A Willing Murder Read online

  “You don’t think she’s after...?” He trailed off.

  “Money?” Sara shrugged. “Maybe. I’m an older woman who can pay her bills. I’m a prime target for every scammer on the planet.” She drew in her breath. Was that too much for him to believe? But no, Jack nodded in agreement. It took work for Sara not to sit up straight and declare that she could take care of herself. “I’m sure she won’t stay for long.”

  When she saw that Jack was still hesitating, she decided to give his male ego a push. She used the arm of the chair to help herself up. Since her trainer had made her quads so sore that it hurt to stand, her wince was genuine. “I can see that you don’t want to do this.” There was so much martyred suffering in her voice that she thought he’d laugh at her. But he didn’t. “You don’t have to do anything. I’ll hire someone to help me.”

  “Hire someone?” Jack grabbed his crutches and nearly fell as he stood up with them. “All right. You win.” He sounded disgusted. “You have any furniture for the room?”

  “I thought maybe you’d go with me down to Baer’s to see Rico and pick out a few pieces. I need some for Kate’s rooms, too.”

  “I don’t know anything about furniture. Ivy is the one—”

  “What a great idea! So clever of you to think of her. And I do believe that Ivy said she has the morning off.” Sara pulled her cell from her handbag. “I’ll text her to meet us there. Okay if she brings your mom?”

  Jack was glaring down at her. “It sounds like all of you planned this. And you certainly look like you’re feeling better. How was your boxing lesson this morning?”

  “Brutal. Are you ready to go?”

  “No. I need to pack. I’ll stop by on Saturday. Or Sunday, maybe.”

  “You don’t need to pack anything. Every piece of clothing you own has concrete splatters or paint on it.”

  “That’s because I spent the last year working on that old house you bought. You kept adding so much that I didn’t have time to go shopping.” His eyes were narrowed. He was Moses being defied.

  Sara went to the door. “That’s all right. Your mom picked up a few things for you. Can we go now? If we get there early enough, Rico can schedule delivery for tomorrow.”

  Jack was looking like a horse that was going to balk at the starting gate.

  She gritted her teeth. Real men could be as stubborn as the ones she put in her novels. “Did I tell you that my niece is five foot seven and has dark red hair? And green eyes? She was voted the prettiest girl in her high-school class.”

  “That makes no difference. I’m not looking for—” He took a breath. “Actual green or brownish green?”

  “Emeralds are jealous,” Sara said without a hint of humor.

  Jack glanced around the apartment, then back at Sara. “I don’t think I can fit in that car of yours.”

  “Don’t flatter yourself. You’re not that big and MINI Coopers are roomy inside. Wait until you see how many lamps I can jam in there.” She held open the door. “You go first. If you fall, I don’t want you landing on me.”

  “Because you’re so old and fragile?” He stepped past her. “Fragile as a water buffalo,” he muttered as he struggled down the steep flight of stairs. “Just so you know, I’m only doing this because you can cook.”

  “That is not part of this deal,” Sara said, but she was smiling—and offering up a prayer of thanks. Neither she nor Jack were going to be alone. Life was good.

  TWO

  When Kate Medlar saw the big green highway sign that said Lachlan was two exits away, she took the nearest exit. At the wide T in the road, she hesitated. She didn’t know which way to go. Of course, the guy behind her blew his horn. Laid on it. It seemed that he was so frantic to get somewhere that a twelve-second delay put him in a rage.

  She turned right because it was easier and the other car sped forward. As he passed, the driver gave her the finger and mouthed the “call you next Tuesday” word.

  And people wondered why there were shots fired between cars, she thought. There was a little diner ahead and she pulled into the gravel parking lot. Inside, she took a booth by the window so she could watch her car. After all, everything she owned was stuffed inside it.

  When the waitress came, Kate ordered an egg-white omelet, a single slice of whole wheat toast and black coffee. No sauce, no butter, no cheese, no flavor. Long ago, she’d learned that she had not inherited her mother’s ability to eat fried chicken and doughnuts and remain as thin as a broom handle.

  It was one of Kate’s complaints about the unfairness of this “I’m fat, you’re not” that had brought about what she’d come to think of as The Great Reveal.

  Usually, her mother made no comment on Kate’s weight complaints, but three months ago, she’d said, “That’s because you’re like her. That writer woman.”

  The waitress poured the coffee and Kate sipped. When she’d questioned her mother, she was told that “her” was an aunt she’d never heard of: her late father’s only sibling, Sara.

  Kate combined the first name and her own last one with the label of “writer woman.”

  “Sara Medlar?” she asked in disbelief. She’d been sitting on a stool at the kitchen bar in the little house outside Chicago that she and her mother shared. Ava had been standing at the stove, her back to her daughter.

  “The Sara Medlar?” Kate repeated, louder. “The writer whose name is on half the paperbacks in the grocery stores? She’s my father’s sister?”

  Ava didn’t turn around but gave a curt nod.

  “I knew the last name was the same, but I never dreamed there was a connection.” Kate felt like she should get angry. Shouldn’t she start shouting about the injustice of not having been told this before? But she knew that directing anger at her mother never worked. Besides, the news was oh, so intriguing!

  Until that moment the only relatives she’d known about were her mother’s three older brothers. Horrible old men!

  Kate’s brain skipped the drama that she was being cheated out of and she said, as calmly as she could, “Why haven’t you told me this before?”

  Ava shrugged. “She’s famous. She wanted nothing to do with us after dear Randal left.”

  As always, at the mention of her husband, tears came to Ava’s eyes. She’d never made an attempt to “move on” from her beloved husband’s early death.

  Kate knew when to back off. Her father, Randal Medlar, had died when Kate was just four years old and she remembered nothing of him. Over the years, she’d tried to get her mother to tell her about him. But Ava’s memories were more deification than about a real man. Kate wanted to know about him. What made him laugh? What talents did he have? But she could never get answers out of her mother.

  To hear that there was someone else who knew her father made her so curious that it was like a fire had been lit inside her. That night she didn’t sleep but stayed on her computer, researching the author Sara Medlar.

  There was the usual hype around her glorious life and speculations about how she wrote—pen or keyboard?—but no mention of her deceased brother. Kate skipped all that. What she wanted to know was where Sara and her brother had grown up. It took some work, but eventually she came up with the city of Lachlan, Florida.

  Further digging, some of it into a paid site that found missing people, said that Sara Medlar had retired from writing and recently moved back to Lachlan.

  “Eureka!” Kate said, then began to research the town. She soon found what she was looking for: a local real estate office. Kate had been selling real estate for the two years since she’d graduated from college and she loved it.

  There was only one real estate office in Lachlan and it was owned by a woman named Tayla Kirkwood. There was an excellent website, and over the next few days, Kate read it avidly and came to greatly admire Mrs. Kirkwood. She’d spent the past twenty years bringing the derelict t