Chapter Seven

“Un-fucking-believable.” Megan Murphy slammed down her now-empty shot glass.

“Yup,” Bev answered and belted back the Cuervo like a sailor on a twenty-four-hour pass. She signaled the bartender. “Two more.”

She faced her best friend. Megan was a wonder. Sweet but with an assassin’s tongue when provoked, and quietly beautiful in a petite, faerie package. Bev loved her; she was the sister of her heart.

They sat on wooden bar stools in the dimly lit bar of Murphy’s Publick House, an institution in Salem. She knew Megan should be operating the restaurant side of things as the general manager, but she was grateful her friend had taken some time for her. She needed it. Megan’s dad ran the bar tonight as well as providing the forget-your-problems juice.

“Since you aren’t the type to get shit-faced regularly and since you’re walking home, I’ll allow you three tonight.” Murph’s Boston accent was as thick as Joe’s and had a consoling tone to it. “I’ll get Mary to cover tonight, Megan. You take care of your friend. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, what’s gotten into you tonight? You’re way too smart to let a man do this.”

“Thanks, Murph…and, no, it isn’t a man in the regular sense.”

Murph jerked his head in her direction. “See that she eats, Megan.” And off he went in search of his other daughter, Mary. She was eternally grateful to her friend and her friend’s father. She didn’t want to be alone tonight.

“I literally have no words for how much this sucks for you.” Megan rubbed her knee and then squeezed. “I don’t understand how Reginald could do this to you.”

Her breath still wasn’t even. She had driven home from Boston in a daze but found she couldn’t go home when she’d reached Salem. Normally, she’d take the fishing boat out on the water to clear her head, but the weather colluded against her. A spring storm popped up and effectively ruined her plan.

She texted Megan and found herself wrapped in the comfort of the familiar. Happy, loud, and drinky, the bar patrons usually gave her and Megan plenty of people-watching fodder to last an evening. Tonight, though, they had to talk.

The will reading had been horrendous. She’d worn what the two friends long ago nicknamed The Suit, had convinced herself she could get through it. She hadn’t been prepared for what her grandfather had done. The bastard. She couldn’t wrap her mind around the enormity of what her grandfather had hoped to accomplish. His sheer disregard for decency astounded her. Megan interrupted her black thoughts.

“All of it?” she asked. “There is no way you can make this go away?”

“He thought of everything.” She didn’t try to keep the bitterness out. “If I don’t take the money and the house and the cars and the fucking horses, for Christ’s sake, then it all goes to my mother.” She waved to the other bartender. “Can I get a Diet Coke, Jackie?”

Suddenly she didn’t feel like getting drunk. She whispered to Megan, “You know my ma, Meg. If she inherits, she’ll see it as some sign he loved her. She’s just now come to the realization she didn’t do anything wrong. Reginald twisted her up, and that pack of leeches I laughingly call my relatives will continue until my mother is nothing again. It was too hard putting her back together the first time. I can’t do it again.”

“You were too young to do everything you did. It’s over, but I was there. No thirteen-year-old should need to parent her mother. If it weren’t for Joe, you wouldn’t have had any kind of normal childhood.”

“Ma needed to work on herself.” She gripped her glass. “My mother’s sister, Serena, is living the life Ma was supposed to live, and that life is splashed in the society columns daily. It was hard to get her to let go of all that. It wasn’t the money my mother needed; it was the sense of belonging. She needed professional help.”

“And you saw she got it.”

She knew Meg didn’t agree with how her mother had let her own problems overtake Bev’s childhood but also knew Meg wouldn’t beat it to death. Her friend switched the topic.

“Tell me about the rest of the family.”

She snorted. “Let me see if I can condense it.” She rubbed the ache over her left eye before continuing. “Chanel, Louboutin, and Dior walk into a bar—”

“Ha, ha. Seriously.”

“Seriously. When Serena found out what Reginald had done, she went on the attack, yet she barely even raised her voice.” She shook her head. “I almost felt bad for the lawyer, but he held his own.” She thought him quite admirable, really, given the circumstances. “I could scarcely stop myself from popping her one.”

“That would have been nice to watch. But I don’t get why Serena was disinherited. What about her kids?”

“Disinherited is not fully accurate. Reginald gave her twenty million dollars. Her kids get ten mil apiece when they reach the age of twenty-five and graduate from college. I don’t think Serena’s appreciative. Something tells me twenty million won’t be enough.”

“Yeah, I get that, but you still haven’t answered why Reginald did it.”

“Sorry. I’m not completely steady. And to be honest, I wasn’t steady at all in that lawyer’s office. Once I heard the terms of the will, my ears started ringing, and all I could hear was my heartbeat. What I did latch on to was something to the effect of Serena reaping what she had sown. This was a consequence for her actions. ”

“It’s like the script for some bad play.” Meg slammed down her drink. “Reginald weaving a web, his one final attempt to control everything he believed he built. He was one creepy bastard.”

She laughed until her sides hurt. She’d been right to come see Meg. “Jesus, you couldn’t say it any better. He was a creepy bastard. And I think Serena is just like him. She was perfect, though, so worried about the Winslow name. Her handbag matched her shoes. I didn’t realize people did that anymore.”

“What about the rest of the will?” Meg asked. “What did the lawyer say are the requirements?”

She didn’t meet Megan’s eyes. “I sort of didn’t stick around for the end of the will reading.”

“What is wrong with you?” Meg shouted. Several of the bar patrons swiveled in their seats to stare. “Sorry.” She lowered her voice. “Where the hell is your head at?”

“I wasn’t using it at the time. Once I heard if I didn’t take the money, then Mom was getting it, I panicked. I thought of Chuck and Serena and all the long-lost relatives that come out of the woodwork after a lottery win, and I bolted. I told the lawyer I needed some time and left.” She winced.

“It was stupid, but can you imagine what Chuck Devon would do to my mom if he thought he had a shot of getting some cash? Knowing my mother, she’d split it with him. I can’t get behind the idea of Chuck or Serena or anyone like them getting a dime of this money. I’d rather give it to charity. I can’t do that either. If I give it away, it goes to Ma. She won’t give it away because she’ll consider it her duty to take care of the Winslow family. So, with all that swirling around in my head, I couldn’t sit around and listen anymore. I needed to think.”

“That part I understand.” Meg squeezed her hand. “But hiding from this doesn’t make it go away. Deal with the past so you can move on.”

She groaned. “Please don’t analyze me right now. I don’t care about those people. If they’d left my mother alone, I wouldn’t give them a thought again.”

Her friend snorted. “Please. You’re not free from abandonment issues either. They’re just not on the grand scale like your mother’s.”

“I can’t do this with you right now. After this is sorted, I’ll let you figure me out all you want. Right now, I need a plan.”

She didn’t answer. Her friend, who faced the door, went slack-jawed. Someone worth a look walked in—could be anything from a hot guy to a hideous dress.

She kept her eyes trained ahead. “Tell me when they are about to pass. Hot or not?”

Meg shook her head as if to clear it. “Definitely hot. He’s in a suit, but I imagine he’d look good in just about anything—including in my apartment.” Her eyes glazed over again.

Finn Callahan tossed his briefcase onto the bar stool next to Megan, whose eyes went wide in response. She closed her eyes, took a breath, and pasted on a fake smile.

“Megan Murphy, meet the lawyer.”