Youngblood, an attorney-at-law from Eagle's Roost, Montana. The
envelope was heavy, as if it contained not merely a letter but a
document. According to the postmark, it had been sent on the sixth of
the month, which led her to wonder about the gypseian route by which
the postal service had chosen to deliver it. She knew she'd heard of
Eagle's Roost. She could not recall when or why. Because she shared a
nearly universal aversion to attorneys and associated all
correspondence from law firms with trouble, she put the letter on the
bottom of the stack, choosing to deal with it last. After throwing
away advertisements, she found that the four other remaining items were
bills. When she finally read the letter from Paul Youngblood, it
proved to be so utterly different from the bad news she had
expected--and so astonishing--that immediately after finishing it, she
sat down at the kitchen table and read it again from the top. Eduardo
Fernandez, a client of Youngblood's, had died on the fourth or fifth of
July. He had been the father of Sometimes, life seems to have a higher
meaning. lthe late Thomas Fernandez.
That was Tommy--murdered at Jack's side eleven months before the events
at Hassam Arkadian's service station. Eduardo Fernandez had named Jack
Mcgarvey of Los Angeles, California, as his sole heir. Serving as
executor of Mr. Fernandez's estate, Youngblood had tried to notify
Jack by phone, only to discover that his number was no longer listed.
The estate included an insurance policy that would cover the fifty-five
percent federal inheritance tax, leaving Jack the unencumbered
six-hundred-acre Quartermass Ranch, the four-bedroom main house with
furnishings, the caretaker's house, the ten-horse stable, various tools
and equipment, and 'a substantial amount of cash.' Instead of a legal
document, six photographs were included with the single-page letter.
With shaky hands, Heather spread them in two rows on the table in front
of her. The modified-Victorian main house was charming, with just
enough decorative millwork to enchant without descending into Gothic
oppressiveness. It appeared to be twice as large as the house in which
they now lived. The mountain and valley views in every direction were
breathtaking. Heather had never been filled with such mixed emotions
as she experienced at that moment. In their hour of desperation, they
had been given salvation, a way out of darkness, escape from despair.
She had no idea what a Montana attorney would regard as a 'substantial
amount of cash,' but she figured the ranch alone, if liquidated, must
be worth enough to pay off all their bills and their current mortgage,
with money left hadn't known since she had been a small child and had
still believed in fairy tales, miracles. On the other hand, their good
fortune would have been Tommy Fernandez's good fortune if he had not
been murdered. That dark and inescapable fact tainted the gift and
dampened her pleasure in it. For a while she brooded, torn between
delight and guilt, and at last decided she was responding too much -.
like a Beckerman and too little like a Mcgarvey. She would have done
anything to bring Tommy Fernandez back to life, even if it meant that
this inheritance would never have been hers and Jack's, but the cold
truth was that Tommy was dead, in the ground over sixteen months now,
and beyond the help of anyone. Fate was too often malicious, too
