A Dollhouse to Die For(107)

            Chip sighed and sank down onto a fallen log, his hands on his knees. Jasper sat down next to him and leaned against his leg.

            “God, I’m tired. Some idiot set off the alarm on my car last night. I can’t wait to get out of that crappy apartment and into a new waterfront condo.”

            I shoved my hands in my pockets and took a step closer.

            “When he was married to my mother, my father lost all their retirement savings in a spec deal. Sometimes I wonder if he engineered the fights just so he could divorce her and move on to greener pastures.”

            He put his arm around Jasper and stroked his silky chest. “You name it, he tried it. Equity trusts, foreign-exchange markets, pyramid schemes, no-money-down deals, trading strategies that promised triple-digit annual returns . . . I swear it was almost like an addiction with him. It’s frightening to think how much money he lost over his lifetime.”

            This was finally a glimmer of understanding into the puzzle that was Chip Rosenthal. But why did my store have to be the target of his steamroller strategy?

            He ruffled the fur around Jasper’s ears. “Come to find out, a lot of these gurus lie about the money they make anyway. They profit from seminar fees and selling start-up packages to the suckers. Most get-rich-quick schemes deal in intangibles. That’s why I love real estate. It’s something concrete, something lasting.”

            My gaze traveled to the crumbling mill behind him, and I raised a quizzical eyebrow.

            The first smile I’d ever seen on his face appeared as we shared the little joke.

            “And your mom?” I asked gently. “What happened to her?”

            “Oh, she had the last laugh. She opened a home-care company for seniors who want to stay in their homes instead of going into assisted living—doing their grocery shopping, taking them to doctor visits, arranging for housecleaning, paying the bills. Now she’s franchised it and is making more money than she ever dreamed of. But she did it by hard work and by using her brain. Not like my dad. It drove him crazy to see how successful she was. And then he married Margaret Jane’s mother.”

            “How did you feel about that?”

            Chip stared up at the trees. “At first I resented the fact that my father remarried, but Dana was such a sweet lady and well, you couldn’t hate her. Then he started going through her money, too.”

            His mouth thinned. “Right before the accident, he asked to borrow funds from me for one more surefire idea that was going to make him a millionaire. I refused, so then he went to Sophie. That’s when I put a stop to it.”

            Now he stood up and began pacing, kicking through the pine needles, his face flushed. “He’d already lost his own money. I’d be damned if I’d let him lose my only chance at an inheritance. I told the lawyer to stay away and that Sophie wasn’t allowed to sign anything.”

            Here was a glimpse of the temperamental Chip I knew and loved to hate.

            I also saw the grieving young son, the person he was desperately trying to hide, who had been let down by the one person who should have set a good example. It wasn’t hard to see the toll it had taken on him and the resultant well of bitterness.

            “And PJ? I mean, Margaret Jane?”

            “We got along okay at first, but I’ll admit, I came to resent her relationship with Sophie. It was my aunt after all. She just took over—you know, with the womanly things—helping her do her hair and her makeup. Stuff like that. When Sophie’s health started going downhill, I got worried. Margaret can be very persuasive when she wants to be. I could just see her talking my aunt into donating the whole estate to a refuge for wild turtles, or some such crap.”