Dumping cockroaches in our HVAC system was only the latest attempt at sabotage. So far, the problems had been more annoyance than catastrophes. Missing luggage, guest rooms broken into, room service orders diverted.
A few hundred cockroaches set loose in The Inn? That was far more than an annoyance. We had to figure out who was behind it before things got any worse.
A quick double-knock sounded on the door to my office. Tenn and I looked up to see our assistant hovering. This couldn't be good. Penny didn't hover. Penny threw problems at us like fastballs, usually followed by solutions of her own devising.
I wasn't surprised when she said apologetically, “The front desk called. Your aunt Ophelia has a… Complaint.”
Tenn and I shared a look. He called, “Tails,” pulling a quarter out of his pocket. I nodded in agreement. The quarter came up heads. Fuck. I guess that meant I was the lucky one who got to deal with Aunt Ophelia and our cousin, Bryce.
“Sorry, man.” Tenn clapped me on the back with a grin. “We can table the rest of this until you get back.”
Whatever it was, I was determined that it wouldn't take long. Ophelia and Bryce had been a time-suck since they'd shown up in Sawyers Bend fresh on the heels of my father's murder.
It might have been a simple matter to get rid of them, but nothing about my father's death was simple. He'd changed his will constantly, so often that none of us bothered to keep up with his latest machinations. Still, we'd all been shocked as hell when the family lawyer had proclaimed my oldest brother Griffen the sole heir of everything.
While he’d lived, my father had retained ownership of the various Sawyer businesses, The Inn at Sawyers Bend included. Tenn and I had been running the place for over a decade, but the company itself had been owned by our father. Despite our birth, Tenn and I were no more than salaried employees. That hadn't changed with our father’s death.
No, that’s not right. Everything had changed when Prentice died.
According to the terms of the will, my siblings and I had to move back into the family home, Heartstone Manor, and live there full-time for five years. If we did and Griffen was satisfied with our behavior, he’d release the contents of our trust funds at the end of the five years. Assuming there was anything left to release.
The will gave Griffen complete control over every penny we might inherit.
Griffen was as stuck as we were for the next five years. Only time would tell if he’d walk away at the end, free of his family, his pockets flush with the cash our father had left us.
If we didn't follow the terms set out in the will, our cousin Bryce would inherit everything, and we’d all be out on our asses.
It was an effective threat. Generations of Sawyers had made this corner of North Carolina their home, amassing vast wealth and standing in the community.
Bryce would drain the coffers dry in less than a year.
He was exactly the kind of asshole who’d buy a mega-yacht and a fleet of exotic cars. Who’d attract hangers-on and throw lavish parties until there wasn't a penny left.
I don't think a single one of us felt any loyalty to our father. He sure as hell hadn't shown any to us. The town was a different matter.
Sawyer Enterprises owned most of the real estate and businesses in the town of Sawyers Bend. If Bryce got his hands on the company, he’d take the town down with him. We weren’t going to let that happen.
The family attorney claimed Bryce and Ophelia didn’t know the details of the will or what they stood to gain from it. I wasn’t sure I believed that. They’d missed the funeral but had shown up not long ago with a letter from our father, mailed days after his death, inviting them to move into Heartstone Manor. The letter didn’t explicitly promise them anything beyond a roof over their heads, but it implied there would be a reward for sticking around.
For reasons no one understood, my father had let Heartstone Manor fall into a state of benign neglect over the last few years. While it made living there a pain in the ass until renovations were complete, it also gave us a solid excuse to keep Ophelia and Bryce from moving in. We’d stuck them in a suite at The Inn, deciding it was worth the cost if it meant they weren't at the breakfast table every morning.
It had seemed like a simple solution. In reality, it had proven anything but.
I left the elevator on the top floor and knocked on the door of their suite. Bryce swung it open and stood back, gesturing for me to enter. His mouth was twisted in a sulk, reminding me vividly of the toddler he'd been. If memory served, Bryce had two expressions in his arsenal, a smugly satisfied grin and an annoyed sulk. I’d take the sulk any day.