Free The Inheritance (The Donatelli Series) by SUE FINEMAN

wanted the property, but he wouldn’t pay a hundred thousand more than it was worth. The sellers must think that because Cara Andrews lived on that street, they could jack up the price another hundred thou, but he wouldn’t pay it.
    Blade left the real estate office and started home. As he pulled around the corner into his street, he spotted Sunny’s car blocking his driveway. She was going through his mailbox. He stopped and punched in 911 on his cell phone. Sunny was so preoccupied, she hadn’t seen him yet.
    “There’s a woman parked in front of my house, and she’s going through my mail,” he told the 911 operator.
    After he disconnected, he nosed his Harley against Sunny’s car door so she couldn’t get in. How many hours would it take for the cops to get here?
    “Blade, I’m so glad you’re here.”
    “Find anything interesting in my mail, Sunny?”
    She put the stack of mail on the hood of her car. “Now about the money. I’m broke, and I knew you’d want to help me out.” Her breath smelled like bourbon and her hands were shaking. She was coming down off something. If she was anyone else, he’d pity her, but this woman made his childhood a living nightmare.
    Still sitting on his Harley, he waved toward his little rental house. “Does it look like I have money?”
    Glancing toward the dumpy little house, she said, “It’s temporary, I’m sure.”
    “Yeah, temporary like for the past twenty-five years.” She lived in a nice home, thanks to the Banner money, while he busted his butt to work his way through college and pay off a mountain of student loans. “What did you do with all the money my father gave you?”
    “Used it to take care of you, of course. Blade, darling, I’ve been searching for you for the longest time.”
    Yeah, for a whole month. She wouldn’t have looked for him if his grandfather hadn’t died. Sunny had no use for him until he inherited Edward’s estate. “Why didn’t you tell me I had a grandfather? Why did you lie to him and omit the truth from me?”
    Her shaking hand went to her forehead. “I’m sick, Blade. I don’t have insurance, and I can’t afford medicine.”
    “Oh, yeah? Does the medicine cost more than the stuff you gave me when I was a kid?”
    “What did you expect me to do with a screaming child?”
    “Take me to the doctor. I still have scars from John’s going away present. Did you know that?” He dropped his voice. “Do you care? Did you ever care about me, or did you keep me to get John’s money?”
    Blade saw the patrol car coming down the street. He pushed the bike back, parked it behind Sunny’s car, and greeted the Pierce County Sheriff’s Deputy. “Officer, glad you could make it. This is the woman I caught going through my mail. I haven’t checked the house yet.”
    Sunny lashed out with a bout of swearing that burned his ears. He hoped Maria’s kids weren’t around to hear it. The cop put Sunny through a sobriety test, searched her purse and her car, and pulled out several items of interest. She had an open container of Jack Black under the front seat of her car, several mostly empty vials of something, probably cocaine, in the glove box, and two pieces of Blade’s mail in her purse. One was a credit card statement and the other a letter from Colin Jacobs.
    The officer cuffed Sunny and shoved her in the back of the patrol car. He returned to interview Blade. “Do you know her?”
    “She’s my stepmother,” said Blade. “I ran away from her abuse when I was fifteen and never looked back. She called me the other day demanding thirty million dollars.”
    The cop’s eyes took in the house and the bike. “Did you win the lottery or something?”
    “Or something. I inherited some money from my grandfather.”
    While Sunny screamed obscenities at Blade, he took the cop into the house. The front door had been pried open. Drawers and cabinets hung open in the kitchen, and the bedroom and his tiny study had been trashed. Blade