Death Vetoes The Chairman (Lizzie Crenshaw Mysteries Book 7) Read Free Page A

lawyer and her accountant. That amount is correct. She did set aside enough to cover inheritance taxes, so you won’t have to worry about that.”
    “I can’t accept that money, Dale! It’s blood money,” I said, throwing the will back on the coffee table.
    “She knew you’d react that way. Check the envelope again; there’s a letter in there for you.”
    Sighing, I picked up the envelope again and looked inside. Sure enough, there was a white envelope with my name written on it. I opened and began to read it silently:
    Dear Lizzie,
    If you’re reading this, well, obviously things didn’t work out like I had hoped, and I’m dead. Hopefully, Dale followed my directions and scattered my ashes where I asked him to. If not, I’ll come back and haunt him until the day he dies.
    And, if you’re reading this letter, then that means you’ve read the will, and you told him there’s no way you’re going to take the money because of how I got it. There’s nothing I can do about that, and I’m not going to apologize for what I did.
    However, I took the majority of the money and invested it. The money in Brookdale, London and the safety deposit boxes was for emergencies. There’s not much in the boxes, maybe a million or so. Donate it to a good cause if you want.
    I’m leaving everything to you, Lizzie, because I know you’ll do something good with it. Dale has told me of his plans, and I’m sure after you get over the initial disgust of the implications of this will, you’ll take him up on his offer. If you don’t, then you’re an idiot. He’s giving you the opportunity of a lifetime, and you’d seriously be a fool not to take it. Be your own boss, girl, or retire to some island and write the next Great American Novel. You now have the chance to do whatever your heart desires. If you want a few suggestions, might I suggest a new car (since that ratty old truck of Amos’ is now toast), and a bigger house? One with a big office, with a window overlooking a beautiful backyard garden with lots of shade trees for that lazy bloodhound of yours to sleep under. Don’t let the money go to waste. Or I’ll come back and haunt you, too.”
    I looked at Dale. “She’s joking, right?” He shook his head. “But…”
    “Lizzie, she wasn’t always a bad person.” I arched an eyebrow at that comment. “Ok, so she wasn’t as pure as the driven snow, but when she wrote that, she was trying to do something right.”
    “What are you doing mixed up in this, Dale? I’m having a hard time picturing the two of you as friends.”
    “Friends we were not,” Dale told me. “More like united in common misery, mainly because of Dorothy.” Dorothy was Dale’s late wife. She had suffered a serious head injury during a car accident that also killed their only child, Elizabeth. Dorothy’s whole personality changed, and her family put her away in a sanitarium for her own safety. Debra helped her escape, and Dorothy had killed someone, and had tried to kill both of us before she had been killed. “She wanted some advice, and I agreed to listen. When she had her will written, I agreed to be a witness, and I’m also the executor of her estate.”
    Somehow I wasn’t surprised by any of this. The whole situation with Debra had been one of the weirdest times of my life, and nothing I was eager to go through or relive any time soon…or ever . “Have you talked to Jake about this yet?”
    “Actually, I might have given him the impression that I was planning on selling the paper to you.”
    “When did you tell him that?”
    “Shortly after I told you that I was thinking about selling it to him.”
    “You were trying to play us off each other?”
    “I guess it does sound that way, doesn’t it? Sorry about that. After talking to Debra the first time, before she drew up her will, I sat down and thought about what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. I realized I didn’t have a reason to stay here anymore. Plenty of places