Page 152 of Road Trip
“While you were upstairs, I found some of Sinead’s kibble and put it in a bowl for her, along with a bowl of water. She’ll be perfectly fine until you return. Cats are quite independent, you know.”
Maeve stood for a moment, using her hand to shield her eyes from the bright sunlight, looking back at the cottage. Despite the amount of work the place needed, she found herself excited by the prospect.
For the first time she noticed the Jaguar under the porte cochere. “What’s the story with the Jag?” she asked. “Esme didn’t strike me as the sports car type.”
“She definitely was not. She inherited the car after her father’s death, and as far as I’m aware, it’s not been moved since the day it was towed here.”
Maeve peered in the windshield of the Jag. “What a shame, to let a beautiful car like this just sit and rot. It was probably worth a lot of money.”
The solicitor shrugged. “Lord Rossington liked fast cars and beautiful women, and he didn’t mind spending money on both. The Jaguar was probably the least valuable of his automobiles. I seem to remember he left the Range Rover and the Rolls-Royce to Geoffrey.”
“I wonder if it’s the same Rolls he was driving when he was arrested,” Maeve said.
“According to our friend Muldoon, Geoffrey had actually been living in that car since he arrived in Ireland two weeks ago. He was that destitute and that desperate. Esme was his last hope.”
Maeve turned around and looked back at the gardener’s cottage. “If it’s all the same to you, I’m going to burn down that toolshed where he killed her.”
“My dear, you may do as you please, but I really think one good push would do the job.”
He opened the passenger door of his Mercedes and she climbed in. When he was behind the wheel of the car he reached to the back seat and got a file folder, which he handed her.
“The balance sheets were prepared by my assistant,” he said. “You’ll see there is some cash, some stocks, and of course, real property.”
“And we’ll have access to that, through the trust?” she asked.
“You and your sister will receive income intended to help you maintain and care for Sinead. That will include funds for the improvement and maintenance of the cottage and the grounds.”
He patted her hand. “Does that assuage your worries somewhat?”
“Somewhat,” she said. “How soon can we get to work with the painting and plumbing and smoke remediation? Sinead and I are ready to move home.”
“I’ll have Jenny make calls tomorrow,” he said.
“We’ll need a dumpster,” Maeve said. “A really big dumpster. And I’ll need the keys to the pickup.”
“Consider it done.”
Maeve began tapping the photos in her camera roll, texting them to Therese.
CHAPTER 65
Savannah
Therese met him at the door with a perfectly chilled dirty martini: Bombay Sapphire gin, a hint of vermouth, blue cheese–stuffed olives, and a splash of olive juice.
It was one of the wonders of being in a relationship with an actual grown-ass mature man. One who didn’t get shit-faced doing shots and beer or stoned stupid on weed. A man who showed up when he said he would, and one who owned his mistakes or shortcomings—not that he had many.
Scotty Childress, in just two short weeks of what she thought of as their coupledom, had taught her to value these qualities.
Therese liked to think she’d taught him a few things too, and not all of them had to do with sex, or what he so endearingly called lovemaking.
Anticipating his arrival tonight, she’d scrubbed the joint compound and paint from her hair and her body, although her nails would probably never recover.
During her first week of being back in the house on Blueberry Hill she’d found the stash of Mary Helen’s vintage lingerie that Maeve had held back from the donation bin. She’d also unearthed her mother’s white leather jewelry box with the gold embossing. This treasure was what their mother had called her “junk jewelry”: flashy rhinestone brooches, faux pearls, enameled flower pins, strings of colored beadnecklaces, and dozens of pairs of clip-on earrings from different decades. Some of the pieces, she knew, had been her nana’s, and Therese and Maeve had spent many happy hours of their childhood adorning themselves with dangly earrings and jangly charm bracelets.
Tonight Therese was wearing an ice-blue silk slip with nude lace overlays on the cups and at the hem. She’d fastened a long string of pearls around her neck and dabbed cologne behind her ears and in her cleavage.
When she heard the Mustang pull into the carport she waited, then met him at the door, martini in hand.
