Free Blood Wounds by Susan Beth Pfeffer

asked.
    Sam nodded. "So Jack might want to hold off until Willa's eighteen," he said. "Or graduates high school. It's waited this long, it could wait a couple more years."
    "I'm not sure Jack will see it that way," Pauline said. "But it is something to consider."
    "Now, I don't know if Dwayne left a will," Sam said. "He wasn't my client, but I'll ask around. If he did and he left everything to his wife, then most likely what there is will be divided equally between Willa and Trace."
    "There couldn't be that much," Faye said. "He and Crystal had a cute little house, but the bank probably owns more of it than they did."
    "Was Dwayne a veteran?" Sam asked.
    Faye shook her head.
    Sam wrote
veteran
on his pad and crossed it out. "That way I'll remember not to look into it," he said. "Social Security'll make a payment for funeral expenses. Do you know who's going to be making the arrangements?"
    "Most likely Mavis Coffey," Faye said. "But you know, the way Budge died, I don't think she'll be making much of a fuss."
    "I don't want his money," I said. "Maybe Trace could get it."
    "It's going to be more headaches than money anyway," Sam said. "First his debts'll have to be paid off. The house. The car. The charge cards. We need to check if the house is still officially a crime scene. If Willa can get in, she might want to take a memento or two."
    "There's nothing I want," I said.
    "We should still make an inventory," Sam said. "Crystal might have left behind some trinkets."
    "I don't understand," Pauline said. "Wouldn't Crystal's things go to her family?"
    "Depends on her will," Sam said. "Assuming she made one, and it won't surprise me if she didn't. But if she left everything to her little girls, or if she never got around to making a will, then as long as one of those little girls survived her, that child inherited whatever there is. If the court determines Krissi was the last in her family to die, she'd be regarded as Crystal's heir and Willa and Trace would then inherit from her."
    "Have you seen an autopsy report?" Pauline asked. "Do they know for sure that Krissi was alive when Dwayne left Pryor?"
    Sam shook his head. "I'm going by what I saw on TV," he said. "If the autopsy's been released, I haven't heard about it." He wrote another note.
    "What are you saying?" I asked. "If Krissi was still alive when Budge left, then Trace and I inherit Crystal's things?"
    Sam nodded. "It goes from Crystal to her daughters, and from her daughters to you and Trace," he said. "Unless Crystal made a will leaving everything to someone else, her parents or her sisters and brothers. For that matter, we should check to see if the little girls had anything. Sometimes people give babies bonds or a little bit of money. That'd go directly to you and Trace, since there's no will involved."
    "That's sick," I said. "My father killed them. Crystal and the girls. I never once laid my eyes on them and my father stabbed them to death, and I'm supposed to take their jewelry and their savings accounts?"
    "There's no difference between your taking them and Trace," Sam said.
    "It
is
different," I said. "Trace knew them. They're nothing to me. I didn't even know they existed until I heard they were dead. How can I possibly be entitled to their things?"
    "It's the law," Sam said. "Same as Social Security. The law's there so we know what the rules are. Without rules, we'd run around fighting each other, not caring what anybody thinks. Sometimes rules can seem arbitrary, and sometimes unfair, but they give us our boundaries, and we need to respect them."
    "My father didn't follow the rules," I said. "He was a monster. He broke all the rules. He killed his children. There's blood everywhere because of him. How can the rules be right if, thanks to him, I get money or jewelry or anything?"
    "It isn't a question of right and wrong," Sam said. "Of course what Dwayne did was wrong. And if you and your mother decide you shouldn't take anything, then you can refuse your