The fear that his mother had committed suicide and he was the cause clawed deeper by the minute.
She formed her slender fingers into a steeple. “You two must be going through hell. There’s no need to hash this out. Not right now. Go ahead and grieve, and make whatever plans you’d like to make so you can put her to rest. Then, when that’s all over, you can come back and we’ll talk, okay?”
A tingle skittered down Keith’s spine. “No, that’s not okay,” he said. “Why can’t we talk now?”
Her expression indicated that she was trying to be patient. “I only knew your mother for three years, after I came here. But even three years was enough time for me to figure out that she had a great deal of pride.”
“That’s not news, Chief.” Other than Maisey, who would know Josephine better than him?
She straightened her blotter. “What I’m trying to say is...there may have been certain circumstances in her life—distressing circumstances—she didn’t tell you about.”
His mother hadn’t told him anything in five years. But neither had there been any sign of unhappiness in those letters he’d found. Nothing out of the ordinary, anyway. Wouldn’t something have shown up—some complaint? “Like...”
Two lines formed on the chief’s forehead. “Thanks to an investment she made—a huge resort she and a group of partners were building in Jamaica at a total cost of over a billion dollars—she was losing everything, Mr. Lazarow. All her money. All her holdings. Everything.”
“No.” Keith stiffened. “That’s not possible. My mother would not have risked that much.”
“Perhaps the resort seemed like a good idea at the time, but a series of...unfortunate events put the project under water—literally.”
“I’m telling you she was more conservative than that.”
“I understand why you’d be skeptical.”
“She controlled a vast fortune.” One his grandfather had built and would’ve hated to see destroyed...
“I’m sure she expected everything to go well,” the police chief explained, “but, because of a tropical storm, the resort flooded, and the insurance refused to pay because of an exclusion in the fine print that had something to do with the footprint of the hotel portion. Then the other investors pulled out, cutting their losses and leaving your mother holding the bag.”
At the news that their mother had been losing everything, Maisey had gripped his arm. Now she surged to her feet. “The situation can’t be as dire as you’re making it sound,” she said. “I’ve been working at Love’s in Bloom since I returned to the island. Business has never been better.”
A sympathetic expression pulled at the corners of Underwood’s lips before she whirled around in her chair to get a file from the cabinet behind her. “That may be true, but the flower shop was only a small portion of her holdings. The income from that couldn’t even cover the expenses of running Coldiron House.”
“Then why didn’t she cut back?” Maisey asked. “She didn’t have to be quite as extravagant as she was.”
“Pride could be the answer to that, too,” Chief Underwood replied. “She probably feared people would start to guess that she was struggling, thought she could get back on top without giving herself away. And let’s face it. I doubt there was ever another time when she encountered this type of setback. She wasn’t used to failing.”
Could the destruction of the Coldiron empire—the financial pressure—have gotten to her? Keith wondered. She’d admired Grandpa Coldiron even more than he had. In her mind, no one could live up to his example. Perhaps she felt as if she’d let him down, as if she’d had nowhere to turn and couldn’t handle the humiliation of losing her status on the island, where she’d always been revered as the richest, most powerful person.
He had to admit it was possible, but chances were equally good that she had a plan. Josephine Coldiron-Lazarow would not go down without a fight—even if it meant marrying someone she didn’t love in order to obtain the money she needed. Keith could imagine her grooming her new beau, the Australian she’d met in first class, to help her retain her holdings and save face. “How do you know so much about her finances?”
“The second I started digging, I found nothing other than bills and fines and levies and trouble with the IRS,” Underwood replied. “The resort is sucking all the money away. You’ll probably have to file for bankruptcy.”
“No,” Keith began, but she talked over him.
“You’ll soon find out for yourself, since you’re the executor of her estate.”
Another surprise. Keith brought a hand to his chest. “I am? Is that a recent development?”
She scanned a document inside the file. “Not according to the date I see, which is almost five years ago. That was when the will was modified to include Roxanne. You were to get the flower store and Coldiron House. Maisey was to get Smuggler’s Cove. Roxanne was to inherit a chunk of land near the lighthouse. The rest of the estate the three of you were to hold jointly. Your mother’s diamond ring was supposed to go to Laney on her eighteenth birthday, by the way.”
She threw that aside to Maisey, who gasped a little when she heard it. “She left her ring to Laney? She loved my sweet child. That always came as such a shock to me.”
Chief Underwood winced at the pleasure in Maisey’s voice. “Only it’ll probably have to be sold. That’s why I hesitated to go into this today. I didn’t see any reason to upset you even more.”
“Why didn’t she disown me, like she swore she would?” Keith asked Maisey.
“That part doesn’t surprise me,” Maisey murmured. “Even when you two were fighting, she loved you best.”
Josephine had a funny way of showing it. Although Keith couldn’t say his mother had abused him by burning him with cigarettes, shutting him up in a cage or depriving him of food, she’d always been highly impatient, quick to anger and far too harsh. “I would’ve preferred to be Dad’s favorite, like you were,” he grumbled but directed his next remark to Chief Underwood. “Where did you find her will?”
“In her desk. I’m sorry if it seems like an invasion of privacy.” She pushed the file closer so Maisey could see for herself. “But if she was murdered, it could’ve been a key piece of evidence. I grabbed it, just in case. Besides, once a testator has died, the will becomes public record. I’m not the only one who’ll be able to read it, or get a copy, for that matter. Anyone who goes to the trouble of visiting the courthouse to request the probate file can do the same—once probate has been started, of course.”
“Who starts probate?” Maisey murmured as she read.
“That’ll be Keith, as the executor.”
Maisey glanced over at him before returning her gaze to Chief Underwood. “But...how will the businesses and the estate run in the meantime? The flower shop needs to remain open. Nancy and Marlene, not to mention Pippa and Tyrone, rely on their paychecks.”
“Keith will have the power to act on your mother’s behalf until the court can make the appropriate distributions.” Underwood spoke in a smooth, businesslike tone. “But, as I indicated, there won’t be much to distribute—maybe a little personal property, which will go to the individuals named. Even then, I’m guessing your mother’s debtors will force you to sell her furniture and her jewelry, since it’s worth more than an average person’s would be.”
“Those are keepsakes and family heirlooms!” Maisey said.
“I’m sorry.” At least she seemed genuinely sympathetic. “It must come as a blow.”
“It’s a shock, I’ll admit. But this won’t change my life. I’ll still have what I have now—I just won’t be getting any more. Losing