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One

North Shore

Oahu, Hawaii

W ild, zany Aunt Tate dead?

Ahtened on her steering wheel as she rounded a curve of green mountain, and the tall hotels of Waikiki vanished in her rearview mirror Why couldn’t her mother ever just answer the phone?A and rang

After Aunt Tate’s horrid French attorney had told her her aunt had died, A she’d caught was, “She left you everything”

Everything should have included only Château Serene and the vineyard in Provence where A suhty comte, but her aunt had not quite finished the process of donating her extremely valuable Matisse to a French museum before her death She’d left a letter to A, but technically the Matisse was hers, as well

“I’lect Luckily for you the young coenerous offer Naturally he would like to buy the painting back, as well Surely it belongs on the wall in the home of the family who’s owned it for nearly a century”

“The comte’s family disliked my aunt I’m not sure I want to sell to him!”

“But, ed to his faht hundred years”

“Well, apparently everything belongs to me now Goodbye!”

She’d immediately called Nan, her best friend, who’d been in a sulk because she hadn’t gotten to go on a retreat on Molokai with her sister Liz and had asked her to cover for her at Vintage, her resale shop, during the sale today Then she’d tried to call her mother to tell her about Tate and to ask her if she’d work at Vintage so that she could fly to France to check on the château and vineyard

Ie, Ah the ed coastline where waves exploded against the rocks The shop didn’ttime boyfriend She wanted his ar as fast as she could to his beach house on the North Shore

Aunt Tate was gone On a day like this there should be a rogue wave hurtling toward the Hawaiian Islands or an earthquake about to topple the hotels in Waikiki

Despite the wind pounding the hood of her Toyota and strea past her s, the North Shore of Oahu with its lush, green mountains and wide, white beaches and ocean was beautiful