Fatal Inheritance (12 page)

Becki threw Josh a wordless plea.
Can’t you do something?

TWELVE

J
osh opened the car door as Bec hurried from the house. She’d captured her hair into a ponytail, and that, along with her ruffled skirt and tie-dyed shirt, made her look as if they should be driving a 1970s Chevy instead of a 1913 Cadillac.

“Any word on Rowan?” she asked.

Last night it’d been all Josh could do to get her to calm down long enough to relay everything she knew about her brother-in-law. When she’d poured out her suspicions about the bruises she’d seen on her sister’s face and arms, Josh had felt sick. If only she’d told him sooner, he might have come up with a legitimate reason to detain the jerk.

“There was one domestic call to their address eighteen months ago. A neighbor complained of shouting. No charges were filed.”

“Nothing since?”

“Not on record, but my friend promised to dig deeper. In the meantime...” He motioned for her to climb in. “What do you say you try to relax and enjoy the ride?”

He’d hoped a drive to the old quarry would distract her from fretting over her sister all day.

“Sorry. I’ve just been so worried.”

“Yeah.” He knew the feeling. He’d pulled a couple of favors just to get the day off so he could watch over her. Taking the car for a test run before the tour had been the perfect excuse to get her out of the house. He slid in beside her and showed her again how to start the car.

She pulled on the choke and pushed the ignition button, but nothing happened.

“Try pushing the button at the base of the steering column. The flood bowl might have dried out.” It hadn’t been sitting long enough for that to be likely. The car had run fine last week.

She tried again. Still nothing. “We got gas?”

“Oops.” He’d been so preoccupied, he’d forgotten to check. He grabbed the gasoline can from the corner of the barn, thinking he might’ve picked a more picturesque spot to run out of gas.

“Why, Josh...” Bec leaned out the car window and fluttered those impossibly long eyelashes of hers. “If I’d known you just wanted to go parking, I’d have worn something more becoming.”

He chuckled, but that didn’t stop the heat from climbing to his face. He unscrewed the gas cap. “We’ve got plenty of gas.” He topped it up anyway.

“I guess you’ll have to crank her.”

He groaned. Last time he’d done that, the thing had backfired and ripped the crank out of his hand, almost breaking his wrist. He set the gas can aside and gave the crank three and a half quick turns, being careful to keep his thumb off to the side just in case. “Try it now.”

The engine sputtered to life.

“We’re good.” She laughed as he climbed back in. “It always sounds like a sewing machine to me.” Struggling to master the clutch, she clunked it into a stall.

“Try again,” he urged.

This time she turned smoothly onto the road and flashed him a victorious smile that gave him a kick of pleasure.

As Bec experimented with changing gears on the hilly gravel roads, he sat back and enjoyed the view. Her sun-kissed cheeks glowed in the morning light, and her mouth quirked in the cutest way whenever she had to step on the clutch.

She stopped at a stop sign on a steep hill, and when she managed to start again, he gave her an approving elbow nudge. “You’re a natural.”

“I know why Sarah’s been after me to sell,” Bec said, her mind apparently on a different road than his altogether. “I think she wants to disappear.”

He instantly sobered. “You think she’s
that
scared of her husband?”

“She practically said as much when I invited her to stay with me.”

“Do you really think he’d risk his career to maintain control over her?”

“I think he’d risk everything. Why else keep secret that she already had her inheritance payout?”

Josh focused on the winding road and braced himself for where this conversation was headed. Bec was being utterly unselfish, but he didn’t want her to sell the house and leave Serenity.

Bec shot him an apologetic glance with those gorgeous brown eyes, and hard as he tried to withstand the impact, his heart ached. He’d miss her more than he wanted to admit.

“I’ve decided I need to sell the car.”

He blinked. “The car?”

“I’m sorry. I know how much you love it, but I just don’t feel right holding on to something so valuable when I could use the money to help my sister.”

“You’re a pretty great sister.”

Her cheeks were tinged pink. “You’re not mad?”

“How could I be mad?” His heart practically soared. He’d rather have Bec around than an old car any day.

A few strands of hair broke free of her ponytail and whipped across her cheek. She tipped back her head and laughed.

Josh reached across the seat and tucked the strands behind her ear.

The laughter in her eyes turned to panic as the car barreled down the hill.

“The brakes! I have no brakes.” Bec white-knuckled the steering wheel.

“Pull the emergency.”

“Where is it?” Her gaze darted from the winding road to the center of the car, where she’d expect it if the driver’s seat were on the left.

“By the door!” Josh reached across her lap and pulled the lever.

The car didn’t slow.

Bec veered around a corner. “What do I do? It’s picking up speed.”

“It’s okay. Gear down.”

She played the clutch and shifted to a lower gear.

The engine whined higher, but the car slowed only a fraction.

Trees blurred by.

“Take it down another gear. Ride it out until we reach the bottom of the hill. You’re doing great.”

Except with two hairpin turns before the road leveled, great might not cut it.

What idiot designed a car with a blocked driver’s door?

“We’re going too fast!” she screamed. “I can’t make the curve!”

“Yes, you can.” With no seat belts, if she didn’t make it, they’d be airborne whether they wanted to be or not. “Lean into the curve.”

Halfway around the bend, the outside tires caught loose gravel. He grabbed the steering wheel and cranked hard to the left.

The car kept going straight. Straight to the ravine.

Trees raced toward them.

Josh kicked open the passenger door, clamped his arm around Bec’s waist and hauled her across the seat. Her screams reverberated through his chest.

“Jump!” He sprang through the opening, dragging her with him.
Oh, God, please don’t let her die.

* * *

Becki opened her eyes and slowly lifted her head. Her fingers squished through muddy leaves, and for a terrifying instant, she imagined she was feeling Josh’s bloodied body. She pushed to her knees. “Josh?”

A groan rose from a few yards away.

She scrabbled toward the sound, her breath frozen in her lungs.

His face was scraped and bruised and ghostly pale.

Her heart fisted into her ribs. “Oh, God,” she whispered, unable to finish her desperate prayer as she clasped his arms. “Josh?”

Glassy eyes met hers, looked at her as if he’d been given a precious gift. “Bec,” he whispered, real tears in his eyes.

She brought his hand to her cheek. “You saved us.”

“You’re...okay?” The question came out pained, breathless.

“Yes.”

He slid his fingers through her hair, looking as if his entire world had nearly careened off that cliff with the car. Then he pulled her to his chest and held tight. “Thank God.”

She wasn’t sure how long she stayed wrapped in his arms, listening to his pounding heart begin to slow, feeling his warmth melt away the terror. But it was too long.

So long that she let herself start to imagine what it might be like to be wrapped in his protective arms every night. So long that she let herself imagine that she could have a relationship like Gran’s, not like her mom’s or her sister’s. So long that she let herself forget that Josh didn’t think of her that way.

She eased out of his embrace. “We need to call for help.”

His hand trailed down her arm as if he didn’t want to let her go. Then he reached for his hip. “I must have lost my phone when we jumped.”

She scanned the ground, but neither his phone nor her purse were anywhere in sight. She eased sideways down the embankment toward her mangled car.

The roof had been sheered. The front end bashed. The driver’s side crushed.

“Gramps’s car,” she whispered.

Josh drew to her side. “I’m sorry, Bec. I should have checked—”

“No, this isn’t your fault.”

“Someone’s been terrorizing you from the day you got here. I should have been more diligent.”

She froze in her tracks. “You think Rowan—” She cupped her hand over her mouth, unable to form the words. He could have killed her. “I’ve got to call Sarah. Warn her to get away from him.”

Josh caught her arm. “Wait. We don’t know if
anyone
is behind this yet.”

Surging from his grasp, she scanned every which way for her purse. If there was the slightest chance Rowan had done this, Sarah needed to be warned.

“There.” Josh pointed to a filthy mound wedged like a squashed melon beneath the driver’s side of the car.

She gulped. That could have been her head.

Josh pressed his shoulder into the upturned car and heaved.

She yanked the purse free and fished out her phone.

Josh stayed her hand before she could connect. “You’ll only incite her husband more if you start making allegations. If he’s behind it, we don’t want to alert him until we have proof.” He pried the phone from her hand. “Let me call Hunter.” A moment later he spoke into the phone. “It’s Josh. The brakes went on the Cadillac...No, we’re fine. But can you send a tow truck to Deadman’s Hill?”

Becki took back the phone the instant Josh disconnected. “Why didn’t you tell him your suspicions?”

“Trust me. It’s better if we have proof first.” Josh examined the underside of the car, which sat perpendicular to the rocky ground.

“See anything?”

“The cotter pin is missing. But I’ll need more proof than that.”

Becki turned the phone over and over in her hand. She hated waiting, not knowing, not being able to do anything. “She wants to leave him anyway. If she doesn’t, who knows how badly he might hurt her the next time he loses his temper? And now I can’t even help by selling the car.”

Josh’s hands shook as they touched the mangled metal. “I’ll make out a police report. The insurance company will pay you something.”

“But...” Oh, why didn’t she pay more attention to all the paperwork the lawyer had given her? “I didn’t contact the insurance company after Gramps died. What if they canceled the policy?” She walked around the upturned car. “There’s no glove box. Where—”

“Careful.” Clasping her shoulders, Josh pulled her away from the wreckage. He reached into a pocket on the door and produced the insurance slip. “Why don’t you call them while we’re waiting?”

He went back to examining the car’s underside as she explained the situation to the insurance company. The rep grilled her with a gazillion questions, and even after she answered them all, he couldn’t give her an answer.

She gave the car a swift kick.

“Whoa.” Josh braced his hand on the car as if she’d kicked hard enough to topple it. “What’d they say?”

“They have to investigate, but it doesn’t sound hopeful. They kept asking me why I didn’t notify them when I took possession.” She kicked the car again, because it was either that or burst into tears, and she did
not
want to cry on Josh’s shoulder. He might have held on to her after the crash as if there was no tomorrow, but—she gave the car another hard kick—there wouldn’t be any tomorrows. Not when it looked as if the only way to help her sister now was to sell the house.

Josh caught her from behind in a bear hug and yanked her away from the car. “It’s okay. Everything will work out.”

“It’s not okay. It’s never going to be okay. They’re dead.”

THIRTEEN

J
osh turned Bec away from her grandfather’s mangled car and tucked her head against his shoulder. Bits of grass and twigs fluttered from her hair, over his hands, inflaming the shame burning in his chest.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered. More sorry than she could ever know.

“I don’t know what to do.” Her tears dampened his shirt. “Sarah needs my help, but I don’t want to give up the house. It’s all I have left of them.” Bec lifted her head and swiped at her eyes. “Why couldn’t she have married you?”

He stiffened.
Sarah?

“You would never have hit her,” Bec mumbled against his shirt

His arms tightened around her. His gaze drifted to the wreckage, a glaring reminder of how utterly he’d failed her. “No,” he whispered. “A wife should be cherished.”

“Josh? Bec?” Hunter shouted from the crest of the ravine.

Josh eased Bec out of his arms. “Down here.”

Hunter and a guy in blue coveralls, with Ted’s Towing embroidered on the chest pocket, picked their way down the embankment. Hunter gave the scene a sweeping glance, his expression grim. “Are you sure you two are all right?”

Josh rubbed the shoulder he’d bruised taking the brunt of the fall to shield Bec from injury. But the shoulder didn’t hurt half as much as the punch to the gut that came from Bec pairing him with her sister.

“I can call an ambulance.”

“We’re fine.” Bec swiped at her damp cheeks. “I just want to get home and talk to my sister.”

Josh winced. He needed to figure out what really happened before she said anything to Sarah.

The tow-truck driver circled the car and made a face. “Gonna take a while to haul this puppy out of here. I’ll have to call in help to get it up that cliff.”

Hunter took out his notepad.

Josh pointed to the rods. “The cotter pin that links these is missing.”

“You think this was another attack?”

“Yeah. A cotter pin doesn’t just slip out.”

“You’d be surprised,” the tow-truck driver said. “If it wasn’t seated right, these rough roads could shake it loose, easy.”

Some of the fear left Bec’s eyes.

As much as he’d like to believe the theory might be true, Josh shook his head. “I don’t think so. The emergency brake was tampered with, too.”

The tow-truck driver scrutinized the cables. “Nothing wrong with the emergency brake. But it would’ve been useless on that steep incline.”

“Sounds to me like we’re looking at an accident,” Hunter said.

Josh let out a pent-up breath.
Or the guy wanted it to look like an accident.

Hunter filled out the police report the insurance company would require. “I guess you and Bec will have to join me and Anne in my uncle’s Model T for the car tour now.”

“Until I’m convinced this wasn’t sabotage, the last place I want to take Bec is the car tour.”

“Then I’ll go on my own.” Bec hiked up her purse strap, fire in her eyes. “I have to write that article. I won’t let him win.”

Hunter tapped his pen on the notepad. “She’s got a point.”

“Are you nuts? Even if this wasn’t sabotage, I knew she was a target and I didn’t catch this. I can’t risk—”

“Blaming yourself for this is as ridiculous as blaming yourself for not checking the Graws’ chimney for squirrels’ nests.”

Josh couldn’t draw a breath into his drying throat.
Please tell me you didn’t just say that.

Bec’s strangled gasp confirmed the worst. She gaped at him. “You
saw
squirrels go into the chimney?” The question came out as a whisper, but there was no masking the utter betrayal that coated her words.

“No. I—” Josh cut off the explanation. Nothing could bring back her grandparents. No excuse could absolve him of responsibility.

He’d never registered her grandfather’s bright red cheeks—the trademark sign that carbon monoxide was replacing oxygen in his blood.

Hunter looked as if he wanted to crawl into a hole.

Josh would’ve been happy to dig it for him, too. Not because he didn’t deserve her derision. Because she needed protection more than ever, and now she’d want nothing to do with him.

Bec backed farther and farther away from him until she came up against a tree, her arms wrapped around her waist.

Josh swallowed, but he couldn’t dislodge the wad of regret blocking his throat. He’d been to countless accident scenes. Held victims as they died. He’d even had to break the news to their loved ones. But not a single case had haunted him like the Graws’ deaths.

Nightmares still woke him. If he managed to sleep at all.

“About the car...” Hunter mercifully interjected. “If it was sabotaged like you think, maybe keeping Bec away from the tour was what the guy wanted.”

Josh shook his head. Strained to wrap his mind around Hunter’s detour.

“Think about it. The first day she got here, the note in her mailbox said she didn’t belong. Sounds like he doesn’t want her in the house. And if she doesn’t write the article, she won’t get the job.”

Bec straightened. “And if I don’t get the job—” her voice pitched higher “—I can’t afford to stay in the house.”

Josh ground his fists deep into his pockets and stared at the wreckage—another connection to her grandparents that she’d lost. If she couldn’t keep the house, she’d be devastated.

Following the crash, his only thought had been to thank God he hadn’t lost her. Except he couldn’t lose something he never had.

“C’mon.” Hunter flipped closed his notepad. “I’ll give you both a lift home. You can hash this out there and let me know what you decide about the tour.”

“You’re forgetting that besides Anne and us, her sister is the only one who knew about the writing job.”

Bec’s face paled. “Sarah wouldn’t have done this.”

Josh didn’t know what to think anymore. He needed to put his emotions aside and look at the facts. Figure out who did this and why. And whether he
or she
would try again.

* * *

The next morning, frantic barking yanked Becki from her sleep. Bruiser clawed at the bedroom window, looking as if he might sail through any second.

Becki sprang to her feet and grabbed his collar. “Easy, boy.” Staying low so she couldn’t be seen, she peered outside.

At the sight of the barn’s open bay door, her breath caught. They’d had the tow-truck driver unload the wrecked car inside, but who would want it now?

She reached for her cell phone to call Josh.

Her stomach tightened. Josh was the last person she wanted to face right now. She snuck another peek out the window. Okay, maybe the second last.

Tripod scampered out of the barn.

Tripod?
Becki let Bruiser’s collar go. If Tripod was outside, then Josh had to be up. She squinted at the clock: 5:30 a.m. Didn’t the man ever sleep?

No, he’d probably stood guard all night despite her protests.
And he calls me stubborn.

Bruiser whimpered at her bedroom door.

“Yeah, okay. I’m coming.” She quickly threw on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt and opened the door.

Bruiser soared down the stairs, skidded to the kitchen door and started barking again.

“Hold your horses. I need my shoes.”

Bruiser snatched up one of her sneakers and pranced in a feverish circle as Becki dropped onto a kitchen chair. The dog deposited the shoe at her feet.

Becki swiped the slobber off the laces. “Thanks.”

Ten seconds later, she pushed open the door, and Bruiser took off for the barn, barking loud enough to wake the town three miles away. He raced straight for Tripod at full speed, and they tumbled in a ball of yipping fur. A prowler didn’t stand a chance.

Becki wavered at the kitchen door. Josh must be going over the car again—one more thing he felt he owed her for. She didn’t even blame him for her grandparents’ deaths. It was just hard to face him, knowing how differently things might’ve turned out. She’d never thought that she’d rather be considered a needy stray, but it beat being his penance.

She drew in a deep breath and ambled to the barn. She couldn’t avoid him forever.

“You don’t have to do this,” she said loud enough for Josh to hear...wherever he’d disappeared to.

His head popped out from beneath the car. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“Should’ve thought of that before you opened the big door and set off my dog siren.”

He rolled out from under the car and onto his feet. “At least one of us is doing our job.” He snatched up a rag and wiped the grease from his hands.

So she was a job. Well, that was better than penance. “I thought you gave up trying to prove the brakes were sabotaged.”

“Wanted to see what it would take to salvage her for you.”

“But the insurance adjuster said she’d be a write-off even if they honor Gramps’s policy.”

“Doesn’t mean she can’t be fixed. Just means they think it’d cost more to repair than it’s worth.”

“Well, if they pay me, the money’s going to Sarah. I already told you that.”

He tossed the rag onto his tool chest and picked up a ratchet. “My labor’s free.”

For the first time since she’d moved there, she felt as though Josh was the one who needed her, instead of the other way around. Needed to know she didn’t blame him for not preventing her grandparents’ deaths. “You don’t owe me anything,” she whispered.

He bent over the engine and ratcheted a part. “I like to tinker. Remember?”

She wedged open the crumpled rear door and slid onto the backseat, the way she used to when Josh and Gramps would tinker together. She scratched at the chipped paint on the door frame, and Gramps’s deep baritone whispered through her mind.
God wouldn’t settle for just slapping on a coat of paint to fix that, would He? He wants to change us from the inside out. Not just change what people see on the outside, because—

“God’s in the business of restoration,” she said aloud. She sensed Josh studying her, but she focused on the chipped paint. “How do you do it?”

“What’s that?”

“Keep believing when...God doesn’t seem to care.”

“I focus on the things that show me He does.”

“My grandparents are dead. My sister’s husband is beating her. I almost got killed—”

“
We
didn’t get killed.” He put down his ratchet, leaned over the door. “Your grandparents passed peacefully in their sleep to a new life. You’ve reconnected with your sister, grown to understand her better. You have a home in the country like you’ve always wanted.”

Bruiser raced into the barn and planted his giant paws on the door beside Josh.

Josh ruffled his fur. “And we can’t forget your fiercely protective dog.”

“Or my even more protective big
brother.
” She winced. She hadn’t meant to emphasize the last word. Fortunately, Josh didn’t seem to notice.

“See how easy it is to notice God’s blessings when you start looking?” A dimple dented his cheek, but his smile didn’t reach his eyes.

“My grandparents were good at that. They never doubted God’s love even when my dad rejected them. I want to know God the way they did.”

He covered her fingers, which had been chipping away at the paint. “You can.”

“Josh,” she said softly, “I don’t blame you for what happened.” Their eyes met, and...he looked so tormented, she wished... She looked away, dug her fingers into the gap between the seat cushion and the back of the seat.

“Hey, I think I’ve found something.” She wiggled her fingers, straining to catch hold of whatever it was. “Maybe it’s what the thief was after.” She twisted onto her knees. “My fingers aren’t long enough.”

“Here, let me have a go.” Josh climbed in beside her, and the air filled with the homey scents of clean soap and pine. His hair, still damp from his morning shower, grazed her arm as he leaned over to reach between the cushions.

Trying to savor the moment despite herself, she withdrew her hand to give him more room. “It’s right in the middle there.”

“It feels like paper. Got it.” He pulled a small notebook free from the cushion.

“Oh, that’s mine!” Nostalgia bubbled up inside her at the sight of the long-forgotten book. “That’s what I used to write my stories in.” She reached for it, but he moved it out of her reach.

“Your stories, huh?” He flipped through the pages.

She tried to grab it from him, but he stretched his arm so she’d have to climb over him if she wanted it.

“Let’s read one. See if they’re as good as I remember.”

She lowered her hands. “Really? You thought they were good?”

“Sure.” He brought the book to his lap and thumbed through a few pages before suddenly stopping. “This one sounds like it’ll be interesting. ‘When I grow up,’” he read.

Becki gasped and snatched the book from his hand. Now she remembered how the notebook got between the cushions...and why.

“C’mon, Bec. It’ll be fun. You always had a great imagination.”

Oh, she had imagination all right.

He reached around behind her and recaptured the notebook.

“No!” She flailed her arms after it. “Please give it back,” she said firmly. “I don’t want you to read it.”

His grin fell. “I thought you’d get a kick out of hearing the stories again. You were always reading them to your Gramps and me when we worked on the car.”

“I know, but—” She grabbed back the notebook. There was a good reason she’d stuffed this particular notebook deep between the seat cushions the instant Gramps and Josh had returned from their trip to the scrap yard all those years ago.

“Is it a diary or something?” he asked. “About your parents?”

“No, nothing like that.”

“Then what’s the big deal?”

She shimmied across the seat and climbed out. “It just is. Okay?” It was bad enough she’d started to imagine that he’d finally noticed her after all these years when he’d only had a guilty conscience.

He scooted out after her. “Now you’ve just made me all the more curious.”

“Well, you know what they say about curiosity.”

“Yeah, it’s a good trait.”

“No, it killed the cat!”

He leaned back against the car and casually crossed one leg over the other. “‘When I grow up, I’m going to marry Joshua Rayne,’” he recited as if he had X-ray vision and could read the pages through her hand.