boyfriends coming and going from whichever house they were living in. They rarely stayed in one place. Esther had been sent off to school, to a boarding school, and she’d hated every minute of it. When she came home, her mother was curt and unkind to her. Esther got in her way. She was younger and prettier than Terry, and when Terry’s boyfriends came to the house, many of them flirted with Esther instead. Terry spent most of her time avoiding her mother and her mother’s lovers. She wanted to leave, but she had nothing of her own. Everything belonged to Terry, and she wasn’t shy about sharing that tidbit with her daughter if she ever rebelled. Terry could be icy and she was distant most of the time. Sweet Agnes had been Esther’s anchor. She still missed the housekeeper.
Now here she was, alone and terrified, out on her own for the first time in her twenty-three years, with her mother lying dead back home. And Darrin no doubt hunting her for that diamond ring that was worth millions of dollars, not to mention that he needed her to be executrix of her mother’s estate so he could get to the money. He had the false will, which would give him access to part of the property. He would want it all. But he and her mother weren’t legally married, so he had no clear title to her estate. In the will that he thought was the true will, Terry had only made him beneficiary to her bank accounts. He hadn’t read it thoroughly enough to realize that, and he certainly didn’t know about the revised will in Esther’s purse. When he found out, he’d be quite capable of getting one of his underworld friends to go after her.
The thought arose that if Darrin could find her, he could probably force her to sign something giving him access to Terry’s entire estate, no matter what violence it required, and do that without a pang of conscience. But he had to find her first, and she was going to make that very difficult.
* * *
They got to the outskirts of Benton before dawn. Esther couldn’t afford to go to a motel and have people see her and wonder who she might be, because it was a very small town. Impulsively, she asked the couple to let her out at the end of a long driveway. She saw a small cabin in the distance with lights blazing inside it, through a drift of snow.
It looked like a wonderful refuge, if she could convince whoever lived there to let her stay, just for a day or two, until she could make other arrangements. Surely it was a couple, maybe with kids, and she could work something out.
It was an impulsive move, but she had these rare flashes of insight. Usually they were good ones.
“That’s where my cousin lives,” she lied brightly. “Thank you so very much for the ride!”
“You’re very welcome.” Glenda hugged her. So did Jack.
Glenda handed her a piece of paper. “That’s my cell phone number. If you need help, you use it,” she said firmly. “We’ll come, wherever we are.”
Tears stung Esther’s eyes. “Thanks,” she choked.
Glenda hugged her again. “You take care of yourself.”
“You do, too.”
They climbed back into the truck and waved. They looked very reluctant to leave her. It made her feel warm inside. She forced a smile, turned, and walked down the long trail to the little cabin. She’d memorized the name on the side of the truck. One day, she promised herself, when she had her fortune back, she was going to make sure that the pair had a trucking business of their very own.
As she struggled through the deep snow, her ankle boots already wet, her hands freezing because she didn’t have her gloves, she felt as if she were slogging through wet sand. The night had been an anguish of terror. Her mother, dying, apologizing, Darrin raging upstairs, Esther terrified and not knowing what to do or where to go. She shivered. She had no money, no friends because they never stayed in one place long enough for her to make any since she’d left boarding school, she didn’t even have a change of clothing. And the fox fur, while warm, wasn’t enough in this freezing blizzard. She must have been out of her mind to get out of a safe truck with only the hope of a warm place to stay in the