Page 46 of Luck of the Devil (Harper Adams Mystery #3)

The guest bedroom was nice but sparsely furnished. After I went into the bathroom to get ready for bed, I refilled my glass of water and saw the pill bottle on the counter.

I hadn’t properly thanked him for getting it, and I was grateful. Monitoring the pills would hopefully be safer than sneaking swigs of alcohol. The temptation to drink would probably never go away. If I could get through withdrawal without caving, then maybe I had a shot at sobriety.

One thing was certain: I didn’t want to go back to the place where I’d been. Even if James tossed me out on my ass in the morning.

Despite the remarkably comfortable mattress, I didn’t sleep well.

Partly because I’d slept so much in the car, but mostly because of how James and I had left things.

He hadn’t kicked me out or turned his back on me, but I almost wished he had.

My guilt might be easier to deal with. Maybe he was only putting up with me because he wanted to see this case through, and once we were done, we were done .

If so, I’d brought it upon myself.

I had a million excuses for why I’d called Deveraux, but the bottom line was I hadn’t trusted James. He’d told me not to trust him, and I’d taken him at his word.

While I regretted what I’d done, I couldn’t change it. All I could do was own it. If James couldn’t forgive me, then I’d have to find a way to accept it.

Since I was up at the crack of dawn, I got up and made a pot of coffee, then took a cup onto James’s porch and enjoyed the view of the woods surrounding the house.

A single lane asphalt road cut through the trees and curved out of sight.

I had no idea how far we were from a road, but it was obvious James enjoyed his privacy.

The thought cut deep.

I wondered again how many people he’d brought here. I suspected not many, and after what he likely saw as my betrayal, I doubted I’d ever be here again.

I brought my mother’s laptop onto the porch and looked up Dale Ambrose.

The accident had happened long enough ago that it took some digging to find it, and even then, there was nothing but a quick mention in the Jackson Creek newspaper.

The report said he’d lost control of his car and driven off the bridge into the river.

There was no mention of witnesses, so I opened my PI websites and did some digging to find the police report.

It had been a cursory investigation. The report said a witness had seen the back end of the car sticking out of the river, but no one had seen the vehicle go in.

There hadn’t been an autopsy, and the case had quickly been closed.

It was a very tidy way to get rid of someone.

Especially since the Jackson Creek police were known for their laziness.

The question was why the Jackson Creek police had investigated the case given it was outside of their jurisdiction.

I considered asking Louise, but she likely hadn’t been in the department long enough to know.

Detective Jones, who’d met with me about the Burton case, was next on my list. While he’d likely been around long enough to know the history of the Lone County Sheriff’s Department’s history with the Jackson Creek police, there was a good chance he hadn’t been employed by them that far back.

Still, it was possible. The accident had happened about twenty-four years ago, and I’d pegged him to be in his early forties.

A quick glance at the clock on the laptop confirmed it was too early to call him without looking suspicious, so I put it on my mental list to follow up on later.

Next, I searched my father’s name, but there were multiple pages of listings to sort through.

He’d been mayor of Jackson Creek for several years, and he’d been active in the community before that.

After searching for nearly an hour, I didn’t find anything suspicious.

If he’d been involved in something shady, he’d covered his tracks.

However, Google searches rarely provided evidence in an investigation.

At most, it might point to a door to open.

The best sources were people closest to the suspect, but it would be a challenge to talk to his friends and business associates without raising red flags.

I looked up the hours of my mother’s bank, but it occurred to me there was a good chance the safe deposit box wasn’t at her regular bank. That would make it harder for me to track down, but if my father was really after the information, it would make it harder for him too.

I tried to put myself in my mother’s head. If James and I were right, she hadn’t wanted me to know anything unless I started asking questions about her death or disappearance. Somehow, she’d intuited I would go to her sister, which meant she must have had a plan for me to access the box.

Safe deposit boxes had signature cards—the signature of the people who were allowed access to the box, and I knew I hadn’t signed one. But if she’d left me a key, she must have made some kind of arrangement for me to get in it. The only legal way I could get in was if she’d changed her will.

James and I hadn’t found anything about the will or the box in her house, and there hadn’t been anything on her computer. Where would she have kept that information?

Who would she have used to draw up the new will?

I logged into her bank account and went through her transactions, looking for anything that could have been a payment to an attorney. When I didn’t see anything from the past six months, I wondered if she used one of Dad’s partners. They wouldn’t have charged her.

But that would have been dumb. If she’d used one of my father’s friends, there was a good chance they would have told him. Had he already found her will? Had he already accessed the box?

Cold dread stole my breath, but I forced myself to take several deep breaths, in and out. I had to tackle one problem at a time. First, I needed to find out if there even was a will.

I checked the time on the laptop, sighing with frustration when I saw it was 7:48.

Dad’s partners usually got to the office around eight, but I was anxious and impatient.

My father knew I’d planned to talk to my grandparents.

Had he suspected I’d talk to Aunt Hannah too?

Had he used my day out of town to cover his tracks?

I decided this was important enough that I could go against convention and call the other attorneys on their personal cell phones. Being a partner’s daughter came with some perks.

I called Mitch Morgan first even though I doubted my mother would have used him. She’d found his womanizing distasteful, but I was the most familiar with him now. Since he’d asked me to take Hugo Burton’s case, and I’d solved it, I hoped he’d be more likely to give me answers.

I pulled up his name on my phone and placed the call.

“Harper,” Mitch said, his voice full of sympathy. “Once again, I’m so sorry about your mother. How are you doing?”

“I’m hanging in there,” I said. “And that’s actually why I’m calling.”

“Oh? Don’t worry about your job. You take off as much time as you need.”

“Thank you, I really appreciate it, but that’s not why I’m calling either.” I paused. “It occurred to me that since my parents were separated, my mother might have updated her will.”

“Oh,” he said, sounding surprised. “I suppose she might have.”

“I take it you didn’t update it for her.”

He chuckled softly. “No, Sarah Jane’s never been too fond of me, but I can look her up in the system and see if I find something.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I haven’t found a will in her house, but if she changed it recently, she might not have a copy here. Do you want me to call you back once you get to the office?”

“No need,” he said good-naturedly. “I came in early. I’m looking it up right now.” The sound of the clicking filled the silence for several seconds before he said, “I’m not seeing anything. Only the will she created with your father about fifteen years ago.”

Disappointment hit me hard. “Okay. Thanks for checking, Mitch.”

“Although…” he said, drawing out the word.

“Yeah?”

“It’s no secret your mother wasn’t my biggest fan, so it stands to reason she wouldn’t have asked me to draw up a new will, but she might have asked John David. They were much friendlier. And if he changed it, he probably did it on his own time, which would explain why it’s not in the system.”

“Do you do that often?” I asked, thinking about my father’s off-the-books deals. “Create contracts on your own time?”

“We try not to, but for simple things like this, we can and do. John David probably didn’t even bill her, especially since he and your father haven’t been seeing eye to eye lately.”

That caught my attention. “Why aren’t they getting along?” I sure hadn’t caught wind of it, but then again, I hadn’t been working in the office long.

“I have no idea,” he said with a sigh. “But your father can be mercurial, and John David is as steady as they come. I think he gets tired of the drama.”

I never would have described my father as mercurial and dramatic. Turned out I didn’t know him at all. Then again, my entire view of him came from my childhood, and what child truly knows their parent?

“Thanks, Mitch. I’ll call John David.”

“No problem,” he said. “And I know this pales in comparison to everything you’re dealing with, but you did a great job with the Hugo Burton case. I never expected you’d get it wrapped up so quickly. I’ll have more cases for you once you get back to work.”

“Thanks.” While I was eager for the work, I had no idea whether that offer would still stand if things went south with my father. I hung up and decided to call John David on his cell too. While I didn’t have his number in my phone, it was easily accessible with my mother’s address book.

“John David Hightower,” he answered, sounding professional.

“John David,” I said, “This is Harper Adams.”

“Oh. Harper.” He sounded surprised, then lowered his voice. “I suppose I know why you’re calling.”

“About my mother’s will?”

He exhaled an exaggerated sigh. “Yes, thank God you came to me. Your mother asked me to change her will, but I could only give you a copy if you asked for it.”

That fit what I suspected was my mother’s agenda.

“And I was hoping you’d ask me for it before your father files probate. We’d contest the first will, of course, but it would get messy and with your father and me in the same firm…”

“It would put you in an awkward situation,” I finished.

“Exactly. Sarah Jane knew it might be a possibility. She offered to see someone else if I was uncomfortable, but I assured her I’d take Paul on.” His voice hardened as he finished the sentence.

“I take it you and my father haven’t been getting along?”

“That’s an understatement.”

“Funny,” I said. “I never picked up on it in the office. Or even when you came over for dinner at my parent’s house back in February.”

“We’ve tried to keep things civil in the office, and we didn’t have a problem in February.”

“If it’s not too personal to ask, why were you two having problems now?”

“Let’s just say I didn’t approve of some of the company he kept,” he said, his words tight and clipped.

“Was he having an affair?” I asked.

He hesitated. “I have no proof, but I saw him with another woman, and it was clear he was trying to be secretive.”

My stomach dropped. “Can I ask where you saw them?”

“I went fishing in the city park early one Sunday morning. When I pulled into the parking lot in front of the lake, I saw two cars parked side by side, about a space apart. I parked a few spaces away. As I was getting my gear out of the trunk, I saw your father getting out of one of the cars and into the other. It was his car. Then the first car left, and as it drove past, I saw that the driver was an attractive woman. He must have seen me, because he confronted me the next day in the office. He told me it wasn’t how it looked, but a few days later, I heard he’d left your mother, and about a week after that, Sarah Jane came to me, asking me to create a new will for her.

She said I had to keep it from Paul, and if I couldn’t, she’d go somewhere else.

” His voice hardened. “I told her I had no problem at all. But it was the contents of her will that took me by surprise.”

“Is there something about a safe deposit box?” I asked, then held my breath.

“Actually … yes.”

“Thank God,” I muttered. “She left me a key without any information on how to access it.”

“It’s all in her will,” he said. “I’m pulling into the office right now. I can email it to you as soon I get settled at my desk. I suspect the copy she signed is in the box.”

“Thanks, John David. That would be great. But, before you go”—I drew a breath—“do you know the identity of the woman my father is having an affair with?”

“No,” he said, “and while she was attractive, she didn’t fit the stereotypical mid-life crisis affair partner. She looked like she was in her fifties.”

So far, she fit the description of the woman who’d shown up at my mother’s house. “I know this is a lot to ask, but if I text you a photo of a woman, can you tell me if it’s the woman who met my father?”

“You have a photo?” A hard edge filled his voice. “I’d be happy to.”

We hung up, and I texted the photo. Seconds later, he texted back.

That’s her.

The mix of emotions caught me off guard.

At least we knew she had a connection to my father, but I realized I’d still been hoping he hadn’t been having an affair.

Funny, after all the other crap I’d learned about him—including the fact he’d slept with a woman years ago—I was still disappointed in him.

Of course, there was a chance he didn’t have a romantic relationship with her, but the evidence wasn’t looking good for his innocence.

I signed into my law office account on the laptop, and a few minutes later, the email pinged.

I opened it, then opened the attached document titled “Sarah Jane Adams Last Will and Testament.” I started scanning the pages, holding my breath.

She hadn’t left me much, not that she had much of her own to give.

She gave me her personal bank account, her jewelry …

and access to a safe deposit box at a bank in Wolford.

But that was all I needed.