The Bequest

by kindle@netgalley. com

  Everything started with the screenplay.

  That damn screenplay! That damn, brilliant screenplay!

  The screenplay that had left a stream of victims in its wake. Leland

  One—dead. Leland Two—dead. Bob Keene—dead. Mona—in critical condition. And Teri, herself—nearly dead twice, and now on the run. She adjusted the showerhead to aim it at a tile bench in the corner of the oversized shower stall. She sat and let the shower spray beat against her face, hot water mixing with tears.

  * * *

  Chad paced in front of the sliding glass door, which he had opened to let a breeze float in. Even with hundred degree summertime temperatures, there was nothing quite like a Hill Country breeze. It was good to have Peggy home again. Check that—to have Teri home again. She seemed to have aged far more than the years that had elapsed, but he had seen that before. She had undergone a similar aging years ago, though she bounced back fairly quickly, as if someone had turned back the clock on the portrait of Dorian Gray. But now, it appeared as if the aging process had been accelerated even more than the time before.

  His pacing was interrupted by the muffled sound of music. Sounded like the theme music to Magnum, P.I. He located the source in Teri’s purse. Her cell phone. He hesitated for a moment, unsure whether to invade her privacy, then made a decision. He grabbed the phone and hit the “answer” button, but said nothing.

  A male voice spoke on the other end. “Hello? Hello? Ms. Squire?” A pause, then, “This is Detective Swafford from the Beverly Hills Police Department. If you’re there, please answer. I’m afraid I have some bad news.”

  Chad made another decision. “Hello?” he said.

  “Who’s speaking?”

  “I’m Ms. Squire’s attorney.”

  Now a pause from the other end, then, “You got a name?”

  “I do,” Chad said.

  A long pause. “But it’s a secret, right?”

  “You said you had some bad news for Ms. Squire?”

  “How do I know you’re her attorney? And why would she need one?”

  “You’ll just have to take my word on the first question, and none of your business on the second. Now, you said you had some bad news.”

  “It’s about her agent, Mike Capalletti. I need to ask her some questions.”

  Chad heard rustling in the bedroom. Teri was out of the shower, probably dressing. She would be there momentarily. Should he put her on the phone or not?

  “Ask me the questions, and I’ll pass them along.”

  The voice on the other end of the line exhaled loudly, as if the speaker was exasperated. Chad smiled. Unless you frustrated the police, you weren’t doing your job as an attorney. Even though he hadn’t practiced law in nearly two decades, it still brought back familiar feelings. A rush of adrenaline that he now experienced with the birth of calves and foals.

  “Detective, the bad news?”

  “Capalletti’s dead.”

  The words slammed into Chad. The next words pummeled him into near submission.

  “He was killed with the same caliber gun that Ms. Squire alleges someone stole from her house,” Swafford said. “The last phone number he called before he was killed was to this number. Now, counselor, I think you can figure out the questions on your own.”

  Chad sat on the edge of the couch and stared out at his beloved Hill Country. He grasped back into his memory for the training he had long since forgotten, the rules of law on privilege and procedure and protecting your client.

  “Who is that?”

  The voice was Teri’s. She stood at the end of the hall, hair wet and glistening, clad in jeans and an oversized tee-shirt. She looked refreshed, maybe a bit younger—by months, not years, and still much older than her age—but grim-faced. He could only imagine that every call brought more bad news for her. And this one surely did. Her boyfriend, the guy Chad had never met but was almost murderously jealous of, was dead. Did he really want to be the guy to stack that burden on top of the others that already saddled her?

  “Is that her?” Swafford asked, obviously able to hear her voice.

  Chad lowered the phone and covered the speaker. “It’s a Detective Swafford from Beverly Hills.”

  Teri held out her hand. “Let me talk to him.”

  “I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

  “My call, Chad. My decision. Remember that from before? The client gets to make the choice.”

  “Peggy—”

  “There is no Peggy. It’s Teri.”

  “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

  “You’ll be right here, Chad. You can hear everything I say.” Chad made another decision.

  He handed Teri the phone and she raised it to her ear. She opened her mouth to speak, but Chad silenced her with an upraised hand. She pulled the phone down and held the speaker against her thigh so Swafford couldn’t hear.

  “He’s going to tell you that your agent was killed last night,” Chad said.

  “I thought it was suicide.”

  Chad stood in surprise, unable to stay still. He began pacing again.

  “You mean you already know about it?” he asked.

  “It happened before I left L.A. I told you about it. He was killed by a truck. But I thought it was suicide.”

  “The detective said he was shot with your gun. Or at least a gun like it.”

  “Shot? A truck hit him.”

  Confusion set in on both of them.

  “The guy said he was shot,” Chad said.

  “Bob was shot?”

  “I thought his name was Mike.”

  “No, Bob. Bob Keene.”

  “No, Mike. Mike Capalletti.”

  Teri felt the breath suck out of her chest. “Oh, my God!”

  She sat on the couch, as if her legs had just melted from beneath her. Blood drained from her face and she gasped for air.

  “Peggy, you okay?” Chad asked. He sat next to her and put his arm around her.

  She nodded, took one last deep breath, and lifted the phone to her ear. Her voice came out in a hoarse whisper, clogged with emotion. Chad leaned close so he could hear what was being said on the other end.

  “Detective? I need to hear your voice.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Say something. Anything. Enough for me to recognize your voice.”

  “How about the one about the lazy fox jumping over the brown dog, or however that goes? Or maybe the one about all good Americans coming to the aid of their country.”

  No mistaking that voice. She had heard it before, and the circumstances had seared everything about that day into her memory.

  “Is Mike really dead?” she asked.

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “What happened?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to find out. That’s why we need to ask you some questions.”

  “But I don’t know anything about it. I just found out about it, just now.”

  Chad nodded, as if to confirm she hadn’t said anything stupid yet; nothing that could implicate herself. She instinctively knew that there was no possibility that she could implicate herself. After all, she truly didn’t know anything about Mike’s death. She didn’t know a single thing about the whole damn maelstrom that had overtaken her life and thrown her into what surely was a bottomless abyss. An abyss she had fallen into once before. An abyss she had managed to bounce back from. An abyss she was beginning to believe would offer no second chances this time.

  “You’re the last person he called,” Swafford said. “You want to tell me what that was all about?”

  “I was in Arizona when he called.”

  “Arizona?”

  “On my way to Texas. That’s where I am now. Check the time he called me, when you know he was still alive, and ask yourself how fast I would have to drive to kill Mike and then get all the way from L.A. to Texas by now.”

  “How do I know you’re in Texas?”

  Chad turned the phone toward himself.
“I can vouch for that, detective.”

  “Where in Texas?”

  “It’s safer for her if nobody knows that.”

  “You know we can trace the signal on her cell.”

  “So be it. She can be long gone by then.”

  “Why would she do that?”

  Chad gave an exaggerated sigh. “Somebody wants her dead.”

  “Maybe more than one somebodies.”

  Teri exchanged a look with Chad. She hadn’t thought about that. She had just assumed one person was behind everything.

  “Detective, what makes you think it’s more than one?” Teri asked.

  “Well, for starters, we’ve got some real questions about Annemarie Crowell.”

  “But she saved my life.”

  “I’d start by asking myself why she did that,” Swafford said. “And something else you ought to know about her: she’s into hypnotism. I hate to sound paranoid, but I wouldn’t want to find myself in a locked room with her.”

  Mike’s voice echoed in Teri’s head: “Your new movie, remember?...A serial killer who hypnotizes people into killing for her, then they kill themselves.”

  “Who else, detective?” Chad asked. “You said you thought maybe there was more than one person after her.”

  “We’re looking into a guy named Bozarth. One of the investors in her movie.”

  “Doug Bozarth?” Teri said. “What makes you think he’s got anything to do with it?”

  “I didn’t say we did. I just said we’re looking into it. It’s an old law enforcement adage: follow the money, and he’s the money guy. He’s got the most to lose if things go south on your new movie, and the most to gain if you become the next Marilyn Monroe or Heath Ledger.”

  “I don’t understand,” Teri said.

  “Your last movie turns into gold if you die tragically.”

  The suggestion raised new suspicions in Teri’s mind. She didn’t like Bozarth, didn’t trust him, but she had never thought he was dangerous— at least not to her. But it made sense. She suspected him of having something to do with Leland Crowell’s death—or Leland Two or whoever that was. And she knew Swafford’s theory was sound, but for reasons even he wasn’t aware of. The only people who knew that she might not legally own the screenplay, that she was the weak link in the chain of title, were Mike—dead; Bob—dead; Leland Two—dead; and herself—and someone wanted her dead.

  And maybe Annemarie. Probably Annemarie. If Bozarth was behind everything, then Annemarie was actually on the victim list.

  “Ms. Squire, I need you to trust me,” Swafford said. “Tell me where you are.”

  “Right now, I don’t trust anyone,” she said. She hung up before he could say anything more.

  Swafford tucked his phone back in his pocket then looked from Stillman to Nichols, who stood silently in Annemarie’s former apartment. “What do you think?” Swafford asked.

  “I believe her,” Stillman said. “She’s scared. You could hear it in her

  voice.”

  “And she really sounded freaked when you mentioned Bozarth,”

  Nichols said. “It kinda freaked me, too, since that’s the first time I knew

  we were even looking at him.”

  “Yeah, I kinda surprised myself with that one, too,” Swafford said. “I

  just threw it out there without really thinking about it, just to see what

  she’d say.”

  “Well, she didn’t say much,” Stillman said.

  “But it was the way she didn’t say what she didn’t say,” Swafford said.

  “She’s buying it as a possibility. And that means she knows something we

  don’t know.”

  “Then maybe we better find out what that is,” Nichols said. “And we

  need to find out everything we can about Doug Bozarth.”

  CHAPTER 45

  Teri stared at herself in the mirror as she pulled up her jeans, then slipped a tee-shirt over her head, put her cross-training shoes back on, and laced them up. She had figured out a couple of years ago—back when she inherited the screenplay, in fact—that Mike Capalletti was not the man she thought he was. He had his moments, though. He could be funny and charming and, when no one else was around, sweet, but he could also be cold, calculated, and conniving. The three Cs he had learned from Bob Keene. She had loved him for a time and even once thought he would be the man she would marry. That all came tumbling down two years ago when he decided to join forces with Bob Keene to fire her. He had been given the choice of his career or her, and he had made his choice.

  Even after that, he helped to shepherd her through the movie that seemed destined to provide her the comeback she needed. He still seemed to care about her, but she knew, intellectually, that he was driven solely by self-interest. The movie would make his career, too; that it would help her was secondary to him. If the time ever came again that Mike needed to jettison the ballast from his ambition, though she might be the last to go overboard, she nevertheless had no doubt that she would go. But the last thing she wanted at this stage of her life was to be alone, so she had turned a blind eye to Mike’s ambition, even though she knew it was just a matter of time until they separated again. She knew that the next time would be for good.

  As it turned out, she was a prophet, and now they were permanently separated. Not by greed, not by ambition, and not even by betrayal, but by a bullet. Not the first time a bullet had done that to a relationship for her.

  She opened the door and went back to the den, where Chad waited. Chad. The man who was everything Mike had turned out not to be. The man who had put her interests in front of his, even at the ultimate cost of his career.

  “You gonna be okay?” he asked. “I thought things couldn’t get any worse, but now I know they always can.”

  “I thought we might go for a ride. That always seemed to help in the old days.”

  An involuntary smile crossed her lips, just for a moment, but then it was gone. “I’d like that,” she said. “But I don’t have any riding boots.”

  “I’ve got some at the barn that’ll fit you. Grab your sunglasses. I’ve also got a hat you can borrow.”

  Clad in straw cowboy hats and wearing sunglasses, Teri and Chad walked in silence from the house to the barn. Though it was hot, with the sun beating down through a canopy of trees that stood between the two structures, Teri felt a sense of coolness wash over her. She left Texas under a cloud; now she had returned to Texas under a cloud, but no matter how long she had been gone, Texas was still home—and there was just something about home that made problems seem a little smaller and burdens a little lighter.

  Inside the barn, Chad led two quarter horses, both chestnut in color, one with black stockings and the other white, out of their stalls. The gelding was already saddled.

  “This is Hansel and Gretel,” he said. He handed the reins of the mare to Teri. “Saddles are in the tack room. So are the boots.”

  The tack room was on the south wall of the barn, next to a gun cabinet that held but one weapon, a rifle that Teri knew well. She brushed past the cabinet with scarcely a glance. Inside the tack room, she found a pair of women’s cowboy boots that had the worn look of years of rough use, their leather cracked and soft. She knew those boots, just as she knew the rifle, even though it had been two decades since she had last worn them. She picked up the left boot and blew off a layer of dust. Memories flooded through her as she kicked off her cross training shoes and pulled on the boots. They were a bit stiff, yet still fit like a glove. She guessed that hers had been the last feet to wear them.

  She walked to the saddles and, like a pro, selected one best suited for her mount. She also knew that saddle, having ridden in it for hours at a time during her teen years. She grabbed it with one hand and lugged it over her shoulder to where Gretel awaited. In a matter of seconds, she had the saddle situated, balanced, and strapped tight. After she finished tightening the cinch, she stepped back and noticed, for the first time, that Chad
had been watching her.

  “What?” she asked.

  “How long has it been since you’ve done that?”

  “Saddled a horse? Not since I left.”

  “Doesn’t look like you’ve missed a beat.”

  “Like riding a bicycle,” she said.

  She put her left foot in the stirrup, then threw her right leg over the horse and settled easily into the saddle. The smoothness of the leather felt right beneath her butt, just as the boots felt as if they belonged on her feet. If it was the little things that made a home, these two might top the list. She fitted her right foot into the right stirrup, then stood up and settled back into the saddle again.

  “Or riding a horse,” she said. “It feels good to be back in the saddle.”

  “Gretel’s no Bingo, but she’s a good horse,” Chad said.

  At the mention of the name, Teri sombered.

  “I’m sorry I had to put her down,” Chad said. “I didn’t want to but— ”

  “I know you had to. She was old. She had a good life.”

  “You two won a lot of barrel races together. She made a pretty good mount for shooting contests, too.”

  He went to the gun cabinet and moved a pitchfork that leaned against the front glass, then took out the rifle, a Winchester Model 70 bolt-action. A bronze plaque on the stock proclaimed: “First Place, Open Division: Peggy Tucker.”

  He carried it to Teri and handed it to her. She gripped the reins in both hands and refused to take the weapon.

  “Given what you’ve told me, and what the police said, it’s not a bad idea for you to be armed,” Chad said.

  “Why don’t you take it then?”

  “I wouldn’t know what to do with it, but you would.” He tucked it into the scabbard on her saddle. “No man in Bandera County ever shot better than you.”

  As Chad mounted Hansel, Teri pulled the rifle partway out of the scabbard and studied the plaque on the stock. “I haven’t seen that since...”

  Her voice trailed off as a bad memory surfaced. The last time she had seen the rifle was the last time she had used it.

  “Your mom gave it to me,” Chad said. “I always knew that, some day, I’d give it back to you.”