Murder in the Family

by Ramona Richards

  “God help us.”

  “Greg is waking up Judge Keeley as we speak, and the deputies are picking up Nina.”

  “My word. Nina. Poor Stockholm syndrome Nina.”

  Russell snorted, spilling some of his soda.

  Molly grinned. “Sorry.” Then another thought crossed her mind. “They killed Aunt Liz, too, didn’t they? It wasn’t an accident after all.”

  Russell took a long, deep, calming breath. But he still gripped the soda bottle until Molly thought it would shatter. “Yes. She saw them shoot Freddy. She tried to run, but they caught her and dragged her back in the house.”

  “The mud on her feet.”

  He nodded, and they fell silent. Together they watched the fire burn low. Finally, he stood and held out his hand. “Ride with me back to the condo. I don’t think either of us should go alone.”

  She pointed toward the house. “The Explorer …”

  “You’ll need to save a parking space anyway for the auction tomorrow. People start arriving very early for these things. And the guards are there.”

  “Bring me over early?”

  “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

  The weather could not have been more perfect—high fluffy cumulocirrus clouds in a brilliantly blue sky, temperature expected to top out around seventy-four degrees, a slight breeze. And Russell had been right. The auction was supposed to begin at eleven, and by the time they arrived at eight, Russell had to park down the street.

  The preview crowd had been strong, with a great deal of interest in all of the furniture, the collectibles, and even in the house itself. The same storeowners who had been at last night’s party were there, spending more time with the documentation Molly had left with each piece. She occasionally heard them repeating information she’d given them to another dealer. One asked her about “true provenance” on a table, not just the family tales, and she suggested he check under the drop leaf. Liz had taped sales receipts, merchandising tags, and anything else she had to the furniture. Some of the pieces still had the original manufacturing tags on them. For the antique dealers, it was a goldmine.

  After answering one too many questions, Molly slipped out the back door and out into the yard. Snippets of green were breaking through the burned area of the yard. Before the end of summer, it would be a lawn again. She looked back at the house, abruptly thinking it would look great with a deck. Maybe a gazebo.

  Definitely a gazebo. With a swing.

  And a dog. Like a collie. Or a Newfoundland. No. Not a Newfie. Too hot. Alabama in August. No. Maybe a Labrador …

  At the edge of the pine grove, a flash of orange darted up a tree, finding a resting place on a high limb.

  Ah, yes. And a cat. A big, fluffy orange one.

  “Molly?” Russell called from the back door.

  “Yes, sir?” She headed his way.

  “The auctioneer is ready to start. He wants you to confirm with him that you want to liquidate all of Liz’s property as well as the house.”

  Molly stared at him, his words sinking in. “What do you mean, ‘as well as the house’?”

  Russell returned her stare, his expression puzzled. “Because you contracted with him to liquidate the estate. Only the estate.”

  “But the house—”

  “—is not part of the estate.”

  Her brain finally kicked out a fact she’d been overlooking. “The quitclaim deed.”

  Russell paused in astonishment for a moment, then broke into laughter. “Yes, darlin’, the quitclaim deed. The house is yours and has been since before you got here. You forgot?”

  “I forgot.”

  “So?”

  It felt right. Michael, wise Michael. It was the door that felt perfectly right.

  “Just the estate. Just sell the estate.”

  Epilogue

  Stars don’t actually fall on Alabama, but snow does. Sometimes. Well after Christmas. By the time the first snow dusted the ground the next February, Molly had had the fireplaces cleaned and repaired, the windows replaced, and enough repair work and painting done that the old Victorian on Maple Street looked like a winter wonderland. She’d hung white lights on the porch for Christmas, and had left them up, so that they twinkled brightly against the night as the guests arrived.

  As usual on a wintry Saturday night, the house smelled of hot cider and spiced tea, cinnamon rolls, and coffee. Card tables were set up in the front room for Rook and whist, and she knew her guests would get rowdy before the night was out. They always did. The usual suspects were there—Linda and her brother, Finn and Sheila, Russell, Greg … and Bird.

  Her embracing Bird had shocked Carterton. But Bird had aged a lot in the past nine months. He’d also changed. Which was something Molly knew a lot about.

  Nina, LJ, and Eddie’s arrests had devastated Bird, but he’d remained defensive of them. He put up the bonds for all of them, and he made sure they were at every court appearance. But the dual blows of Leland’s death in October, followed by Nina’s in November while awaiting trial, had crushed him. Bird retreated to the farmhouse, living in filth and alcohol, until a local preacher had dug him out. When he appeared on Molly’s porch, thin and disheveled, he had not even been sure how to ask her forgiveness, but he tried.

  Watching him make the attempt, Molly could only think of the changes Michael had gone through. And her brother’s last words to her: Mollybelle, you will know which door to follow when the time comes. Trust your gut. It’s the oldest adage in the world, and a horrible cliché, but unbelievably true. You will know when it’s right.

  Maybe it was time for all the old rifts to heal.

  Most of them, anyway. Kitty still despised her and kept her distance. Occasionally threatened a lawsuit. Molly knew it would never amount to anything, just like the lawsuit Sarah’s dad had filed. It had been withdrawn almost as soon as Russell placed the first call. But once Sarah was well enough to address it with her father, it disappeared completely. The partnerships with Sarah and Jimmy, however, had been dissolved. That part of her life forever ended.

  The disbursement of the estate could not have gone smoother. In the end, Molly had asked Judge Petrie to oversee it, and he’d agreed. The money from the estate had been enough to help seventy-seven families in Carterton with a check for ten thousand dollars. The books had gone to the town library, which had sold the first editions for enough to expand the building.

  And Blossom had come home. Apparently, life as a feral cat did not suit him. Once Molly had him free of fleas, he made no more attempts to leave the house.

  “Can I help?” Linda poked her head around the kitchen door.

  “Yep!” Molly handed her two plates of cinnamon rolls. “One for each table. Napkins and little plates are in the hutch.”

  The coffee maker gurgled its success, and Molly checked, yet again, the sugar and creamer levels. Eight cups were lined up on saucers, spoons waiting on a linen cloth. The urns of tea and cider were scalding hot, ready for serving.

  The light touch of a warm hand on her back was followed by a soft kiss on her neck. She turned and kissed Greg on the lips, grinning as Finn rapped on the kitchen doorframe.

  “Hey! No flirting in the kitchen. It’s time to play cards!”

  “We’re allowed,” Greg called back. “We’re still newlyweds!”

  “Tonight, sir, you are to my right in whist. Get your butt in here.”

  “Later?” Greg asked Molly.

  “Always,” she said. “Let the games begin.”

  The End

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