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Not even a blink. “Just as Eugene attacked — and she stood and watched — I reached out and pulled it off her neck. She didn’t deserve to be wearing it, the little traitor.”
No, I supposed not. But at least his reply cleared up that part of the mystery.
Lucien went on, “Of course, the irony of the whole situation is that the joke would have been on them even if they’d been successful in their scheme.”
I tilted my head at him. “I don’t understand.”
His mouth twitched slightly. “Before I left to see you here in Globe, I had my will changed. I’d begun to sense that Eugene possibly wasn’t the best person to have as my fall-back heir, for reasons that are now obvious. My lawyer rewrote the will to name you and Athene as my two beneficiaries.”
For a second or two, all I could do was stand there and stare at him. He smiled back at me like a tattooed Buddha. “W-what?” I finally managed. “And Athene was on board with this?”
“Well, she thought I was slightly mad, but she also said it was my money to do with as I pleased.” Lucien stopped there and flicked an imaginary piece of dust off the sleeve of his black shirt. “Of course, since she’s now gone as well, it will all go to you.”
I thought I needed to sit down. There was an old tree stump not too far from where I stood, so I made my way over to it and shakily lowered myself to a sitting position. “What am I supposed to do with all that money?”
“Whatever you want. Keep it, give it away — it’s all the same to me.” He sent me another of those enigmatic smiles. “I think we would’ve made a good team, if you’d given me a chance.”
I had my own doubts on that topic, but I didn’t feel like arguing with a ghost. If he wanted to drift off to his next spin on the wheel thinking that we would have made a love connection in this life, so be it.
“I’ll figure something out,” I said.
“I know you will — and you’ll be hearing from my lawyer soon. Goodbye, Selena.”
He faded away, leaving me sitting there alone on my tree stump.
Well, then. Apparently, I was going to be a millionaire.
I didn’t quite know what to think about that.
Calvin came up the stairs just as Brett Woodrow was leaving. The two men nodded at each other, and Calvin gave me an inquiring look as I shut the door behind him.
“He was giving me an estimate on replacing the fireplace doors,” I explained.
“Right.” He glanced over at the fireplace in question, which didn’t look too bad, since Brett had removed the remnants of the shattered glass, leaving it bare-faced for now. Because we were heading into late spring and then summer, I wasn’t too worried about not being able to use it. The replacements would be installed long before the weather got cold enough for me to have a fire.
“How was your trip to California?” Calvin asked then. He looked oddly diffident, as if he wasn’t sure how he was supposed to act around me.
But then, he wasn’t the only one who’d been doing that same tiptoeing. I think everyone assumed that since I’d inherited vast sums of money from Lucien — and because he was out of the picture permanently — I’d just naturally want to move back to California.
However, I’d known almost as soon as I stepped off the plane at Bob Hope Airport in Burbank that I’d made the right decision in moving to Globe. I still had a lot to learn about small-town living, but I could tell it was the right fit for me. I’d met with Lucien’s lawyer and a financial consultant and the real estate agent who was handling the sale of his house, stopped in to see my mother and her husband, and then gotten right back on the plane. The whole trip had taken less than the space of a day, but I still felt as though I’d been away from Arizona for too long.
“It was fine,” I said. “A lot of loose ends to tie up, but things are progressing. I’ll get it figured out eventually.”
I’d decided not too long after my meeting with Lucien’s ghost in the woods that I didn’t want to keep most of his money. Enough so my already plump cushion would be padded that much more, but I’d already started dispensing large chunks of the rest of it to my favorite charities. Quite a bit more would go to local causes, like Josie’s theater guild and the high school, which was in desperate need of a new auditorium.
Things like that. I had no idea whether Lucien would be amused by my altruism, or irritated that the empire he’d built during his lifetime was being broken up so easily.
Quite possibly, a little of both.
Calvin’s expression was unreadable. “What does it feel like to be a millionaire?”
“The same, I guess,” I told him. “I don’t think it’s really sunk in yet. Probably a good thing.”
“Hmm.”
He’d sent me a text asking if he could come over, and of course I’d said yes. Now, though, I had to wonder exactly what it was he’d had in mind.
“I was thinking,” he said, then paused.
