Page 94 of Tessa's Trust

First, I tried to create a place for each color: purple, red, yellow, blue, and green. Then I realized that Sadie hadn’t bothered doing the same. There were lists of groceries on different colors. There were notes and reminders. There were even, I believed, lines of poetry scattered throughout. Several of the pieces of paper showed numbers jotted down with dollar signs. I put those in one section, having no idea what they meant. Then we found another couple of what appeared to be contracts.

“Is this Lenny’s signature?” I asked.

Nick frowned and peered closer. I noticed scratches on his arm from me gripping him while he’d driven me wild earlier. “Maybe.”

I tried to make out the writing. “Half interest in Sadie’s bar.” Huh, maybe this was the contract.

“Well, only he signed it.” Nick shook his head. “That’s not a valid contract.”

Good. I didn’t think Lenny had any living relatives, but if so, I didn’t want to have to fight them for the building, as well. I found several pieces of paper with lipstick as if she had dabbed her mouth with those. I put those on the far side of the table. We didn’t need them.

“Hey, here’s a land description.” Nick handed over a light blue piece of paper. I read it.

“It’s up in Boundary County,” I said.

“Hmm, all right. You keep going through these. Give me a sec.” He stalked over to his briefcase by the door and tugged out a laptop. After our energetic sessions, he had dragged on faded sweats but wore nothing else. My mouth watered. Basanelli’s chest was something to look at. I thought he looked amazing in a suit. He was even better out of it. There was no question.

“What?” he asked.

“Nothing.” I shuffled more sticky notes in my hand, glue sticking to my fingers.

Nick’s grin was hungry. “Keep looking at me like that, and we’re going for round three right now instead of a little bit later.”

Parts of me sparked wide awake and ready. I liked that there would be a round three. “Go back to work,” I muttered, finding a note with song lyrics. I think it was from a Florida Georgia Line song if I remembered right. I put that in the song stack.

Nick opened his laptop on the counter and typed quickly.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“I have a list of the properties Sadie owns that we know about. Sheriff Franco sent them to me. Some of these are unrecorded.”

I looked over. “How did you find the unrecorded parcels? Or rather, how did the sheriff?”

“The gossip mill. He just asked around, and people who had sold, gifted, or bargained property to Sadie came forward.” He lifted one powerful shoulder. “Or, let’s be honest, those who lost property to Sadie in the gambling den. Please, tell me you’re not going to reopen that.”

I laughed. “I am not going to reopen the gambling section of Silver Sadie’s. If I end up owning the building, which I think I will, I’m creating a small party area back there.”

“That’s a good idea,” Nick said. “You’ve been thinking about this for a long time.”

“I have,” I admitted. The wind scattered ice against the windows, lending an intimacy to the condo. It was too dark outside to see the lake, but the mere emptiness that led to the lights on the other side made me feel like we were the only two people around. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the thought of being alone with Nick with the world at bay.

“All right, here. Let me print this out.” He pushed a button, and a printer echoed from the other room. Basanelli had an office right off the entryway. He padded in there and then walked out with stacks of paper. “Give me that description.”

I squinted to better see and then rattled off the numbers.

“Hmm,” he said. “Oh, here it is.” He dug into a drawer for a pen and crossed out a line on the paper. “Okay. Let’s go through all of these we find, as well as any possible contracts. Several people that Sheriff Franco spoke with admitted they’d signed things away on a sticky note, and then, of course, Sadie created a quitclaim deed.”

“She seemed to be pretty good at that,” I muttered.

“Yeah, but based on the one you found over there, we know the one left with Rudy Brando was a fake.” He pointed to the one with the practice signatures.

Was that enough to make this whole thing go away? I didn’t think so. “Yeah, but I’ll have to go to court to prove it, won’t I?”

He looked at me, his tawny eyes serious. “Yes, unless you can get the widow to dismiss her case.”

I threw up my hands, sending one sticky note swishing to the floor. “Can’t we get an early dismissal or something?”

He nodded. “It’s a civil case, and you could make a motion for summary judgment, but you probably wouldn’t win it. There’s a dispute of fact, which means you’d have to go to trial. I think you’d win, and I think it’s silly that the widow wants to take you to trial to begin with.”

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