The Bequest Read Online Free Page A

one of the Mexicans patted
the ground with the back of his shovel, then stamped on the dirt to pack it
down. Annemarie reached into the pocket of her dress and extracted two
fifty-dollar bills. She pressed one each into the hands of the shovelers, who
mumbled their gracias , then left without looking back.
Annemarie stepped close to the edge of the loose dirt. She glanced
around, as if looking for something. Her eye fell on a crude cross on a
nearby grave. Made of wood, it was nearly rotten with age and leaned
precariously to the side. Inscribed with a simple R.I.P., but no name, it fit
her needs. She walked to the grave and pulled the cross out, then returned
to Leland’s site. She shoved the cross into the loose dirt at one end of the
grave, but it immediately listed to the left.
She stepped back and eyed the cross. Another stream of liquid
coasted down her cheek. With her index finger, nail long and painted red,
she traced it back up her face to its source. She was stunned to find that it
originated at her lower eyelid.
She wiped the tear from her cheek, grabbed the wooden cross, and
threw it as far as she could.
Then she returned to her car.
CHAPTER 6
    Teri didn’t consider
herself a snob, and she certainly didn’t think
of her home in the Hollywood Hills as an ivory tower, but as she wheeled
her dark blue hybrid Toyota Highlander SUV past a row of crumbling
frame structures wedged one after the other along a street that hadn’t seen
any tender loving care in decades, she felt as if she had entered another
world. Most of the houses were set back mere feet from the curb, some
with fading memories of white picket fences. She knew that this had once
been a neighborhood of blue-collar workers who took pride in their homes
as they raised their families in the shadows of downtown. But urban blight
had crept in, families moved out, and now gangs, prostitutes, and drug
addicts reigned.
    She pulled to a stop in front of a frame house with aluminum siding
that flaked huge chunks of paint like canker sores. She double-checked the
number on the mailbox with the number written on the notepad in the
passenger seat. A perfect match.
    She killed the engine and stepped out of her SUV. She looked
around, wondering where the roving pack of car strippers lurked that
would surely denude her car in a just a matter of minutes, but no one was
in sight.
She
probably
should have
taken Mike
up
on
his offer
to
accompany her, but the last thing she wanted from him right then was
either his company or his advice. She paused for a moment, debating
whether to get back in her vehicle and get the hell out of there. But the
siren call of the mystery was too much. She shut the door, punched the
remote lock, and headed toward the front walk.
    A rusty gate, barely thigh high, swung by one hinge. She pushed it
with her foot and stepped inside the gated area that passed for a front yard.
Maybe at one time kids had played with toys in this yard, but that would
have been a lifetime ago, if ever. She stepped over a broken step at the
front porch, sure her foot would punch through and a rusty nail would
impale her ankle. The porch creaked, and she wondered whether it would
hold her weight any more than the step would have.
    A sign on the front door, made of letters nailed to a wooden block,
said: SPENCER WEST: ATTORNEY AT AW. The missing L lay on the
porch beside the door.
“I’ll just bet ‘aw,’” she said as she rang the doorbell.
    She was surprised to hear it ring somewhere in the house. She would
have bet it didn’t work. After about thirty seconds of no response, she
rang it again then knocked.
Still no answer.
    She tried the doorknob and found it unlocked. She turned it and
pushed the door open. As she did, a small bell over the doorway rang.
“Hello? Anybody home?” she called.
Silence. She slipped inside, but left the door open behind her. She
found herself in a tiny space that passed for an entryway, crowded with a
hat rack, a small table