The Deadly Caress

Chapter 7

CHAPTER 7

The front door slammed. The sudden noise made Amanda jump and set down her empty cup with a clatter.

     Moments later Dorian strode into the living room, his usually pale complexion flushed, his jaw clenched. With him was Lionel Cohen.

     Dorian nodded to Brian seated beside Amanda, and then said, "Amanda, have you met Lionel?" He forced the man's name out as if it were repulsive to him.

     "Yesterday." Amanda rose from the sofa as the lawyer crossed the room to her.

     He wrapped his fleshy fingers around her small hand, pumped it. "I'm sorry for you loss. It must be very hard for you."

     "I hardly knew her." She slumped back into the sofa. "I didn't get the chance."

     The lawyer moved on to Brian. "Will you please accept my condolences?"

     "Thank you."

     Dorian sat near Amanda. "There's two cops outside. One started asking me questions but I couldn't tell him much."

     He was making conversation with her. It had taken this for him to be polite. "Where did you go before?"

     "Gym. Then I just drove." Dorian nervously bit off skin at the edges of his fingernails.

     So, this was where he'd rushed off to earlier? "Why?"

     "To think."

     Had Jean's death been a turning point for him? Why couldn't this have happened while Jean was still alive?

     "Lionel, can you tell us why the police think it necessary to send someone from Homicide?"

     "We'll have to wait for the detective to inform us when he arrives."

     "I feel like I've been here longer than just one day. You did mention something about coming to visit Jean today, didn't you? What was that all about?" Amanda asked.

     "I planned to bring a new will for her final approval and signature." He paused to pull out a handkerchief and mopped his brow. "Unfortunately, I can't do that now."

     "Will?" she said, surprised.

     "What was in it?" Campbell asked. He crossed his right leg, and swung it out like a tension driven pendulum. He looked agitated.

     "Well, it is rather irregular for this to be discussed now. This new will remains unsigned. So it cannot be enforced."

     "Cut the crap and just tell us," Brian said.

     "Well, since it remains unsigned I guess it won't do any harm. In brief...Jean continued Dorian's trust fund and the shares left to him by his father, he would still have received when he turned thirty, which are a substantial holding in some of the top companies. Except for the $10,000 left to each of her staff-Estella, Rosa and Ricardo-Amanda would have received the bulk of the estate, including about $450 million.

     Amanda sat back. "Are you...serious?" That was a scary amount. She pushed her blonde hair from her face.

     Brian looked at her. "You would have become a very wealthy woman."

     "That bitch was going to pull a stunt like that," Dorian said.

     "It was no stunt and it was not signed," Cohen said.

     The very idea that she could have inherited such a sum stunned her. "I...I didn't...know about the money. A...any of it. Why me? Why now?"

     She could only guess that her mother had altered her will to try to make it up to her for abandoning her as a baby. But Amanda hadn't wanted money, she'd wanted a mother.

     "What do you mean?" Brian leaned toward Amanda.

     She shook her head, not wanting to attempt to speak with that stutter. How could this mother make up for the years she had endured without her? Where was she when she needed someone who really cared for her? Perhaps she wouldn't have become anorexic. Perhaps she wouldn't have been so desperate for love that she'd sought it in the arms of the first boy that noticed her. If only she'd known Jean then.

     What was she doing thinking about this? She couldn't get a breath. She tried, but she felt as if she was suffocating.

     She pulled out her puffer and inhaled.

     "Asthma?" Dorian stared at her.

     "Do you need a doctor?" Cohen asked.

     "N...no. I'll be fine in...a minute,' she said.

     "Are you sure?" Brian asked.

     She nodded not trusting herself to speak. Amanda concentrated on taking a slow breath in and out.

     "What about Brian? He's her flesh and blood too," Amanda said.

     "I don't understand why my mother would do this." Brian said to Cohen.

     "She asked me to draw up the will and I did. Sometimes she'd take me into her confidence over a matter but this time she didn't."

     "What did the rest consist of?" Dorian snapped.

     "The $450 million? Some of that would have been in shares, bonds, and various other investments. There's a home in Boston, one in Denver, this one, and a couple of houses in Europe and London."

     Dorian stilled his swinging leg. His lips were set in a thin line. and he looked angry. Was she the source of his agitation? He sprang up, crossed to the glass doors, and stared out. His back and shoulders formed a barrier between him and everyone else.

     Brian broke the uneasy silence. "So you are telling us there's an existing will and it's still current."

     Lionel nodded. "It was drawn up a year and a half ago. The reading will be after-" he paused and took a long breath as if it were too difficult for him to say the words, "after the funeral."

      At that last word, Amanda tensed. How would she endure it...the endless stream of questions, of who she was and why she was there. Or would they even notice her? She doubted Jean would have been eager to tell any of her society friends of her illegitimate children.

Be first to be notified when my next thriller is released. Sleep then my Princess.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Deadly-Caress/543137822419408

My website: http://onstefan.weebly.com/contact.html