Lucky Love: A Lesbian Romance Page 3

  I glanced around the room to find more stuff. "That pastel-colored ceramic vase over there with the grapes? It's worth forty-five hundred dollars. And that writing desk? It's an 18th century reproduction of a Renaissance writing desk—essentially a fake—and it's still worth fifteen thousand dollars. It's pretty, to boot. Those two etchings? They're worth twenty thousand to thirty thousand if you hit the right auction."

  Lena's eyes narrowed. "How do you know all this?"

  I lifted my chin. "I'm an antiques dealer and appraiser. That's actually how I met Lois. She asked me to sell a few of her items."

  "I see," Lena said.

  I took this as a positive thing. Lena had asked me a question and hadn't attacked me for the answer. "I came here to explain to you how all this came to be. I don't want you to have the wrong idea."

  "That would be a travesty," she said, probably sarcastically, though I decided to ignore that part. We were on a roll.

  "Your grandmother—Lois," I said, noticing how Lena cringed when I said the g-word, "and I made a deal. I would sell a bunch of antiques for her until I had sold enough to buy the house."

  "And how much was that?"

  "Two hundred thousand dollars."

  "Sounds like a steal," Lena said.

  A steal. The nerve of this woman. What right did she have after all this time to criticize me? Who was here for her grandmother when she wasn't? Who had helped plan the funeral? Who had kept careful care of Lena's inheritance? Me. That's who. Somehow, I kept my cool. "I never did anything to threaten or influence her. I was just here for her. I was her only friend."

  Lena's nostrils flared.

  Oh, crap. I shouldn't have said that. "I don't mean to say you and your family were absent. Only... that we both needed each other at the time. She was a great solace to me, too."

  "And why would you need solace? You were getting a house practically for free."

  I lifted my chin, trying to secure the smile on my face, though I felt as far away from that as I possibly could. I would not show her how she affected me. I was the one in the right. Lois had left it to me of her own free will. I had earned it. Lena was the one who was in the wrong. She didn't have to be sour about it. "That's none of your business, is it?"

  Lena stepped toward me, testing her ankle and cringing again. "I find it hard to believe you managed to get Lois to change her will less than a year after meeting you just because she liked you."

  I backed up a step. "Well, that's what happened."

  "It doesn't make sense to me. If you were an antiques dealer, wouldn't she leave you all the antiques? Why leave you the house and the antiques to people who don't know their value?"

  I felt like Lena had peeked at my cards before our little poker hand. Like she had read the script already when I didn't even know I was in the movie. I scrambled for something intelligent to say. "I don't know. She knew I loved it. Maybe this was her way of thanking me."

  "Did you brainwash her?"

  "Give me a break."

  "Did you poison her?"

  "Absolutely not."

  "Did you—"

  "Stop." I placed my fingers on Lena's collarbone. She had come close again, trying to intimidate me. We took a breath at the same time, and I let myself feel whatever I was feeling underneath a mask of placidity. One thought dominated. If she leaned forward just a hair, I couldn't promise myself I wouldn't jump her. My focus returned, though somewhat weakened. "Ask anyone. No one in this town would call my character into question."

  "That's because no one really knows you."

  My heart beat so strong my body swayed with it.

  How does she know that?

  It took me a moment to realize she didn't really know, she had just guessed. I brought my shoulders up to my ears in a shrug, as if I could physically wring the tension from them. I took another step back from her. "If you don't believe I had good intentions with your grandmother, I don't know what else to do."

  "I do. Bring legal action against you."

  It took everything I had not to roll my eyes. "Come on, Lena. You know your grandmother gave me this house because she wanted to. I can see why now."

  "Oh yeah? Why?"

  My greater demons had full reign now. "Just to see your pissed off face pinched like that as she laughs down on you from heaven. You deserve even less than what she gave you. You deserve exactly what you gave her. Nothing."

  With that, I turned on my stockinged feet and walked through the crowded front hallway.

  "Take a good look, princess. This is the last time you'll ever see the inside of this house again."

  "Fuck you," I called, slamming the door behind me.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  LENA

  To me, a chair had always been a chair, but apparently, a chair was sometimes more than a chair. It was a curule, or a gondola, or a bergère, or a hogarth chair. And those were only the different types, then there were different styles of chairs like Chippendale, Eastlake, Hepplewhite, blah blah blah. I'd spent a night on only chairs, on the legs and the joints and the yoke back and the splat and my head was spinning.

  My mind flashed back to Alice pointing out the various pieces, rattling off a short history of each and how much each item was worth. I'd never realized how much time and energy went into identifying these types of things. Even from the small amount of research I'd done I was beginning to see the potential here. Maybe I could sell it all myself.

  As a test, I closed my eyes and pointed randomly into the mess. Whatever my finger landed on I would try to identify. It landed on a coffee table which had brass ball-and-claw feet, but there were other features that made it confusing. I researched, and Google reverse image searched, but nothing seemed to match it.

  I moved on to other pieces, but that first coffee table still plagued me, and my estimates seemed clumsy at best. If this was surgery, I was still a pre-med student who had only taken an entry-level biology course attempting an appendectomy. I went to sleep when my eyes started aching, reassuring myself that tomorrow I would have better light.

  The better light came, but it didn't help.

  I worked through the morning with total focus until a creak from the porch drew my attention. I tiptoed to the window and peered out, stilling.

  That Alice woman seemed to be talking to herself, no, arguing with herself. She rolled her eyes and knocked on the door.

  I could ask her about the table. Maybe I could disguise the question in a challenge of her authority so I could both ask her and save face. She would probably be able to rattle it off, no problem. All I had to do was answer the door.

  Before I could, Alice pulled out a key and tried inserting it into the lock.

  I smiled at myself, chuckling. I knew she'd had a key so I'd changed the locks. I enjoyed watching her little protest as she discovered what I'd done.

  My phone rang, interrupting my pleasurable watching. I jumped out of the way and picked up the phone as Alice's eyes darted to the window.

  "Lena, it's Cash."

  "Oh," I said, glancing at my watch. It was seven in the morning on the west coast. "Did Tara get a hold of you?"

  "I'm fine, how are you?" Cash laughed as he spoke.

  "I'd be better if you got to the point." This was an ongoing joke Cash and I had. The first time we'd met I'd rushed right past small talk to the intricacies of the python code for the project on which we were working. He never let me live that down.

  "Still as charming as ever, Lena." Cash sighed. "Yes, Tara did get a hold of me. I wanted to tell you myself that we're planning to invest in your project. We think it's a great idea and I have full confidence with you at the helm it will be a smash success."

  A complicated mix of emotions tumbled in my gut. I should have been happy, thrilled, overjoyed, relieved—but I found myself disappointed. Angry. "I don't know what to say," I managed.

  "How about thank you?"

  "Thanks, Cash."

  "I want to see your financials and your launch
plan before we make the deal."

  "That's great. I can do that." Dare I ask...? Of course. Why not? "How much?"

  "Let's just say I think you'll be pleased. I've gotta go. Talk soon."

  "Talk soon." I clicked off the phone.

  Before I could really think of my next step Alice knocked again. I didn't have time to deal with her.

  Tara had betrayed me. It was my fault for sharing my business with someone who shared my bed, but that didn't make it hurt less. I picked up my phone and called our accountant, telling him to cut Tara off from all access to the company's funds.

  ...

  Alice was persistent, I would give her that. She tried the house multiple times that day and the next, knocking on the door, calling, leaving gifts, trying to break in, or performing some other "charming" act. Sometimes, she even wore a different dress, makeup and hair combination on the same day. It was like a little fashion show where my very own front walk served as the catwalk.

  She wasn't the only one trying to nail me down. Tara called the day after I shut down access to our company's accounts.

  "What did you do?" The tone I'd come to know too well toward the end of our romance cut through the line.

  "Hello to you, too."

  "I try to login this morning to do my work and what do I find?"

  "What's that?" I asked innocently.

  "I'm blocked. I have no access to the accounts."

  I smiled as her silent rage sparked on the line. I had to admit, this gave me pleasure beyond what I imagined, even before we got started. "It's tough living on my bad side, huh, Tara?"

  Tara drew in two shaky breaths. "How am I supposed to do my work without access to the accounts?"

  "Simple. It all goes through me now. Every little thing you do—you're going to send it through me."

  "That's—that's just dumb."

  "It's how it's going to go."

  "So you're going to treat me like a child?"

  "If you act like one."

  "It's not fair."

  I could easily picture her stamping her feet, her face beet red. "It's completely fair. You went behind my back."

  "And got the funding. You're a stubborn... IDIOT. You're only making things harder for yourself, like you always do."

  I'd developed a skill where I could pull out of my body and see how it was reacting without reacting to it myself. Using this, I felt absolutely nothing when Tara hurled this crap at me. Like spears thrown from a castle wall at an enemy far away, her words fell to the ground, impotent.

  "Cash wants a launch plan and our financials before he gives us the money," I said. "You draw up the plan and send it to me."

  "How am I going to pay our people?"

  "You can pay our assistant through me. Let the other coders go. I'll do the rest, just like I said earlier."

  Tara snorted. In my detached state, I pictured her pretty face morphing into that of a pig. I almost chuckled, except that would have been a step too far. A bit too mean. Even for Tara, someone who deserved it.

  "This can't be legal," Tara said, interrupting my daydream. "We're partners. I'm going to consult—"

  I hung up the phone and didn't answer when she called back the next eighteen times. Nor did I look at her texts. It went on like this for a few days.

  Despite the increased time investment needed for fielding the onslaught of abusive comments (okay, maybe I did check the texts), and Alice's daily fashion parade, locking myself away in Lois's nightmare of a house left me with a ton of time on my hands.

  After carving out a safe space in one of the bedrooms upstairs, I passed the time coding for our app, surviving on the oatmeal and cream of wheat in the cabinets. It wasn't all that different from when I was in college. I also continued my research into the furniture. Some pieces were actually worth something. It seemed as if Lois had amassed quite the collection, unrivaled by most amateur collectors and even professionals in the field. I would have been impressed if I hadn't known the true nature of the evil woman.

  A couple weeks in, I ran out of food and had to leave the house. I waited for Alice to pass on her daily walk and snuck out for a quick grocery store run and a visit with a new lawyer I'd found. The lawyer was from Worcester, but she was in town to meet with another client and had volunteered to meet at a café in town. It was a risk going out in public in case Alice found a new way in, but it was one I had to take if I wanted to see this through. I left the car at home for Alice's sake and walked into town.

  The lawyer wasn't difficult to pick out in the small café. She was the only one dressed in a suit. I walked to her and extended my hand. "I'm Lena Luck. You must be Attorney Johnson."

  A broad, sparkling smile crossed her face. "Sit. Let's get started. And please call me Angela."

  A woman who didn't mess around. I liked that. The vinyl-covered chair, on the other hand, wasn't so nice, but hopefully I wouldn't be here long. "Did you receive the documents I sent you about my case?"

  "I did. I'll tell you my concern as soon as we get you a cup of coffee." She raised her hand. The waitress came over and took my order, then Angela's sharp gaze returned to me. This was the type of woman I could relate to. One with confidence, power, and grace. Not some fifties-wannabee housewife stalker. Alice flashed into my mind, smirking. Whoa. Why was I thinking of her?

  I cleared my throat and directed my attention back to Attorney—Angela. "Your concern?"

  "Right." Angela folded her hands. "I spoke with the attorney who witnessed the signing of the will, who knew your grandmother personally. He knew both parties, in fact, and trusted everyone was of sound mind."

  I nodded, keeping my cool. "I've thought quite a lot about that. Everyone speaks of how Lois was of sound mind at the end. However, she didn't have much interaction with the outside world. What if this Alice woman is a predator?"

  Angela opened her mouth to speak.

  I rushed forward. "It's happened before. A predator comes in and emotionally manipulates the elderly to get what she wants. I'm not paranoid, I swear. I don't think she actually killed Lois—she obviously didn't have to. I'm just saying she made damn well sure that when the old—when my grandmother—died, she was in the will."

  Angela nodded once, keeping her face blank of emotion. "There's one thing I don't understand. Why did you sign off on the accounting if you didn't trust Alice?"

  I ran a hand over my face, shutting down the flicker of shame before it gained too much energy. "I've been... distracted, starting a new company. I must have missed the mention of her name. I didn't see it until recently."

  Angela nodded and took a sip of her coffee. By the looks of it, she believed me. She set down her coffee cup. "I've taken a look at the house."

  I raised my eyebrows.

  "Just the outside, and your grandmother had it appraised soon before she died. It's a large house, but in need of repair. You do know it's only worth three hundred thousand dollars or so?"

  "I'm aware."

  "And the contents of the property, the antiques she left you, are valued at several million dollars."

  "Listen." I stopped speaking as the waitress came over and dropped off two coffees. I wrapped my hands around my cup, breathing in the aroma to help me focus. "I know it doesn't sound rational. I know, rationally, Laura and I got the best part of the inheritance. This is not out of greed, trust me. It's out of a sense of fairness. It doesn't seem fair that someone can come in and manipulate an old lady to give her something that doesn't belong to her. You know, Alice has always wanted that house."

  "Oh yes?"

  "She told me herself."

  Angela tilted her head to the side. "That could help. Do you have other evidence?"

  I opted not to tell her about the deal she'd made with Lois. It made Alice's argument seem more viable, and the deal was moot now, anyway. There was no paper trail proving it happened. However, leaving it there seemed insufficient.

  The crease appearing on Angela's forehead reinforced that hunch. "I do hav
e another complaint. As personal representative, she's supposed to care for the estate before it passes down. I haven't once seen her in the house in three weeks and I'm worried some of my inheritance is not properly being cared for."

  "I could do something about that. If she's neglecting the estate, that's a violation of her contract as personal representative," Angela said.

  Did I feel bad about lying? In that moment, not really. It wasn't exactly a lie. Deep in my gut, I knew she had somehow manipulated Lois. I just hadn't found the evidence yet. "So, if you take me on as a client, what other things should I look for that would help my case?"

  "Let me give that some thought. Meanwhile..." Angela swiveled in her chair, leaned over and pulled out a neat piece of paper and a pen, setting it down in front of me. "This will give me the ability to speak as your attorney and file a motion to start removing her as personal representative."

  I scanned the page, this time careful to read and understand before I signed. Though I still couldn't remember signing the last document. Perhaps Alice had somehow forged my signature. Perhaps this was some elaborate plan to make me feel crazy.

  I am not crazy.

  Finding nothing of concern, I signed my name on the dotted line. The sooner this was over the better.

  CHAPTER SIX

  ALICE

  Lena employed a barricade that would shame the Trojans.

  My language and actions the last day I'd seen her had been appalling, causing me to toss and turn for nights. So, the first day I passed by the Queen Anne Victorian, I dropped off a fruit basket with a note of apology. The second day, I strolled by on my walk with my pug, Ronald, and the basket still sat on the porch untouched. On the third day, I left Ronald at home, and tried all the doors, including the bulkhead, and found all of them locked tight against me. She'd changed the locks.

  Locked out of a house I owned. Who would have thought? It occurred to me that I had the power here, for now at least. I owned the house legitimately and I controlled how the estate was disbursed. That meant, if I wanted, I could slow down the disbursement of funds. I could make it so Lena and her sister didn't see the money for years rather than months.