ETHAN BLACKLOCK straightened, leaned against the handle of
his shovel and wiped his dripping brow with one deeply
tanned forearm. A baseball cap shaded his face, and dark
glasses protected his eyes from UV radiation, but he had
no particular fear of the sun — even on a hot June
afternoon in Dallas, Texas.
He much preferred this heat to the hell of his teenage
years.
Looking around in satisfaction, he noted that he had made
quite a bit of progress today. The gardeners employed by
his family when he was growing up wouldn't have
accomplished as much in twice the time.
Not that there was anyone to take pride in his
achievements other than himself. His twice-widowed mother,
Margaret Hanvey Blacklock Jacobs, would rather die than
admit to her friends that the son she had groomed to
become an attorney like her father, then both her husbands
after him, had become a mere "gardener," instead.
He snorted at the errant thought and tightened his
callused hands around the shovel grip. Maybe his mother
was ashamed of him, but he took great pride in the success
he'd had with his fledgling landscape design business.
With a grunt of exertion, he plunged the blade into the
hard-baked earth, savoring the clean smells of dirt and
sweat.
By the time he walked into his kitchen on that Monday
evening, he was tired, filthy — and satisfied that the
small, but profitable job he had completed that day had
been a big success. Well worth the fourteen hard hours
he'd put into it. The clients were pleased, the check had
already been deposited, and he was ready to move on to the
next project.
Life was good.
Maybe he would never get rich with his small business, but
no one owned him. No one controlled him. No one tried to
change him. He couldn't ask for more than that.
After washing his hands in the sink and drying them on a
paper towel, he opened the door to the stainless steel
refrigerator and pulled out a beer. He needed a shower and
some food, but a few minutes of crash time in front of the
TV sounded good first. He'd missed the early evening news,
but there was probably a baseball game going on somewhere.
He had just walked into the living room when someone
knocked on the front door. With a regretful glance at the
armchair in front of the TV, he crossed the room and
opened the door without bothering to check who was on the
other side.
His caller was dressed in a suit that might as well have
been embroidered "hand tailored." A good-looking man in a
squarely built way, Sean Jacobs was a year older than
Ethan's thirty-one. His sandy-brown hair was thinning at
the temples, but had been styled by an expert. His shoes
were Italian leather, and his tie probably cost more than
Ethan's entire outfit of denim shirt, jeans and steel-toed
work boots.
There had been a time when Ethan had dressed like Sean,
himself.
"Sean," he said by way of greeting, stepping aside to
allow his stepbrother to enter. "What brings you here?"
Sean's divorced father, Ferrell Jacobs, had married
Ethan's widowed mother almost twenty years earlier.
Ferrell died eight years after that. A heart attack — the
same thing that had killed Ethan's father, Howard
Blacklock, when Ethan was still very young.
Both of Margaret's husbands had been high-powered,
workaholic attorneys, which some people blamed for their
untimely deaths. Ethan had always figured his mother
nagged them both into early graves. If he hadn't broken
away from her during his senior year of college, he'd
probably be dead, himself, by now.
Rather than answering the question, Sean took a moment to
study him as they stood in the middle of Ethan's small
living room. From the grubby, inexpensive clothes to the
dried mud caked on the tops of Ethan's boots, Sean seemed
to miss no small detail. "Been working today?" he asked
with an awkwardness that was uncharacteristic of the
usually glib lawyer.
"Yeah." Ethan made an ironic gesture toward Sean's
work "uniform."
"You?"
Sean acknowledged the slight dig with a very faint
smile. "Yes."
It had been several years since they'd seen each other.
Their last meeting had been cool, though not acrimonious.
The biggest obstacle between them was that they had
absolutely nothing in common, other than having rather
briefly been stepsiblings. Because he had nothing
particularly against Sean, Ethan tried to inject a
reasonable amount of warmth into his voice when he
said, "Have a seat. Can I get you a beer? Soda? Or I could
make some coffee, if you want."
"No, thanks." Sean chose a chair and looked around the
room with open curiosity. He had never been to this house
before, and it was obviously not what he had expected.
Ethan's tastes ran to 1950s retro styles. Tiered maple
tables flanked a dark brown leather sofa with exposed
maple frame. Throw pillows in olive, orange, gold and
brown stripes were tossed haphazardly on the sofa. Two
olive leather, cube-shaped ottomans sat side by side in
place of a traditional coffee table. Two side chairs with
maple arms, and seats and backs upholstered in the same
stripes as the throw pillows were positioned so that they
provided a view of the fireplace and the incongruously
modern flat television screen mounted above it.
Ethan didn't often access the modest trust fund left to
him by his paternal grandfather, but he'd done so to buy
that state-of-the-art TV. After all, a guy had his needs,
he had rationalized.
Framed 1950s posters and pop art covered the butter-yellow
walls. Chrome lamps with bold, round shades sat on the end
tables, along with art pieces crafted of brightly colored
glass. Built-in maple bookcases crowded with novels, books
on landscape design and die-cast metal hot rods flanked
the fireplace. The retro style carried over into the
kitchen, with its vintage chrome-and-orange vinyl dining
set, stainless steel appliances and yellow porcelain sink.
The master bedroom was done in a similar retro style, in
brown with avocado and persimmon accents. The second
bedroom served as his home office, and was filled with
more 1950s memorabilia in addition to his desk, drawing
table, filing cabinets and other business necessities. The
bungalow had only one bathroom, which was decorated with
yellow porcelain and multicolored ceramic fish that
matched the colorful fish printed on the vinyl shower
curtain.
His mother would absolutely hate the place. Which, he
supposed, was part of its appeal to him.
Ethan would bet Sean was comparing this rather quirky
little house to the mansion filled with soaring ceilings,
marble floors and European antiques in which Ethan had
grown up. It was a different world — exactly what he had
wanted.
As much as Ethan got a kick out of haunting flea markets
and junktique sales, Sean had always shown a taste for the
elegant antiques and designer decor favored by Margaret's
high-profile social set. Ethan remembered being dragged on
an antiquing outing with Margaret and Ferrell when he and
Sean were maybe thirteen and fourteen, respectively. He
had been bored out of his mind, interested only in a
collection of dusty old die-cast toys he'd found in one
secluded corner.
Sean, on the other hand, had examined every piece of old
furniture and china, looking for markings and dates, much
to the pride of his rather pompous and pretentious father.
Margaret had just been annoyed that her own son would
rather be throwing a football or digging in the dirt than
learning the fine details of antiques appreciation.
"I assume there's a reason for this visit? I doubt you
were just in the neighborhood and wanted to check out my
decorating skills."
The smile faded from Sean's face, leaving him looking so
grim that Ethan was now convinced beyond doubt that this
was no social visit. "There is a reason, of course. First,
I want to express my sincere condolences for your loss. I
know you and your mother have been estranged for a number
of years, but I'm sure her death has been difficult for
you."
Very slowly, Ethan placed his half-empty beer can on a
black granite coaster on the nearest end table. "My mother
is dead?"
Looking stricken by Ethan's reaction, Sean
groaned. "Surely your cousin called this morning to tell
you Margaret passed away. He told me he would."
Ethan kept his face impassive. "No. But I haven't checked
phone messages yet today. What happened?"
Sean answered quietly, "She fell down the stairs. The
housekeeper had gone to her daughter's house in Tulsa for
the weekend, and she found Margaret at the foot of the
stairs when she returned early this morning — sometime
around 6:00 a.m. The police were called, of course, but
there was no reason to believe it was anything other than
a tragic accident. The doors were all locked, the security
system was set and there was no evidence to indicate that
anyone else had been in the house. Apparently, your mother
made a misstep at the top of the stairs — probably during
the night, in the darkness — and broke her neck when she
fell. She'd been having balance problems lately. Betty
told the police it was the third time Margaret had fallen
in the past few months, though she escaped with nothing
more than bruises before. Betty was devastated, having
been with Margaret so long. She felt guilty for taking the
weekend off, though I assured her no one could possibly
blame her. Margaret was always so stubbornly independent."
Ethan hadn't known about the earlier falls, but that was
no surprise to either of them, since he hadn't been a part
of his mother's life in a long time.
"I'm sorry you weren't notified sooner," Sean said, when
Ethan remained silent. "As Margaret's attorney, I was the
first one Betty called after the police, and then she
called your cousin Leland. We tried dialing your number
here, but there was no answer. Leland assured everyone he
would track you down and let you know. But maybe we simply
misunderstood. Maybe Leland assumed I called you, as I
thought he had."
"I was at the job site by five-thirty this morning. But I
had my cell phone with me, as I always do. It wouldn't
have been that hard to dig up the number." Ethan wasn't
particularly surprised that his cousin hadn't called,
since they'd despised each other since childhood, but he
would have thought someone would have bothered to pick up
the phone.
"I'm sorry, Ethan," Sean said again, awkwardly.
"So, this is a sympathy call?"
"Partly, of course," Sean agreed too quickly. "I am sorry
for your loss."
"Right." Since they both knew he hadn't talked to his
mother in more than three years, and that conversation had
been loud and angry, Ethan figured there had to be more to
this visit than simple protocol. "When's the funeral?"
"There won't be one. Your mother left explicit
instructions that she was to be cremated quickly, without
ceremony. She had become quite reclusive in the past few
years, so there weren't a lot of friends to notify."
Ethan shrugged. "I'm sure Leland will take care of
everything quite competently. And if you think he just
accidentally forgot to call me today, then you're more
naive than I remember. Leland and I were never what you
would call friends."
Sean grimaced. "I remember. You called him a brownnose and
he usually referred to you as 'the Neanderthal.'Those were
the more flattering of the nicknames you had for each
other, I believe."
Being in no mood for stories about his less-than-idyllic
past, Ethan abruptly changed the subject. "You said
sympathy was 'partly' the reason for this visit. What's
the other part?"
Sean cleared his throat. "You know, of course, that the
firm handled all of Margaret's legal affairs."
Ethan resisted the urge to respond with the juvenile and
rather dated, "Well, duh." After all, his mother's father
had started the law firm in which both of her late
husbands, and now her stepson, had all practiced. It had
been her fondest, and vehemently expressed, desire that
Ethan would follow in their footsteps, which had led to
their most frequent and most heated arguments.