The Bequest (17 page)

Chad Palmer tightened
the cinch on Hansel, his chestnut
quarter horse with a star on his nose and black socks. He put one boot in
the stirrup, threw his other leg over the horse, and settled into the saddle.
Gretel, Hansel’s sister, snorted in the adjacent stall, unhappy that Hansel
was going out while she had to stay behind. Temperatures seemed to have
hit a slump, dropping to just above 100 degrees. Twenty-five days in a
row of triple digits, but still not as brutal as the prior week, when the
mercury topped out at 109 degrees for three consecutive days.

Chad pulled the reins to the side, turned Hansel, and headed out of
the barn, across the corral, through the gate, and off into the trees. Ever
since he was a little boy, Chad sought the comfort of the woods to think
and clear his head in times of trouble. Today was no different. The news
reports he had heard were disturbing. Not a lot of detail, just enough to
signal trouble for an old friend who had already seen more than her fair
share of trouble. He wanted to reach out to her, to offer his assistance, but
what could he do? He was just a lowly Texas Hill Country veterinarian, a
decade her senior, who had hoped to wait for her to come of age, but she
left years ago and never looked back.

Not that he
blamed her.
There
were
too many
sad memories
associated for her with everything in Texas. And even if she came back, he
was now divorced, closer to fifty than forty, and hardly a catch, his skin
leathered and tanned by years in the sun.

Still...
He moved through an arch of willows that grew together overhead,
creating a tunnel of trees. As kids, he and Adam Tucker had ridden their
horses here, pretending they were entering a cave or playing Butch and
Sundance, running from the Pinkerton posse led by Joe Lefors. Sometimes
Peggy, Adam’s little sister, followed them, wanting to play with the big
kids, only to be sent packing by Adam. The trail ended at a ledge
overlooking the Medina River, not nearly as high as the cliff in the movie,
but enough of a drop to create an adrenaline rush as they held hands and
jumped off into the cool, clear waters below. Adam was always the one
who wanted to mimic Sundance’s famous yell as they fell. Sometimes
Peggy only pretended to go home, then followed and jumped right behind
them, mimicking Adam’s “Ohhhhhh shiiiiiittt!!!” Chad wondered if she
was saying that same thing today.

His thoughts were taken back to the present by Waylon Jennings
singing
Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way?
, his cell phone’s signature
ringtone. Chad was surprised by the tone, cell reception being so spotty
on his ranch. The farther he rode from the house and the barn, the less
likely he was to have service at all. In the trees along the ridgeline, near
the meadow at the entry to his property, there was no prayer of reception.
And yet he carried his phone with him everywhere he went. You never
knew when a patient was in trouble and his owner urgently needed the
doctor.

He answered without checking the read-out to see who the caller
was. “Hello.”
The next words he heard chilled him. He had heard the same words
spoken nearly
twenty years ago
by
the
same
voice, with the
same
tremulous tone:
“Chad? It’s Peggy. I’m in trouble.”

There was something comforting to Teri in Chad’s voice, even though he
had spoken but one word. There was strength in hearing the one person in
the world who had believed in her and stood by her in her time of need,
when she felt her whole life coming apart, as if she stood on a precipice of
her own. Now that she found herself perched there again, she reached for
the same lifeline he had thrown her once before.

Window down, breeze rustling her hair and drying tears on her
cheeks, Teri maneuvered her SUV up Coldwater Canyon Drive, her
thoughts wandering to Mona lying helpless, but at least alive, in her
hospital bed. It was a classic good news/bad news situation. The bad news
was that her friend was barely clinging to life, but the good news was that
at least it took Teri’s mind off the fact that she was a murder suspect.

She glanced in the rearview mirror and saw a boxy sedan, looked like
a Mercedes, following. It periodically accelerated as the road temporarily
straightened out, as if preparing to pass, but then would drop back as the
straight-a-ways returned to their inevitable curves. Teri checked her
speedometer and saw that she was lagging below the speed limit.

She pushed down harder on the gas and upped her speed. “Sorry,”
she thought, as if the mental apology could somehow reach the impatient
driver behind her.

“What kind of trouble?” Chad asked.
“I need a lawyer. A criminal lawyer.”
For a moment there was nothing but silence, but Teri could hear

Chad’s breathing on the other end. Then she also heard familiar sounds,
sounds that tugged at her heart and drew her home. Rustling of trees and
the steady clip-clop of horse’s hooves.

“You riding?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“Then you already know why I’m calling.”
“Why do you say that?”
“It’s the middle of the day,” she said. “You only ride in the middle of

the day when you’re upset.”
“I always thought you should have been a lawyer. Your mind is so
logical, you’d be a whiz at putting cases together and
drawing
conclusions.”
“Is it all over the radio and TV out there?” she asked. The reporters
had already started to gather at the hospital when she slipped out through
the
loading dock and hustled to her
car.
How
long before they
congregated outside her house? She had to get there first and get inside.
Her bunker mentality instincts were kicking into high gear.
“No one knows your connection here, so it’s not a big issue,” he said.
“As far as the good people of Bandera County are concerned, it’s just
another Hollywood sensation that has nothing to do with them.”
“I hope it stays that way. What have you heard?”
“I saw a couple of reports on the national news, but no details,” he
said. “Just that Mona had been hurt and that you were at the hospital with
the police. They made it sound like you might even be a suspect.”
“Not for Mona.”
Another long pause, as Chad filled in the blanks. “But for something
else.”
“Like I said, I need a criminal lawyer.”
“You know I shut down my law practice a long time ago. Taking care
of animals pretty much pays all of my bills these days.”
“But you do still have your law license, don’t you?”
Chad paused before answering. She heard the clip-clop of hooves fall
silent. He had reined his horse in, probably at the river, to let him drink.
“I’d be happy if I never saw the inside of a courtroom again,” he said.
“I need someone I can trust.”
“That didn’t work out so well last time.”
“You had a bad client. She wouldn’t let you use the truth.”
“What about this time?”
Now it was Teri’s turn to pause. Let’s see, what was the truth this
time? She had inherited a screenplay from a man who, it turned out, may
not have actually been dead, so she may not actually have owned his
screenplay, putting her big comeback movie in jeopardy. Then she had
conspired with several others—including a very powerful and very rich
man who would have been happy to see the resurrected screenwriter
removed—to confront the
risen-from-the-dead screenwriter in the
middle of the night, who then got into a car exactly like hers and drove up
to Big Sur during a period of time she could not account for, and someone
put a bullet in his back at the identical spot where he had met his demise in
the first place.
That was the truth, and it was a very damning truth. It was a truth
that could ruin everything for her, everything she had worked so hard for,
to climb up off the trash heap her career had been relegated to. It was a
truth that even she had a hard time believing. And yet it was a better truth
than the one that she covered up all those years ago.
“Yes,” she said at last. “I want you to use the truth.”

Chad heaved his shoulders, as if a weight had been lifted. A strange
feeling, since he knew Peggy’s troubles, whatever they might be, were
just beginning. Or, more likely, simply continuing after a two decade long
hiatus. But she was promising him
carte blanche
with the one commodity
she had withheld from him before: the truth. He knew what a powerful
weapon the truth could be. It was every lawyer’s dream, to have truth on
your side. You could then be Superman, fighting for truth, justice, and the
American way. He knew things would have been different last time if
Peggy had just relinquished her grip on the truth and let it out into the
light of day. He understood why she had not wanted to, the pain it would
inflict on people she loved. But no matter how much he had begged, she
clutched it to herself even more tightly, as if protecting it from public
view with her body.

He never really knew the whole truth, in fact, though he suspected.
Peggy’s dad suspected, too, as did her mom, but the only person who
really knew, who could really say what had actually happened, had been
Peggy. And her lips were sealed.

So to hear her now say that she would arm him with the one weapon
she had withheld last time was a huge relief. It might not save the day—
and given that he didn’t even know what the trouble was, well might
not—but he vowed to himself that he would reward her trust.

“Okay,” he said. “The answer to your question is, yes, I still have my
law license. And yes, I’ll be your lawyer. But you know I’m not licensed
in California.”

He could hear relief in her voice, as she said, “Thank you, Chad.
Because it’s happening all over again. I—”
Her next words were drowned out by a screech of what sounded like
tires, followed by a metal-on-metal banging sound.
Then the line went dead.
He looked at the phone and saw that he still had service, albeit weak.
He punched the callback button and waited.
A female voice, not Peggy’s, answered. “Your call has been
forwarded to—”
He jabbed the “off” button, headed Hansel around, and sprinted for
the barn.

As the trailing
car rammed into her SUV, Teri’s face bounced
forward and smashed into the steering wheel. The phone slipped from her
fingers, bounced off the passenger seat, and slid into the gap between the
seat and door.

Teri shook her head to clear the cobwebs. She looked in the rearview
mirror. Two things jumped out at her. The first was the gush of blood
down her face, its point of origin a cut on her forehead. She knew that the
skin there was thin and notorious for easy blood flow, even with minor
cuts, yet the volume of blood frightened her. Glancing at her hand, she
saw the culprit. She had apparently slammed her head into her hand that
gripped the wheel, and her ruby eternity ring had gouged the skin. Her
hand, too, was decorated with her blood.

The second thing she saw, and had to look back to the mirror to
confirm, was that she had been rammed by the same sedan that had been
following her, the one she originally thought wanted to pass. Now she
realized it had been merely stalking her. Its windshield was tinted, and all
she could make out was the dim outline of a head, its face and gender
unrecognizable.

The sedan disengaged, dropping back about twenty feet. Teri took a
deep breath. She looked for a safe haven to turn into—a driveway, a street
with traffic, anything. But there was nothing. Up ahead, another curve in
the road loomed. She pressed on the accelerator, hoping to widen her lead
and clear the curve, then make her escape up the straightaway that she
knew was just beyond.

The impact of the second assault staggered her, delivered with far
more force than the first. She deduced that the initial impact had merely
been a wake-up call; the second was meant for something more sinister, a
fact soon confirmed as the sedan not only maintained contact, but also
began pushing her forward. She pressed harder on the gas, trying to
disengage, but to no avail. Then the sedan pulled back again and followed.
Waiting for another chance to attack, no doubt.