The Haunting of Sky Hollow - SAMPLE

2.

December 2019

Noel Pratt, the Senior Partner of Pratt, Villers & Vreeland, took a deep breath, steeling himself for the task at hand. If thirty-five years as an estate attorney had taught him one thing, it was this: the reading of wills, much like the funerals that preceded them, brought out the absolute worst in people. Something about the act of lowering a coffin into the earth displaced hidden resentments, greed, and guilt faster than dropping a brick into a bowlful of water. It also tended to make even more of a mess.

Not for the first time that day, he cursed himself for not forging more of an acquaintance with the family members involved. No matter how casual, an amicable relationship would have given him a modicum of leverage in his current situation. He glanced down at the document on his desk, the Last Will and Testament of Renée Loveland. Right now, he needed all the leverage he could get. Someone would not be happy with what he was about to say.

After a long throat clear, he said, "Besides her checking account, in which remains a total of one hundred-thirty-two dollars and fifty-three cents, your mother had a small stock portfolio, which represents her initial investment in her company's retirement plan." He paused, pushing both palms against the edge of his desk, bracing himself for a storm that hadn't yet come, although certain it would. "I say 'initial,' because she made no further contributions to the fund. None, in all the time she worked at the nursing home. To be honest, I find that quite strange."

"Nah, that sounds like something Mom would do," said the brother who'd been the first one to speak upon entering his office and in the twenty minutes since, was never without a sarcastic comment whenever he mentioned Renée's name.

Pratt, who'd known the late Renée Loveland since her girlhood—back when she was still Renée Blake—entertained the notion of a pointed confrontation for the briefest of moments, then decided against it. Better to leave a stone unturned than find the coiled adder beneath it.

As luck would have it, he didn't have to say anything at all.

"Aidan, please. That's not helpful." His sister, who looked genuinely stricken, reached out to him.

"No, but it's the truth." He brushed her hand away. "I told you something like this would happen, Nadia. We both know she was lousy when it came to managing money."

"Yes, Aidan, we did," she said, her tone soft but containing a warning undercurrent. "So why belabor the point now?"

He crossed his arms and stared through the moss-green damask curtains. Although it was a little after two in the afternoon, dusk had fallen fast with the rain—a torrent that should have been a snowfall, given that it was mid-December. Aidan watched it sluice down the street, the crimson flares of tail lights and traffic lights the lone specks of color in Rutland's otherwise dreary day. A dark SUV, cutting too close to the curb, churned up a filthy spray before it sped away.

"If you would permit me to continue, Mr. Loveland—"

Of course, he didn't.

"Rose granite. You just had to have it, didn't you, Nad? You just had to pick the most expensive damned headstone you could—"

"She was our mother," Nadia hissed.

"Some mother." Oblivious to his sister's pained stare, Aidan shifted in his seat, now focusing his attention back on the attorney. "So, Mr. P, please don't keep us in suspense any longer. Just how little are we talking, anyway?"

Noel Pratt, Esquire, who, at the tender age of sixty-five, did not appreciate being referred to in so informal and disrespectful a manner as 'Mr. P,' clasped his hands together and glanced at the two young people seated across from him. Aidan and Nadia Loveland: Renée's children. Well, children to him, at any rate, although the two, now in their early twenties, could hardly be considered such. Although, he had to admit, Aidan was a conceited brat in need of a thorough hiding, a 'come to Jesus' moment with a switch, belt, or beefy thug in a dark alley. Anything to wipe that smug little smirk off his face.

They were twins too. Although at first glance, Aidan, blond with startling black brows, looked nothing at all like the auburn-haired Nadia, whose soft-spoken demeanor and wide oval face struck a chord in Pratt, evoking memories of the Renée he'd known in happier times. Back when we were young; before it all went to hell in a handbasket. Aside from their above-average height, their eyes, almond-shaped and with irises the most curious shade of pale gold Pratt had ever seen, were the only other features, physical or otherwise, shared between the two.

Pratt adjusted his tie, then cleared his throat again. "As I was saying, in addition to the retirement fund, which is worth seventy-five thousand, Renée also had a life insurance policy. One worth..." He pulled a paper from the small pile on his polished mahogany desk into a pool of warm lamplight. Then, adjusting his round, wire-rimmed spectacles, he scanned the page line by line with one finger until he found the precise spot. "Twenty-seven thousand dollars."

"Altogether, that's over—oh, my God, Aidan, we're rich—and you were so worried!" Nadia's hand flew to her mouth. Her eyes glistened.

"Yeah? Wait for it."

Pratt slid a box of tissues across the desk to Nadia, careful to avoid her brother's thunder before the storm glare. "If you would like to pursue the matter in probate court," he began, emphasizing the next-to-last word, "it might be possible to overturn your mother's will."

"Told you so," Aidan shot at Nadia. Dry-eyed, arms clamped against his midsection, he fixed the attorney in his stony topaz stare. "And why ever would we need to contest it, Mr. P?"

The pot-bellied attorney sighed. "Because, as it stands now, she bequeathed all her money to Matthew Loveland."

"Dad?" Nadia gaped at him. "But he died when we were kids!"

"I'm so sorry, my dear," said Pratt, and for her, the sentiment was genuine. "It seems your mother never changed her beneficiary after his death. Unless you wish to pursue the matter in probate court, I'm afraid there's nothing I can do."

Aidan leaned forward, resting his elbows on the edge of the desk. "And if we were to contest it, just how much would something like that end up costing us, Mr. P?"

More than you have. Instead of acting on his desired impulse—reaching across the desk and throttling the sarcastic little bastard to within an inch of his life—Pratt took a deep breath. Once fortified, he then proceeded to do what he did best. "Depending on how long litigation would take, a conservative estimate would place the cost somewhere between ten and fifty thousand."

"Dollars?" Nadia put her head in her hands and groaned.

"See? I told you this was a waste of time. Come on, before we end up owing him more than today's consultation fee." Aidan rose from his seat, slinging his black pea coat over his shoulders in a single fluid motion.

As he did, Pratt noticed the ragged hem of his sweater and smears of a chalk-colored substance on his rumpled jeans. "Please, Mr. Loveland, we haven't finished."

Aidan, who'd already made it to the door and had one hand on its brass knob, said, "I can't speak for my sister, Noel, but I'm done here. So, goodbye and Merry Fucking Christmas. I'm sure yours will be, anyway." He strode into the hall, slamming the carved oak door behind him.

Nadia, who looked as though he'd slammed her hand in the door, turned to the attorney. "I'm so sorry, Mr. Pratt. Aidan's usually not a rude person by nature, but since our mother's death, he's..." eyes brimming, she trailed off.

"Everyone expresses grief in their own way. It's not the worst thing someone's ever said to me, I assure you." He eased back in his chair, prompting a few disgruntled squeaks from its wooden frame.

"Earlier, you mentioned there was something else. I don't have any experience with these things, Mr. Pratt, but I assume you'll need me to sign some paperwork before I leave?" Nadia plucked a tissue from the box and daubed her eyes.

Unlike her brother's stone-cold citrine, hers had a warmer cast, a touch of amber tempering the gold, and the long dark lashes that ringed them complimented her unblemished peaches and cream complexion.

"Eventually, but before you sign anything, there's another matter we need to settle." One he was happy to discuss, now that her smart-assed brother wasn't there to interfere. "It concerns the estate of your late uncle, Miles Blake."