Read Written In Blood for Free Online

planned to do. He thought it was all wrong, that the house and the school should stay in the family. But since Dane was his boss, he couldn’t just go and tell Torg about it.” She fidgeted, swinging her leg back and forth. “He knew I would, though. Maybe I shouldn’t have told him. Dane and Torg had this huge fight and then Torg had the stroke. They never spoke to each other again. I feel like it was my fault. If I’d kept my mouth shut, Torg might still be alive.”
    “Wow,” Claudia said, at a loss for words. Then she got it. “Is that how Bert came to work for you?”
    Paige nodded. “It got even uglier when Dane found out that Bert had betrayed him. He fired him, of course. I felt responsible, but with Torg so sick I couldn’t do anything. Then he passed away.” Defiance crept into her voice. “I couldn’t handle it all on my own, and Bert was out of a job, so . . . it’s worked out well for both of us.”
    Claudia knew she should tell Paige to stop. If the Sorensen children’s attorney asked in open court whether she had any knowledge of the family relationships, she would have to answer truthfully. It might appear to be a conflict of interest.
    What was it her grandmother used to say? In for a penny, in for a pound. At this point it probably wouldn’t make much difference.
    “Did he cut the children out of the will altogether?” she asked.
    “Neil got a small trust fund. He’s the youngest, and he’s disabled, so Torg made sure he’d be taken care of. The twins got some family heirlooms they don’t care about.”
    “I see.”
    Claudia sipped her coffee, trying to keep an open mind while Paige sat there looking sweet and pretty, perfectly turned out. But her next words were neither sweet nor pretty.
    “I hate the fucking bastard,” she blurted. “I hate him!”

Chapter 4
    On the morning of the Sorensen probate hearing Claudia allowed an hour for the seventeen-mile drive to the L.A. Superior Courts building on Hill Street. MapQuest had optimistically promised a twenty-minute trip, but the five lanes of brake lights she encountered upon entering the Santa Monica Freeway told her that even an hour wouldn’t cut it.
    She popped a couple of Rolaids, forced herself to uncurl her knuckles from around the steering wheel, and navigated to the newly renamed Rosa Parks Freeway, then the Harbor to the Hollywood.
    Exiting at the Temple off-ramp, she made her way through the confusing maze of one-way streets to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, across the street from the courthouse complex.
    The Dorothy Chandler provided subterranean parking for those about to enter the hungry maw of the L.A. County legal system. On any other day, Claudia would have parked in an uncovered lot on Olive, south of First, and walked back to the courthouse, but the clock had run out ten minutes ago and she was too late for the pre-hearing briefing she’d hoped for with Stuart Parsons. It felt like a bad omen.
    Turning the Jaguar into the garage she made a rapid circuit of the street level, her hopes of easy parking soon dashed. The roof seemed to press down on her and awakened an old fear of being trapped as she drove down the ramp into the cement bowels of the earth.
    Level two, zip. Three, zilch.
    On level four she spotted backup lights near the end of the next row over. She turned the corner, braking halfway down the row, leaving the driver plenty of room to back out.
    From behind came the sudden sound of squealing tires turning too fast on the slick cement floor. Claudia instinctively hunched her shoulders, tightened her grip on the wheel, waiting for the impact.
    A streak of silver filled her rearview mirror for an instant, then a small car roared past and slipped into the newly vacated space. Claudia stared at the vintage MG in disbelief, then anger, as a man in a tweed jacket climbed out of the car.
    Tall, broad shouldered, his hair was a tawny mane that brushed his collar. A tie hung loose around his open-necked shirt.