Chapter Seventeen
Lori stepped away from her priority seat on the commercial airline slightly frazzled. The hour delay on her flight gave her very little time to commute into Manhattan for her two o’clock meeting with Mr. Crockett and Trina. Thankfully, she didn’t need to stick around the airport for luggage since she only had a carry-on.
“I’m late,” she told the driver she’d hired to pick her up from the airport. The second he closed the door and settled behind the wheel, she said, “I’ll pay for your speeding ticket.”
He glanced at her from the rearview mirror and sped off.
Gotta love New York. Hand gestures and horns, the drivers took a “hold no prisoner” approach to driving in order to get where they wanted. How any of the cars there survived was a mystery.
Lori fingered through the files on Alice Petrov and her estimated wealth that she’d obtained before Trina married Fedor. During her flight, she’d spent the first hour reading before lingering jet lag knocked her out. When she woke, she had barely an hour to refresh her memory about the Petrov players. Who was going to be happy with Alice’s decision to leave her estate to Trina, and who was going to fight?
Up until the last months of Alice’s life, she was an active member on the board of the oil company her family had founded. She was the eldest of three girls, all of whom were given equal shares of the company upon their father’s death.
Lori placed a hand against the seat to keep from toppling over when the driver cut off a horn-blaring car.
She turned the page of her document, skimmed the next page of Alice’s bio, the part where she took a philanthropic role in many organizations: Women’s Health United, Women for Women, Empowering Girls, Battered but Not Broken, Federation of the United . . . and finally, Girl Scouts.
A corner of Lori’s brain started to itch. Something, or some chain of events, must have prompted this path of philanthropy.
Her body lurched forward as her driver pulled to an abrupt stop before the high-rise on Forty-Second.
She looked at her watch.
One fifty.
“You’re good.” She pulled a hundred-dollar bill from her wallet, added that to predetermined fare.
He handed her his card. “Anytime you’re in the city.”
“I’ll keep you in mind.”
He jumped out, but she was already one foot out the door before he could open it for her.
Cars honked behind his double-parked effort, not that he seemed to care.
Before she reached the doors of the building, her phone rang.
She answered without looking at who called. “I’m on my way in right now.”
“Hey.”
The voice threw her. She was expecting Trina on the other end.
“You didn’t call me when you landed.”
She damn near tripped as she hustled through the glass doors. “Reed?”
“Were you expecting someone else?”
His call was so unexpected she stopped walking when she should be running. “My flight was late, I fell asleep . . .”
“I was worried.”
The wind in her lungs rushed out.
She started walking again and found herself flat in the middle of a massive chest.
Looking up, her heart beat for entirely different reasons. “Mr. Petrov.” She took a giant step back.
“Ms. Cumberland. I was hoping to speak with you.”
Behind Trina’s father-in-law were his two cronies. Massive men who screamed Don’t fuck with me in multicolor.
“I’m late for a meeting.” She attempted to walk around him.
He blocked her.
“Lori?” The voice came from the phone.
“I won’t take but a moment,” Ruslan told her.
“You can make an appointment with my secretary,” she told him.
He laughed. “I make my own appointments.”
She stepped to the side.
One of his musclemen blocked her.
Squaring her shoulders, she lifted her chin and straightened her arm that was holding the phone to her head.
Although the hair on her neck was straining, she looked around and noticed several meandering people close by. New York was a good many things, but it wasn’t full of wimps. If she found herself being dragged out of this building screaming, someone would jump in.
“I have nothing to—”
He lifted a finger to her lips, touched her.
She backed away.
“My dear Alice wasn’t thinking right when she passed.”
She opened her mouth.
He lifted a finger to it again.
Lori jerked her head aside.
“I’d hate to see everything you’ve built collapse because of my poor, sick wife.”
Her teeth grew cold. “Ex. Wife.”
“In the eyes of God, we are still married.”
“What do you know of God, Mr. Petrov?”
His smile unsettled her.
“I know which one of us will see him first.”
Keeping her face neutral was one of the hardest things she’d ever done.
“Is that a threat?”
He looked her up and down . . . slowly. “I’m clairvoyant.”
“No,” she told him. “You’re just an asshole.”
Both his hit men stepped around her.
Ruslan stopped them with a hand in the air.
He leaned in.
She held her ground until his lips were close to her ear. “We will speak again.”
Ice ran down her spine.
Ruslan Petrov brushed past her and out the door.
She took a step forward, felt her knees shaking as adrenaline dumped into her system.
“Lori? Talk to me, damn it. Lori!”
She glanced at the phone in her hand, confused. Then she realized that she’d been on the phone. “Reed?”
“What the hell is going on?”
“Did you hear all that?”
“I heard enough. Where are you?”
“I’m fine. I’m headed into my meeting. I have to go.”
“Did that man threaten you?” Reed’s frantic voice matched the pulse under her chest.
“It’s not the first time that’s happened,” she lied. The elevator doors opened. “I’ve got to go.”
“I don’t like this.”
“We can talk later.”
“How long is your meeting?”
She started to answer when her phone lost the call as the elevator shot to a higher floor.
His skin itched, and not in a good way.
Reed scrambled through papers on his desk until he found a blank notebook.
The tone of the man Lori was speaking with meant business. Russian accent. Reed heard the name Petrov.
And that man had threatened Lori with her life.
That, Reed heard loud and clear.
What kind of man did that?
Reed typed in Katrina Petrov and started his search all over again.
Lori had caught her breath by the time she reached Mr. Crockett’s office . . . five minutes late.
The secretary walked her back to the office, where Trina sat on the other side of a desk, hands folded in her lap.
“My apologies,” Lori said as she walked in. “My flight was delayed.”
Mr. Crockett stood and rounded the desk, extending his hand. “It happens. Glad you could be here in person.”
Lori turned her attention to Trina, who sat wide-eyed and fidgeting. She kissed her cheek. “Where is your security?” Lori asked.
“In the garage with the car.”
“Ladies, we should get started,” Mr. Crockett interrupted them.
Lori lifted a hand, stopping him.
“I just had a rather uncomfortable confrontation with your father-in-law in the lobby. I’d like to see your security by your side at all times when you’re out of the house.”
Trina’s face lost color.
“Call your guy, ask him to wait in the lobby up here.”
“Is everything okay?” Mr. Crockett asked.
“Trina needs a little more protection these days, all things considered.”
“Of course. Would you like to use my phone?” He lifted the receiver.
Trina removed her cell phone, sent a text. “I have it.”
“Shall we get started?”
Lori drew in a fortifying breath, pushing Ruslan Petrov from her head. She opened a legal notebook and readied her pen.
He started by opening the document containing Alice’s will. The usual rhetoric of what the document was, all the right words put in the right places to appease anyone questioning whether Alice was of sound mind while writing it were in place.
“It is my will that my estate, after the above-mentioned stipends for my staff, is bequeathed solely to Katrina Petrov. My controlling interest in Everson Oil is bequeathed solely to Katrina Petrov, where she will be welcome to take my place on the board with the guidance of my sisters and their advisers. If it is not in her interest to do so, she can waive said right and hold that position for her future.”
Trina interrupted. “I don’t know the first thing about being on any board.”
Mr. Crockett put the papers down. “Alice wanted to give you the option and an occupation. She wasn’t the kind of woman that liked to see others in the shadows of their husbands.”
“Like she was with hers,” Lori said.
“Exactly.”
He tapped the papers. “Everything is spelled out in detail. What to do if the oil company needed to disband. How and who you could sell your shares to. The reality was Alice wanted her share of the company to stay in her family.”
“So why didn’t she leave it to Fedor?”
Mr. Crockett blinked silently. “She worried that it would pass to Ruslan one way or another. Giving everything to you ensured it wouldn’t.”
Lori reached over, grasped Trina’s hand. “If the estate had passed to Fedor, and something happened to him, Daddy would have jumped in and protested.”
“They were divorced.”
“That wouldn’t stop the man,” said Mr. Crockett. “Now that the estate is in your hands, he has no choice but to accept it.”
Lori shivered. “I somehow doubt that is going to be the case.”
“Outside of him finding the gun Fedor used with your fingerprints on it, Ruslan doesn’t have a case.”
Trina’s jaw dropped. “I . . . God almighty, would he try and pin that on me?”
Lori turned to Trina. “What Mr. Crockett is trying to say”—she glared at the other attorney before swinging back to her friend—“is that outside of murder, he has nothing.” Lori took charge of the conversation. “Is there anything in Alice’s will addressing Trina directly?”
“Several things.”
Lori lifted her eyebrows in question.
“None of which she directed me to deliver yet.”
Trina sat up in her chair. “What does that mean?”
“It means that Alice wrote a series of letters for you to receive in time.”
“You’re kidding?” Lori asked.
“No. Alice was very specific. As executor of her will and wishes, I will honor them to the best of my ability.” Mr. Crockett sat back in his chair and folded his hands in his lap.
“Do you know what the letters say?”
He shook his head. “No. She wrote them herself, sealed them.”
Trina looked around the office.
“They aren’t here, Mrs. Petrov.”
“I’m supposed to sit back and wait until some letter fairy drops information?”
Lori squeezed her eyes shut momentarily. “That’s the nature of a will. Whoever writes it has final say in everything regarding it.”
“But why?”
“I assure you, Alice had her reasons. I’m sure whatever she has to say to you will make sense once you hear everything.”
Trina stood and started to pace. “I don’t like this, any of this. I didn’t ask for her money. I don’t want her money. I don’t need Ruslan Petrov breathing down my neck.” She turned to Lori. “Or yours! This is stupid. All of it.”
“Mrs. Petrov,” Mr. Crockett interrupted. “There is something you need to know.”
“What?” Trina snapped. “Do I need to stand on one foot and sing ‘Dixie’ now?”
Lori let Trina rant. She would, too, if someone or two someones had taken control of her life the way Fedor’s selfish death and Alice’s choices had.
“Alice’s estate belongs to you. No changes can be made for a minimum of twelve months, or until all the letters that Alice has for you have been received and read.”
Trina held her hands at her sides, fists clenched.
“Is there anything in that stack of papers that will need explanation?” Lori asked him.
“Much of the same. All my t’s crossed and i’s dotted. We thought of every contingency that may have come up.”
Lori’s eyes narrowed. “Including Fedor’s death?”
Mr. Crockett’s eyes lowered. “No. I don’t believe Fedor’s death was anticipated. Unless she says so in her letters to Trina, there is nothing here.”
Trina spun in a circle, grabbed her purse. “I have to get out of here.”
Lori stood, walked Trina to the door.
Outside, a man doubled in size by either steroids or a millennium in the gym pushed to his feet.
“You work with Neil?” Lori asked as Trina started to storm past him.
“I do.”
“Don’t leave her side.”
He pivoted and followed his assignment.
Lori turned back into Mr. Crockett’s office.
“She’s had a hard couple of months.”
He indicated the chair and returned to his seat. “The fact that she’s not jumping at this estate says a lot about her character.”
Lori leaned forward. “What was Alice thinking, Dwight?”
“I’m not completely sure. I tried to talk to her about the concerns of leaving her estate to her daughter-in-law. What happened if she and Fedor split . . . what happens to the estate then? She didn’t listen.”
“Is there anything in the will regarding a possible divorce?”
“There is. If a divorce occurred at any time, half of whatever the estate was worth at the time of the divorce went to Trina, the other half was split between her sisters and Fedor.”
“So she did consider all the possibilities.”
“Damn near. I haven’t found any loophole yet. And I’m looking, since I don’t trust Ruslan not to toss this into court, contesting Alice’s sanity in the end.”
Lori leveled her eyes. “Is there any question of that?”
Dwight rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I’ve known Alice for thirty years. That woman was sharp as a tack. Smart beyond her years and pulled away way too soon. But I made sure to have a doctor back up my own knowledge with an evaluation the day after she changed her will.”
“All clean, I’m assuming.”
“Squeaky. Alice did this on purpose. Tell your client to hold tight. She doesn’t have to do anything with Alice’s estate anytime soon. The houses she owns are all being maintained by the money set aside in the estate to do so until Trina takes control.”
“Houses? How many?”
“A few. It’s all spelled out in here.” He removed a second copy of the will and handed it to Lori.
Lori stood, placed the stack of papers in her briefcase. “I’ll be in touch.”
He stopped her before she walked out of the office. “Lori?” She turned. “Ruslan Petrov is a dangerous man. If he is cornering you in my office building, he sees you as a threat.”
“I figured that out.”
“And he despises strong women.”
Lori lifted her chin. “Then he is bound to hate me.”
“Be careful.”
She smiled. “Thank you, Dwight.”