A Will and a Way

then?”
    “She was always better. The telegram was a hoax.” He yawned, stretched and settled. “God, what a night.”
    “You mean…” Pandora tugged on the sheets and glowered. “Well, the rats.”
    “Yeah. I plotted out several forms of revenge when I was laid over in Cleveland. Maybe our friend who stomped through your workshop figured it was my turn. Now we each owe them one.”
    “I owe ’em two.” Pandora leaned back against the headboard with the sheets tucked under her arms. Her hair fell luxuriously over her naked shoulders. “Last night while you were off on your wild-goose chase, I was locked in the cellar.”
    Michael’s attention shot away from the thin sheet that barely covered her. “Locked in? How?”
    Crossing one ankle over the other, Pandora told him what happened from the time the lights went out.
    “Climbed up on boxes? To that little window? It’s nearly ten feet.”
    “Yes, I believe I noticed that at the time.”
    Michael scowled at her. The anger he’d felt at being treated to a sleepless night doubled. He could picture her groping her way around in the dank cellar all too well. Worse, he could see her very clearly climbing on shaky boxes and crates. “You could’ve broken your neck.”
    “I didn’t. What I did do was rip my favorite pair of slacks, scratch both knees and bruise my shoulder.”
    Michael managed to hold back his fury. He’d let it go, hepromised himself, when the time was right. “It could’ve been worse,” he said lightly, and thought of what he’d do to whoever had locked her in.
    “It was worse,” Pandora tossed back, insulted. “While you were sipping Scotch at thirty thousand feet, I was locked in a cold, damp cellar with mice and spiders.”
    “We might reconsider calling the police.”
    “And do what with them? We can’t prove anything. We don’t even know whom we can’t prove anything against.”
    “New rule,” Michael decided. “We stick together. Neither of us leaves the house overnight without the other. At least until we find out which of our devoted relations is playing games.”
    Pandora started to protest, then remembered how frightened she’d been, and before the cellar, before the fear, how lonely. “Agreed. Now…” With one hand hanging onto the sheet, she shifted toward him. “I vote for Uncle Carlson on this one. After all, he knows the house better than any of the others. He lived here.”
    “It’s as good a guess as any. But it’s only a guess.” Michael stared up at the ceiling. “I want to know. Biff stayed here for six weeks one summer when we were kids.”
    “That’s right.” Pandora frowned at the ceiling herself. The mirror across the room reflected them lying companionably, hip to hip. “I’d forgotten about that. He hated it.”
    “He’s never had a sense of humor.”
    “True enough. As I recall he certainly didn’t like you.”
    “Probably because I gave him a black eye.”
    Pandora’s brow lifted. “You would.” Then, because the imageof Biff with a shiner wasn’t so unappealing, she added: “Why did you? You never said.”
    “Remember the frogs in your dresser?”
    Pandora sniffed and smoothed at the sheets. “I certainly do. It was quite immature of you.”
    “Not me. Biff.”
    “Biff?” Astonished, she turned toward him again. “You mean that little creep put the frogs in my underwear?” The next thought came, surprisingly pleasing. “And you punched him for it?”
    “It wasn’t hard.”
    “Why didn’t you deny it when I accused you?”
    “It was more satisfying to punch Biff. In any case, he knows the house well enough. And I imagine if we checked up, we’d find most of our happy clan has stayed here, at least for a few days at a time. Finding a fuse box in the cellar doesn’t take a lot of cunning. Think it through, Pandora. There are six of them, seven with the charity added on. Split a hundred fifty million seven ways and you end up with plenty of motive. Every one of them has a reason for wanting us to break the terms of the will. None of them, as far as I’m concerned, is above adding a little pressure to help us along.”
    “Another reason the money never appealed to me,” she mused. “They haven’t done anything but vandalize and annoy, but, dammit, Michael, I want to pay them back.”
    “The ultimate payback comes in just under five months.” Without thinking about it, Michael put his arm around her shoulders. Without thinking about it, Pandora