The heart-poundingly suspenseful first novel

by

An Inheritance...

That's supposed to be a good thing...

...isn't it?"

Reader Comments....

Author Karen Dale Trask recalls vaguely that it was either in 1979 or 1980 when she walked out of an antiques store in Mesa, Arizona. She was nearly run over by an ill-mannered child. Looking back up at the house, she saw the child tearing through the squeaky old wooden door. "I began picturing vividly in my mind the way a particular room in the house was set up as a child's nursery," Trask remembers. "'The wheels began turning and I made up my mind right then to write a book."

A product of true perseverence by it's author.

A story that just had to be told, in one form or another...

Before Trask wrote the book however, she wrote the screenplay, which she then refined and rewrote 15 times in the 7 years that followed. (Along with several other screenplays!) Then in 1997, almost 20 years after her experience at the antiques store in Mesa, Arizona, and with encouragement from fellow artists, Trask finally accomplished what she had originally set out to do. In December of 1997, the book became reality.

As Trask looks back over her fifty years and all of her creative endeavors, whether they entailed designing, painting, photography or writing, there is one thing that is clear to her... "Everything has a way of coming full circle..." For Trask, it seems like only yesterday that she was sitting on the porch of her childhood home in Dearborn, Michigan. Microphone in hand, neighborhood pals gathered round her reel to reel tape recorder, reading from a script the 12 year old Trask had written. Although she went on to explore other creative areas the author eventually came "back around" to writing.

So What Is For The Sake of Appearances About?

It is not until the death of Jon Bennett that several people in the small town of Edwardsville, Arizona

Here's a few of the author's favorite excerpts...

"I've been saying it all morning...and I'll say it again. I just don't understand, Bill..." Their eyes locked. It was like the sky was falling on both of them and a big piece hit William right smack on the head when Scott said... "I especially don't understand what all this secrecy's about." ...It was something that William never understood, but now he knew all too well... That no matter how deeply secrets may be buried, they all have a way of coming to the surface...eventually.

Thunder boomed again bringing Patricia out of the past to stare at Marla who was biting her lip. "No, not because he's in Rehoboth," Marla said nervously. She threw the crumpled piece of newspaper at Patricia and ran through the doorway into the hall. It looked like the safest place, away from any fallout. She had known Patricia for six years. She also knew that when Patricia became unglued it could get pretty ugly. And now it was about to get very, very ugly. Marla took a deep breath as Patricia stooped to pick up the newspaper. "Henderson isn't in Rehoboth," Marla spit out the words. "He's dead."

He grabbed the edge of the table as he prepared for her reaction to his next sentence. "She still doesn't know," he spat out quickly, staring at the table top, afraid of seeing the expression on her face.

Her mouth was once again agape. "But, I thought you said that Jon wrote her a letter explaining..."

He looked her straight in the eyes and pushed away from the table half expecting her to swoon. She was within catching range by the way it looked to him. He took a deep breath, "She never received the box," and exhaled quickly, readying his muscles to push out of the chair if need be. But there wasn't a need. She stood as if made of stone. Her mouth was now pinched tight. A look of sheer panic came across her face. She walked over to the table as if in a trance and dropped the crystal glass on the table from about six inches. The crystal glass landed flat, without incident. The ice cubes clinked softly as she plopped her body into the chair across from the now ashen-faced attorney, who felt as if he had aged twenty years in the last twenty minutes.

Mrs. Gallagher's body was motionless for a moment. The frail woman's peignoir began to tremble. Her face turned red, and William Stephens felt drained of life. She gasped before crying out, "What! Her whole life is in that damn box...and now...it's lost?"

William's hand also began to tremble at the outburst, but he tried to calm her. "I don't think it's lost exactly. It got held up in Chicago..."

She wasn't really listening. Nothing he could have said would have reached her or even mattered to her now.

The secret that had been so deeply buried was floating to the surface like a bloated corpse.

He stared at the headstone of Jon Bennett, as all the questions that William hadn't and couldn't answer surfaced once again. He glanced at the grave one last time, somehow hoping to get an answer.

Scott pushed himself off from the fence then, knowing how long it would take before he got all the answers stewing about in his brain. Guess he'd just have to wait until Patricia got the box and figured out what it all meant. And hopefully she'd give him a call...soon. That seemed to be it for now. Since William wasn't talking he would just have to wait on Patricia. Unfortunately patience wasn't one of Scott's more prominent virtues.

Scott kicked the next rock he saw and headed back into Edwardsville alone, his fist pounding his thigh with each step.

That was it for now. William had been sworn to secrecy by Jon. Jon was dead. William wasn't talking, and Scott was having to wait patiently on Patricia. It seemed now that she was the only one who could give him the answers he was looking for.

Unbeknownst to Scott there was another person who could give him the answers he was seeking.

And as Scott walked away from the cemetery gate, she was standing near the edge of Jon's grave.

The little girl, no more than eight years of age, who wore black lace-up boots, a straw hat, a simple dress and lacy pinafore, threw a small handful of dirt on to Jon's casket that lay in the ground.

"Don't have to keep my promise...don't have to keep my promise, Jon...Don't have to keep my..."

It was then she saw the tall lean man in the cowboy hat coming towards her with a shovel.

The little girl hurried to the gate, pulled it open, and kept running. The bewildered cowboy pushed back his hat and scratched his head. He then began the task of shoveling dirt into the grave of Jon Bennett as the gate let out an eerie creak and closed with a very loud clunk.

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