Shifting her position to accommodate her stiff back, Rowena heaved another sigh. She should have listened to her daughter all those years ago. Isabel had tried to tell her the truth, but she hadn’t wanted to believe her child’s claims. Allowing pride and her own agenda to get in the way, she had paid the price.
“Miss Rowena?”
Opening her eyes, she turned her head on the pillow. “Miss Mabella, you sit yourself down on that chair right here next to me.” The formidable figure of Miss Mabella was clad in her usual long white dress under a purple silk cape with rows of beads and amulets hanging loosely around her neck. She swayed as she lowered her bulk onto the proffered chair. The pupils of her eyes shone in sharp contrast to the whites, illuminating her black face. Her complexion looked surprisingly young for a woman her age. On her head she wore an extravagant turban tied in the fashion of the African tribe she descended from and whose language she still favored over the English she spoke only when necessary.
“Time’s a gettin’ close,” she murmured, placing her hand on Rowena’s withered forehead. “But I know you’re ready to go, Miss Rowena. Ain’t nothin’ left you can do on this side no more. Gotta leave it up to the boy now.”
“You’re sure I’ve made the right decision?” Rowena’s eyes closed as she drifted. Already the room and the earthly space around her seemed distant.
“Ain’t no saying for sure. The boy, he’s a son of Ogun, a strong God. Ogun, he likes justice. The gods is on his side, all right. Ain’t no doubt about that.” Miss Mabella nodded wisely.
“God bless him,” Rowena whispered. “He’s my only hope.”
“Now don’t you worry nomore, Miss Ro. You travel easy. I’m watchin’ out for you and yours. Just you let go and let Miss Mabella take care of things.” She placed both her hands inches from Rowena’s head and began a low incantation in her native Gullah dialect.
“You always have been a good friend, Miss Mabella,” Rowena managed with considerable effort. She felt tired. Exceedingly tired. She could sense the end of her earthly journey closing upon her, yet she didn’t repine.
As the sun set over the trees in her beloved garden, Rowena thought one last time of the sealed envelopes lying in wait in Meredith Hunter’s office. She’d cast her bets and had set the dice rolling in an attempt to salvage the situation. She’d set up the rules by which the game would be played as she thought best. The future lay in the hands of others.
A crumpled, enigmatic smile hovered on Rowena’s thin, cracked lips as Miss Mabella chanted softly. She’d be willing to wager that once she was gone, all hell would break loose, big time. Would things sort themselves out as she hoped? It was a wild hope and perhaps a vain one, but it was her best try.
As she sank back and allowed her mind to drift to the gentle sound of Miss Mabella’s voice, weariness overwhelmed her. Her eyes closed for the last time. She had only one final regret.
What a pity she wouldn’t be here to see who would walk with the winnings.
1
Meredith Hunter skimmed through the thick sheaf of legal documents and, for the second time that day, exclaimed, “This can’t be real. Surely Rowena must have been mad to leave such a will!”
She was bewildered. Rowena Carstairs, her favorite client, had been one of the savviest people she’d ever met—and also one of the most loyal. When more than a year ago, after some serious soul-searching, Meredith had decided to leave Rollins, Hunter & Mills, the famous Savannah law firm where she’d gotten her start, in order to launch her own firm, Rowena had insisted on transferring her business. Even when Meredith had advised against it, admitting that her firm would never be able to match the resources of the firm that had ably served Rowena’s interests for more than fifty years, the old lady hadn’t balked. “After all,” Meredith recalled her saying imperiously, “if you don’t trust those old windbags anymore, why the hell should I?”
She smiled at the memory, suspecting Rowena knew that her new firm, Hunter & Maxwell, would never have gotten off the ground without her support. Ro had always looked after those she cared about. And that, Meredith admitted with a sigh, is what made her will all the more incomprehensible.
Slipping her reading glasses down her small, straight nose, Meredith gazed at the piles of legal files strewn around the small office. The Carstairs relations would be furious—probably go straight over to Ross Rollins and hire him to contest. And there was Dallas Thornton, Rowena’s estranged granddaughter. The girl would not be a problem in that she’d already stated clearly she wanted nothing to do with her late grandmother’s estate. But telling these people that they would receive nothing of the inheritance they’d long expected and that everything—including Rowena’s dyed poodles—had been left to a complete stranger would be a daunting task indeed.
Until now Meredith had managed to avoid a confrontation with her old senior partner. But if the Carstairs hired Ross as they inevitably would, she was sure he would take pleasure in trying to bring her down to size. Oh, well. It had to happen some day, she figured. The hard part was she liked him. A lot. An old friend of her dad’s, he had written her a glowing recommendation for Yale, hired her and then had been implicated—even if it hadn’t been proved—in a political scandal that had brought down Congressman Harlan MacBride, the now former husband of her best friend, Elm Hathaway. Although Elm had never blamed her, and was now happily married to Johnny Graney, she’d felt ashamed to be a part of a firm that valued the old-boy network above its own ethics. And so, with Rowena’s help, she’d set out on her own.
Meredith laid the documents back on her desk and tweaked her thick pageboy-style chestnut hair behind her ears. She would first contact James G. Gallagher, Rowena’s presumptive heir, whom Rowena’s detectives had tracked to London. She’d never even heard of the man—and doubted any of the Carstairs had, either. Did he even know that he was adopted? “None of this makes any sense,” she murmured. “Why would Rowena settle a one-hundred-million-dollar estate on a complete stranger?”
“Because it appears he’s her grandson.”
Meredith turned abruptly and sat up. “Tracy. I didn’t hear you come in.” She twiddled her pen thoughtfully. “I’m still reeling in shock.” Her partner, Tracy Maxwell, stepped farther into the office. “As far as we know, Rowena never even met this guy. She seems to have made a conscious decision to exclude this supposed grandson from her life, but now has left him everything. I just don’t get it.”
Tracy shrugged, setting her coffee mug down on Meredith’s teak desk. “I know about as much as you do, Mer,” she replied, leaning back in the creaking leather chair. “But I guess it all boils down to this—blood’s thicker than water. By the way—” she grimaced as she glanced down doubtfully “—couldn’t we at least afford a new chair? This one’s going to collapse any day now, and probably with some valued client in it. We’ll be sued for negligence.” She crossed her well-shaped legs under her pencil-gray skirt and eyed Meredith. “So?” she queried. “What do you think made the old bird do it? Weird that she never asked you to look over her will or that she never disclosed the extent of her holdings.”
Meredith shrugged, shook her head. “I once asked her about it but she clammed up. Said she had it all sorted out years ago. I figured it was none of my business, that she’d used other counsel for her own reasons, but that doesn’t explain why she left her fortune to a stranger. Could it be out of remorse?”
“Perhaps.”
“Maybe she wanted to make up for the past. She obviously felt a duty to her bloodline despite the child being given up for