred in the three years she’d lived with Alice and Ted, from age sixteen to nineteen. The unassuming simplicity of her earlier clothes had given way to sexy, revealing skimpiness. Her poses were sensuous and suggestive.

  Stacy felt unease prickling between her shoulder blades, and her ears rang with the remembered onslaught of an old man’s hatred. She didn’t like the frightening way she’d been drawn into the life of Glenda Spencer. It was as if the past had reached out and sucked her into an evil that was none of her doing.

  “We did our best for her,” Alice said, with an audible catch in her voice. “But Glenda used everybody for her own selfish whims. She put us all through hell. When she moved in with Renquist, Ted and I gave up on her. Up until then, we’d tried to be there for her.”

  Behind Alice’s words, Stacy sensed there was much more that she wasn’t telling. “It couldn’t have been easy for any of you.”

  “I felt sorry for Josh and her grandfather. They kept giving and giving, but Glenda never returned their love.”

  “What do you think really happened to her?”

  Alice’s eyes narrowed. “I think Glenda died the way she lived. Making it as hard on everyone as she could. Josh especially. That’s why I hate to see him opening up to that kind of hurt again. Nothing good can come of him living in that place—with you.”

  The way she landed on the word you sent a message that wasn’t hard to miss, but Stacy decided to pretend ignorance. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean Josh has had enough heartache,” she answered tartly. “He doesn’t need to set himself up for another one with you. Anyone with a half of brain can see what’s in the making. You and him, in that place.”

  Stacy’s temper flared. “I’d like to know what crystal ball you’re using?”

  “Don’t need one,” Alice answered flatly. “If you have any conscience at all, Miss Ashford, you’ll head back to L.A where you belong. People in this town have had enough of the Haverly Hotel and everyone connected with it.”

  Before Stacy could reply, Ted intruded from the doorway. “That’s enough, Alice.”

  “I’m right and you know it,” she snapped back as her husband came into the room. “You were saying yourself that no good would come of her being here.”

  “I said no good would come of Josh’s obsession with Glenda’s death.” He turned to Stacy. “We’re worried about this unhealthy fixation of his. I hope you can understand that.” His tone softened. “It might be better all the way around if you took away the opportunity for furthering it.”

  “I can understand your concern,” she responded evenly. “But I also understand Josh’s determination to know the truth, if at all possible.”

  “We just want to see him happy,” Alice said with a glimmer of tears in her eyes. “Josh ought to marry Marci and settle down. That’s what we want for him.”

  “You thought that one of the Parson girls would be just right for him, too,” Ted chided her gently. “And then there was Jody at the market and Penny at the church. Honey, you can’t go around being a matchmaker.”

  “But I can know what’s not right for him,” she said, giving Stacy a pointed look.

  “Don’t worry, Alice,” Stacy said as she stood up. “Josh’s decision to work for me is strictly business. And I intend to keep it that way. You can relax. Believe me, I have no personal interest in Josh Spencer, now or ever.”

  Alice looked at Stacy sadly, as if perfectly capable of recognizing a lie when she heard one.

  Chapter Five

  Josh was waiting in the pickup in front of the Pantry when Stacy came downstairs from Alice and Ted’s apartment.

  “Oh, there you are,” he said. “I was beginning to think you really had gotten lost.”

  The smile she gave him was only halfhearted. “Did you pick up the things at the store?”

  “Sure did. Abe Jenkins had some nice things to say about you, and he was chuckling about something. Anything happen that I should know about?”

  “No,” she said, getting into the pickup. She wasn’t about to repeat the little skirmish she’d had with Marci. In retrospect, she wished she’d ignored Marci’s bitchiness instead of responding in kind. “We just had a little talk about my uncle. He seemed to accept and understand Uncle Willard. I’m glad there was one person in town who befriended him.”

  “I saw them together a couple of times when I was in the store,” Josh told her. “Your uncle was always searching out old rusted machinery that had been abandoned. He got the reputation of being a junk collector.”

  “He was an inventor. I told you,” Stacy answered shortly. “He sold the patent on some kind of safety valve to a national airline company and made a pile of money on it. He could do whatever he wanted with his life.”

  Josh looked puzzled. “He doesn’t sound like the kind of man who would want to invest in a hotel. Too much of a loner.”

  “I know,” Stacy answered with a sigh. “I’ve wondered about the same thing.”

  “Well, maybe we’ll find some answers when we go through his stuff in the office.”

  “Were you able to hire some help?”

  He shook his head. “I’m afraid we’re stuck with Chester and Rob for the moment.”

  “Maybe…maybe this job isn’t worth your time,” she offered tentatively. “It might be better if you didn’t get involved.”

  Josh shot her a quick look as he turned onto the road leading up to the hotel. “Sounds like I’m getting fired even before I’m on the job.”

  She didn’t answer.

  He waited a moment. “Your silence is ominous.”

  “I’m not quite sure how to say…what needs to be said.”

  “Start with the reason you
’re giving me my walking papers. I thought this arrangement worked for both of us.” A muscle flickered in his cheek. “Has someone been giving you a lot of bull? Are you worried about being under the same roof with me? I can assure you that your virtue is safe with me.”

  “It isn’t that,” she assured him quickly. “I know what your intentions are. And I guess that’s what worries me and your friends.”

  “My friends, Ted and Alice? They’ve put you up to this, haven’t they?” He slapped the steering wheel in exasperation.

  “They’re concerned about you. It’s obvious that you’ve never gotten closure on your sister’s death. By getting involved at the hotel, they’re worried that you’re setting yourself up for more anguish.”

  “And what do you think?”

  “I don’t know what to think,” she admitted. “I don’t want to be responsible for your decision.”

  “All right, don’t. You offered me a job, and I’m taking it.”

  She knew from the set of his jaw that the matter was settled. Relieved, she leaned back in the seat. She’d be the first to admit that she desperately did need his help. Just the thought of staying at the hotel without him was chilling.

  As they unloaded the back of the pickup, Stacy realized that Josh must have made a quick trip to his place to get some of his personal things. Earlier, he had decided to settle in a room across the hall from the apartment, and he had found a couple of chairs and a chest of drawers to complement a single bed already there.

  Stacy shared the bedding that she’d bought and made up his bed. Then she set out towels and soap for him in the small adjoining bathroom. The walls needed painting, and the carpet on the floor was stained, but he didn’t seem to notice.

  They worked in silence, just making an idle comment here and there. The air between them was strained, and Stacy wished she’d handled the matter of his job in a different way. Putting him on the defensive had created a gulf between them that hadn’t been there before.

  “I told Chester and Rob to be here this afternoon—and threatened them with the law if they didn’t bring back the tools they took,” Josh told her. “Before I can decide where to start, I need to look at some blueprints.”

  “That’s one of the first things I asked the lawyer for, hoping he had them, but no such luck. I wanted to have some idea of how extensive the renovation would be and how much time would be involved.”

  “Well, let’s take a look in the office. Since Willard died unexpectedly, let’s hope the plans are where he said they were.”

  Josh was becoming more skeptical by the moment that Willard’s ideas about renovation were going to make sense. From the condition of the hotel, it was obvious that not very much had been done in the way of improvements. Josh suspected that looters had had a heyday while the building stood empty. Either that, or Weird Willy had moved out or sold a bunch of furniture and equipment. In any case, Josh knew it might be a challenge trying to figure out exactly what had to be done to meet the terms of his will.

  They went downstairs and made their way down a hall to the hotel office. Dust motes floated in the air. It looked and smelled the way it had the day before. The room was long and narrow. It might have been filled with several desks and office equipment at one time, but at the moment it was more like a storage room than anything else. Large boxes contained a weird collection of rusted iron pieces of all shapes and sizes and enough nuts and blots to build the Empire State Building. Some of the larger metal pieces were stacked in the corner. A single desk was piled high with more boxes of junk and so was a double filing cabinet.

  “What do you think he was going to do with all this junk?” Josh asked, frowning.

  “I haven’t the foggiest idea,” she admitted. “Maybe there are some papers that will make sense of all of this.”

  Josh nodded and turned his attention to the filing cabinet while Stacy tackled the desk. In both places, they found organized papers, bookkeeping books, letters and correspondence, all carefully filed. Their sense of jubilation faded quickly when they discovered that everything in the drawers had Malo Renquist’s name on it.

  “I don’t believe it,” Stacy said, disappointed and frustrated. “Apparently my uncle never cleaned out the desk. He left it just as it was when he bought the hotel.”

  “And Renquist took off so fast after my sister’s death that he just left everything,” Josh replied in a completely different tone, not disappointed but excited. “And that may be just the break I’m looking for. There may be something here that will reveal where he might have gone after killing Glenda.”

  The sudden animation in his face and the intensity with which he began pulling out the records made Stacy realize that she’d been right about his single-minded reason for wanting to be involved in the renovation.

  He found an empty carton and filled it with papers and records. “I’ll take this up to my room and go through everything as I have time. There may be some names and addresses that I can check. That blasted sheriff should have gone through this stuff already.” Josh swore. “I’m wondering how much Renquist paid Mosley to look the other away about what was going on in this place. The transient traffic in and out of here was suspect from the very beginning. I should have done more to get Glenda out of it.”

  She saw the pain in his eyes, and she put a hand on his shoulder. “What more could you have done?” she asked gently. “Why don’t you let it go, Josh?”

  “I can’t.” His voice was laced with a touch of helplessness.

  She isn’t worth it, Josh.

  For one horrified moment, Stacy thought she’d spoken aloud, but his expression didn’t change. She was relieved when he seemed to shake himself. “We’ve got to keep looking for your uncle’s stuff.”

  “He’s bound to have a desk somewhere,” she offered without much conviction. Had someone stripped the place of all her uncle’s belongings? If not, where were they?

  Josh’s thoughts were running along the same line. “Maybe he wasn’t staying here.”

  “But if he had a place in Timberlane, people like Ted and Alice would have known it,” she protested. “Are there houses or cabins anywhere close by?”

  “Nope. A few tumble-down structures are scattered along the old logging road, but if your uncle had been going up there, someone would have noticed.”

  “We must have missed a room somewhere.”

  “The only places we haven’t checked are the basement and attic. I guess we ought to begin with the cellar.”

  “I suppose so.”

  Sensing her apprehension, he whispered with mock solemnity, “I doubt if we’ll meet even one dragon down there. And if we do, I’m ready to slay it with my bare hands.”

  Playing along, she put a hand over her heart. “My very own knight in cowboy boots!”

  Their shared laughter eased the tension. She was surprised when he slipped an arm around her waist. “I’m betting on a full wine cellar and maybe even a few kegs of beer. What do you think? Shall we throw our own housewarming party?”

  Even though she knew he wasn’t serious, it was nice to play along and say, “Why not?”

  She was surprised that he continued to hold her close to his side as they made their way to the kitchen. This was the first time that he’d made any intentional physical contact with her, and she was startled to find herself enjoying the brushing of their bodies as she matched his steps. As she glanced up at him, she was disappointed that nothing in his expression indicated that he was aware of the tingling warmth his arm was creating around her waist.

  Just inside the kitchen, they opened the basement door to reveal a series of steps descending into a shadowy pool of flickering shadows. Josh flipped a light switch and Stacy was relieved when a bright light instantly illuminated the stairs and the room below.

  Josh kept her hand in his as they went down into a spacious area that emitted an overpowering fruity scent. Then they saw why. A series of wooden racks filled the floor space, enough to hold a hundr
ed bottles. They’d found the hotel wine cellar. Unfortunately, all the racks were empty of bottles.

  “Not surprising,” Josh grumbled. “Everybody and his cousin seems to have a key to this place. We already know that Chester, Rob and the sheriff have been coming and going as they please. It’s a wonder that every damn thing in the place hasn’t wandered off.”

  Stacy walked over to another light switch on the wall. It illuminated a short hall that led to two more storage rooms crammed full of discarded furniture and broken equipment. “Nothing in here worth stealing, I guess,” Stacy said with a faint smile.

  “No telling how long some of this stuff has been around here. Probably some of it since the Haverlys owned the hotel.”

  “I don’t see any metal junk. I guess Uncle Willard didn’t leave anything down here.”

  “It doesn’t look like it. Maybe—” He visibly stiffened.

  “What is it?” she asked, following his gaze and seeing nothing to cause rigidity in his whole body.

  He walked over to a cheap brown suitcase, barely visible in the clutter piled around it. Shoving everything aside, he drew it out. The way he looked at the suitcase, and the way he handled it, Stacy knew, without him saying anything, who had owned it. He laid it on the dusty floor, stooped down and opened it. Stacy didn’t know what Josh had expected to find, but her heart went out to him as his expression registered bitter disappointment.

  The suitcase was empty.

  “I’m sorry,” she murmured as he slammed the lid shut and threw the suitcase back on the pile.

  “It figures,” he answered shortly. “Glenda must have gotten rid of everything from home, her favorite Indian dolls, pictures, rock collections, anything that reminded her of Gramps and me. None of them were found after her death. The only things we have of hers are a few things that she left at the house on her infrequent visits.”