Ever After Read Free

entrance.
    Jensen pulled the car around the circular driveway toward a group of outbuildings.
    Thomas turned back to me. In his best tour guide voice, he continued, “Now, my dear, let us focus on the front entrance of the house. Ava had guests delivered to the front door, but staff used the side entrance that leads from the garage you see nestled in the trees to your right.”
    The door was plain compared to the carved wood around the front entrance.
    “As you can see, Ava hated being showy about her money.” Thomas chuckled at his joke, then straightened.
    “So, I get the feeling she ran a tight ship?”
    “We’re still cleaning up beer cans from the party we threw when she took her last breath. She chewed people up and spit ‘em out. It was something to watch. I stayed out of her way till she keeled over. I knew the way of the beast.” Dalton winked at me and went on ahead of us, still speaking over his shoulder as he pushed the cart. “She loved to keep people on their toes. Even in her death, she leaves us with a little mystery. What made her choose lil ‘ol you to inherit all her earthly belongings?”
    I almost dropped my purse.
    Thomas’s mouth dropped into a horrified O. “That’s privileged information that should have been kept till the proper timing.”
    My voice faltered. “That’s impossible. This is clearly a case of mistaken identity.”
    “Your name is Allison Ainsley Knowles, am I correct?” The crimson drained from Thomas’s face. He smiled.
    I staggered. “Yes.”
    “On her death bed, Ava Rollins’s last words were, ‘If you don’t make sure that girl is here, on this property, in the event of my death, I’ll haunt you till you die.’ And she meant it. Upon checking that name against the copy of her will, we found”—he stopped and whispered close to my ear—“that she chose you as the sole beneficiary of everything she owned.”
    People of all ages, but of regal backgrounds, walked past us, their noses poked high in the air.
    “Everything?” Cold chills traveled my spine and my hands shook. This wasn’t real.
    “Everything. Upon the final reading of her last will and testament, the house, money, and business will be yours. But these vultures don’t need to know that yet. Half the women in her family are already going to pass out from revulsion when they see her reading her own will via video during the funeral. I think the lawyer already disclosed that much to you, am I correct?” Thomas didn’t wait for me to nod. “She liked you. There was something about you, she had said, many times, come to think of it. And you say you’d never met her?”
    I shook my head.
    “Well, then,” Thomas said with a friendly pat on my shoulder. “Dalton’s right about something for once in his life. Why you?”
    “I have no clue.”
    “In order for the will to be fulfilled, it states that you have to stay here for a full month. During that full month, you can try to answer that question.”
    On an endless sidewalk, in raging summer heat, beside a house grander than anything I’d ever seen, I couldn’t make my legs work.
    “Come, Miss Knowles.” Thomas offered his arm with an amused grin.
    He guided me and my wobbly legs toward the entrance.
    As we ascended the steps, the sun reflected off a silver necklace of a woman in the window above us.
    I stopped on the cement landing just under the entrance of the house.
    The woman’s hair was pulled into a tight up-do, but she didn’t wear a housekeeping uniform. The dress dipped dangerously low in the front, too dressy for daytime lounging. Come to think of it, the dress wasn’t from this century.
    “Miss Knowles? Is everything all right?” Thomas scanned the fourth floor windows. Either he didn’t see it, or the woman’s presence wasn’t a shock to him.
    “Do you see her?” I nodded toward her. Mama always told me pointing is rude. Manners would be important here.
    The window was now black and vacant.
    “See who?”