Watching Amanda by Janelle Taylor Page A

here, in any case. I don’t think I could have opened this alone. And who better would understand whatever’s inside than the two of you?”
    Olivia and Ivy both nodded.
    â€œOkay,” Amanda said. “Here goes.” She slit open the envelope, took a deep breath and withdrew a simple piece of white paper, upon which seemed to be a long list of instructions. Amanda turned over the paper. The instructions continued on the back of the page. She looked inside the envelope to see if she missed anything. No, there was only the piece of paper.
    â€œWhat does it say?” Olivia asked.
    â€œI’ll just read it aloud,” Amanda said. She cleared her throat. “Amanda Sedgwick, my middle daughter, is to inherit my brownstone apartment building, located just off Central Park West on West Seventy-fourth Street, if she follows the enclosed instructions to a T.”
    Olivia gasped. “The brownstone is worth millions!”
    â€œMy mother is going to go ape,” Ivy said. “As far as I know, William owns only three properties— the brownstone, the Maine house, and a small country inn in central New Jersey. Real estate wasn’t his thing. The brownstone is worth the most. Olivia is right—it’s worth a fortune.”
    Amanda glanced at her sisters. Neither seemed particularly upset by the news; their expressions were more ... curious.
    â€œRead on,” Olivia said.
    â€œAs stated by my lawyer, George Harris,” Amanda read, “Amanda must follow the instructions exactly or her inheritance will become null and void.”
    â€œWhatever the instructions are, who’d know if she followed them or not?” Ivy asked.
    Amanda read on. “Someone will be watching Amanda at all times to ensure she fulfills the terms of the will.”
    Spooked, Amanda dropped the letter as though it were a dead mouse. The paper fluttered out of her hands and landed on the area rug.
    â€œSomeone will be watching me?” Amanda repeated. “At all times?”
    Olivia and Ivy glanced at each other. “That sounds really weird,” Olivia said.
    â€œYeah,” Ivy seconded. “I don’t like it. Especially as a cop, I don’t like it.”
    â€œRead on,” Olivia suggested. “Maybe there’s some explanation of who will be your supposed watchdog.”
    Amanda took a deep breath, picked up the paper and continued reading aloud. “Amanda will be allowed two slip-ups. Upon the third, her inheritance will be null and void.”
    â€œSlip-ups?” Ivy repeated. “What on earth ... ?”
    â€œAmanda is to move into the brownstone next Saturday,” Amanda read. “She is to use the red bedroom, and her son’s nursery will be the blue room. She is never to enter the white room unless she is married.”
    â€œThis sounds crazy!” Olivia said. “And what’s this nonsense about the white room?”
    Amanda took a deep breath. “I don’t like any of this. Listen to the rest: ‘Amanda is to live in the brownstone for at least one month. During each of the first thirty days, Amanda must sit in the formal parlor, on the brown leather sofa for one hour, twice a day.”
    Olivia and Ivy looked at each other. “I’ve only been in the brownstone a couple of times,” Olivia said, “But I’ve sat on that sofa. It’s directly across from the fireplace, above which is a portrait of the four of us in Maine.”
    â€œI remember when we took the picture for that portrait!” Ivy said. “It was the summer I was fifteen. The height of my gawky period.”
    Amanda and Olivia laughed.
    â€œI always thought it was strange that he kept that portrait in his house in the room he used so regularly,” Olivia said. “Why have a portrait of his daughters whom he had no interest in?”
    â€œWho can figure out anything about William Sedgwick?” Amanda responded, shaking her