Chapter 26
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Doreen woke the next morning, troubled, her head aching and just not feeling well in general.
Last night at the hospital had been horrific.
Not only horrific, it would also cause her no end of trouble.
She could almost feel it already. There would be all kinds of issues over both Mack and Dr. Shaw bearing witness to the last wishes of a dying woman.
And yet Doreen didn’t know what else she was supposed to do but to agree to Birdie’s request. Doreen hadn’t asked Birdie for any of it.
Yet, if the woman died without a will, without surviving blood relatives, at least Doreen could see that the money was put to good use, just as she’d been instructed to do.
She groaned and rolled over to find Mugs lying there, all four legs straight in the air, every breath bringing a big sloppy snore that made his lips and jaws quiver.
She smiled, laid her hand on his huge chest. He didn’t move.
She just rolled closer and tucked up against him.
“I should have taken you to the hospital to cheer up Birdie.”
He wouldn’t have been allowed inside, absolutely no way.
Yet how nice it would have been for Birdie to just be with him, cuddling and relaxing, knowing she was exactly where she belonged.
There were definitely times when all this got very confusing, and Doreen wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do half the time.
She stayed in bed, trying to get her mind wrapped around what had happened at the hospital. It had been late before she’d finally managed to fall asleep, and even now she struggled with the impact of those events. When her phone rang, she was relieved to see it was Mack.
He immediately asked, “Are you okay?”
His voice was ever so gentle and immediately brought tears to her eyes. “I think so,” she muttered, trying to keep from bawling.
He added, “That was a pretty crazy thing.”
“It was more than crazy,” she declared, “and I feel it won’t be quite as easy as Birdie imagined.”
“Maybe not,” he noted, “but I did get an audio recording of it. I also have my signature and the doc’s, plus his verbal understanding of what she wanted as well. He also knew about her grandson recently dying and having no biological family left.”
“Right,” Doreen said. “So, I guess in a way, what she did makes perfect sense.”
“I think she was trying to make up for the times in her life where she may have not done things to the best of her ability.”
“Ya think?” she quipped, her tone wry. “But why dump that on me?”
He snorted. “Dumping things on you does seem to be the way of it.”
“And yet that makes absolutely no sense to me,” she wailed.
“Did you ever tell her that you had inherited a lot of money?”
“I didn’t, but I think somehow she knew. She had me checked out before she asked me to look into Devon’s case,” she shared, with a snort. “Discussing money, inherited or not, isn’t exactly a conversation that would come up in my world with most people.”
He laughed. “Maybe not in your world, but Nan probably told her.”
“Oh,” she noted, a bit startled. “Unfortunately that is very possible. Birdie did say something about wanting to know who she was dealing with. So, what then? She just wanted to add hers to the pot as she said? Just like that?”
“Sounds like it,” he said. “Plus, she knew she was dying in the next few moments. So, I know it seems very strange to you, but a lot of people don’t have anybody, and they’re rather desperate to find someone to look after their estate.”
“I have enough to look after,” she cried out softly. “And I don’t want people saying that I’m benefiting from these cases.”
“No, of course not,” he stated. “And I think it would be necessary to make sure everyone understands that Birdie’s estate will be invested on her behalf and given away.”
“Right.” Doreen sighed. “It still seems a little dodgy.”
He snorted. “What in all of this doesn’t seem dodgy?” he asked, with a chuckle. “You only have to take a look at everything going on in your world to realize just how much of it is odd.”
“I know,” she muttered, “but I’m honestly trying to do right by people. I really am.”
“And you are doing right by them,” Mack declared. “Don’t think that you aren’t. I think Birdie was probably trying to avoid a situation where her ex-family might try to get themselves a piece of the pie, making sure that the money went to people who could really use it for good.”
“I can do that part,” Doreen admitted, then groaned. “You know that certain people won’t be happy about it.”
“I disagree with you on that part,” Mack stated, his tone warm.
“I think a lot of people won’t even know about it.
Her estate will be adjudicated, and the money will eventually be dumped into your own special philanthropy account for you to do something with.
Nick will probably have you set up a corporation in another name to hide your ownership of it. ”
“That setup makes me feel better,” she noted. “I’ll just move the money along, so somebody in need can do something with it.”
He laughed. “As long as we find the right people and honor her intent, it’s all good.”
“And that is always the trick, isn’t it?” she said.
“My brother can help you out with all that.”
“I hope so,” she muttered. “We’ll need checks and balances from a lot of people to ensure nobody dips into what they shouldn’t.”
“Agreed,” he replied. “And you are a very wealthy woman already, and now you’ll have even more.”
“Does that bother you?” she asked.
“No, it doesn’t bother me,” he muttered. “And I’ll have to face the same kind of thing that you mentioned.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“People will say that I’m marrying you for your money.”
She laughed. “Too bad they don’t know what it was like at the beginning, when we first met. I was flat broke and didn’t even know how to turn on the stove, huh?”
He chuckled. “Those days are some of my fondest memories,” he shared. “We may have started a little on the rough side, but we’ll just get better and better.”
“I hope you mean that,” she said, “because, even though Birdie probably did it for the right reasons, her bequest does have an odd feel to it.”
“Once you get all the paperwork dealt with in setting up your charity, we’ll work on whatever the next step is for dealing with the money, yours and hers.”
“I still want to sell all of Matthew’s properties. That doesn’t change.”
“We have to get them on the market before we can sell them,” he pointed out, with a chuckle. “But that’s also why we have lawyers and realtors.”
“Do you ever think about how much the lawyers take out of all this?”
Mack chuckled. “Lawyers probably do very well, no matter what they work on. In this case, it’s not so much lawyers—as they do the estate planning and get their usual fees. However, for the property sales, real estate agents take a percentage from that. It’s way bigger than, say, Nick’s cut.”
She was silent for a moment and then groaned. “Do they really take that much?” she asked anxiously. “Will I need to retrain for a job and work to make a living?”
“Oh, goodness no,” he declared, with a huff. “Yes, the lawyers and the realtors take their cuts for the work they do. For some people, the amount would be eye-watering,” he added, “but that is not your problem. You will still have plenty left over.”
“You’re sure though, right?”
He chuckled. “Yes, I’m very sure. I know you don’t want to hear the figures, but Nick would tell you exactly how much you are worth in dollars, if you just asked him.”
She heard the gentle amusement in his tone. “Nope. I don’t need to know that. I just need to know that it will be set up to take care of my bills for the rest of my life, and the rest? Given to people who need it.”
“Like I said,” Mack replied, “you’re set for life.
You can’t possibly spend all this money.
You’ll be living off interest as it is. So you will soon have this stash of money that just earns you more money.
However, none of this changes the fact that Birdie was poisoned and that she died as a result. ”
Doreen’s tears welled up again at that. She gulped, swallowed, trying to hold it back.
He added, “Not many people will shed a tear for Birdie.”
“I already am.”
“That’s because you’re all heart,” he said. “Now, can you just lay low and not get into too much trouble today?”
She stared at her phone, frowning. “You mean, unlike every other day of the week?”
“Exactly,” he confirmed, with a chuckle, “and, no, I’m not saying you bring it on yourself. However, I am saying that, no matter where you are, it seems to find you. So, for your sake, a little bit of a break would be huge right now.”
“It would be,” she muttered, “but I’ll see. I’m hoping to do nothing today but stay home.”
“You’ll probably visit your grandmother.”
“Yes. … I will go see her. I don’t know if anybody knows about Birdie.”
“I don’t know either,” he said, “so that could bring a fair bit of shock to everyone at Rosemoor.”
“Right,” she muttered, “but trying to hide it won’t do any good either.”
“True. If you need me to meet you there and to help break the news, I will.”
“No, it’s fine. You need to go clean up that mess.”
“Which one?” he quipped, chuckling.
“Mike and Fin weren’t set free, were they? Then drugged Birdie?”
“I did confirm that,” he replied, “though that doesn’t mean they didn’t have somebody else do the job. Yet, as far as we can tell at the moment, they weren’t there and weren’t capable of doing this.”
“So, even though they hated her …”
“That’s right,” he agreed. “Even though they hated her, and even though they may very well have wanted to do something about her gambling debts or about her blackmail to avoid her gambling debts, they weren’t in a position to do so.”
“Unless by a distant hand.”