“I met someone.”
She beamed at me and sank back in her chair. “Tell me all about her.”
“Well, she’s beautiful. I mean, I think she’s beautiful. Actually, that doesn’t really cover it. She’s like…this siren that is hiding in plain sight, but I know she’s there. And the more I see her, the more I know that…”
“That what?”
“Well, that’s the thing. I’m not sure.”
“You know that you’re not sure?” she asked in confusion.
“It’s complicated.”
“So, uncomplicate it for me.”
I sighed and tried to figure out what I could tell her. “She’s recently widowed.”
“Okay.”
“And I don’t think she actually liked her husband. I think she married him for money.”
“Oh, here we go again,” she rolled her eyes.
“She doesn’t seem to be grieving him at all.”
“Well, maybe it was a marriage of convenience. Those still happen.”
“Right, but then how do I know that I’m not just a convenience for her too?”
Kat frowned. “Is this the woman Eric’s doing all that work for?”
“Maybe.”
“Meaning yes.”
“Alright, fine. It’s the same woman.”
“The same woman that almost dropped a tub on your head.”
I sighed and looked away. It was so hard to talk about with her without telling the details. Maybe I should just say something. Maybe Kat could guide me on this.
“Can you keep a secret?”
She leaned forward, practically giddy. “Oh God, I long for a secret.”
“I think she might have killed her husband.”
Kat gasped and sat back in her chair. “No.”
I nodded. “And I don’t think he’s the only one. I think she might have killed two other people.”
“Then why are you lusting over her?”
“Because she’s hot and she’s different.”
“Yeah, she’s different in that she kills the people she’s with.”
“Look, I don’t have proof yet, but she may have tried to kill me at least two times, maybe closer to four.”
“How?”
“Well, the first time, she threw a wrench at my head. I swear to God, it was this close,” I said, holding my thumb and forefinger just a centimeter apart. “And then that same day, there was the whole tub incident. She literally told me where to stand and told me not to move. It was like she was setting the scene for my murder.”
“But why would she want to murder you?”
“I don’t know,” I said incredulously. “Her son-in-law hired me to dig into her. He thinks she’s a black widow.”
“Wait, how many times has she been married?”
“Once, but the other deaths are very suspicious.”
“And what about the other times you said she might have tried to kill you?”
“Well, she came to my apartment and she brought me flowers.”
Kat flinched back, her hand pressed to her chest. “No! Flowers? I can’t believe it.”
I rolled my eyes at her mocking tone. “They were lilies, funeral flowers. Now, if that’s not a hint, I’m not sure what is. And she brought me pastries from Mary Anne’s. I think she was going to poison them. And then she told me to make sure I took my pills!”
“You mean the ones you’re supposed to take so that you’re not in pain?”
“Exactly!” I pointed at her. “Tell me that’s not suspicious.”
“So, she brought you food and flowers and made sure that you had your pills.”
I nodded vigorously. “And she put a bag of frozen vegetables on my foot. I don’t know what the hell to think of that.”
Kat nodded. “For sure. She definitely sounds like a killer.”
I stared at her in annoyance. “You don’t believe me.”
She laughed a little and shrugged. “Look, I definitely agree that it looks suspicious, but I think the wrench and the tub were just an accident. And as for the flowers—“
“The death flowers,” I corrected.
“They’re just flowers. I would guess that nine times out of ten, women wouldn’t be able to tell you the meaning of a flower. Maybe if it was the 1950’s. I’m not sure that women nowadays even like flowers.”
“Really? Why not?”
“Well, they’re pretty, and yes, they do send tingles down our spines, but in the end, they’re just flowers.”
“So, you want fancy shit.”
She shook her head. “I would be happy with a new Dyson vacuum cleaner.”
“Seriously?”
“Hey, they’re really nice, but they’re expensive. If I got one for Christmas, it would probably be the best day of my life.”
“Right, not the day you give birth or the day you marry my brother.”
“If I were talking to him? Yes, it would be one of those two days. But between you and me, the vacuum wins hands down every time.”
Sure that I was missing something, I decided to start digging deeper into these past two victims. If Kat was right, and maybe, by some very small, infinitesimal degree, Lorelei wasn’t a killer, I needed some kind of proof. So, I started digging into the background of this eighteen year old kid from West Virginia.
The kid was a normal eighteen year old. He started working at the age of sixteen, probably to help support his family. That wasn’t unusual. Hell, even around here, kids found jobs to help pay for their own clothes and shoes. Small towns were notorious for not having a big job market, and unless you lived closer to a big city, jobs were scarce for adults. The area this kid grew up in was even worse. Jobs were sorely lacking and it looked like he held a steady job at a grocery store. The pay was shit, which probably didn’t help, but I couldn’t see anything else that would have caused extreme stress.
Looking at his medical records, it appeared that he died from what’s called Broken Heart Syndrome. Basically, there was so much stress on his heart that the heart muscles weakened until he had a heart attack and died. I looked up drugs that could induce heart failure, and there were actually quite a few. Everything from diabetes medication to NSAIDs.
My little black widow could have taken drugs from anyone in town and drugged the kid. There was no autopsy on this kid either. What the hell was it with this town that no one requested an autopsy? An eighteen year old kid dies and no one wants to know why? They just trust what the doctor suggests he died of? Unless, of course, it was something obvious like a gunshot wound or a pole through the chest. This whole thing was looking more and more shady by the minute.
I moved on to her fiancé, thinking I might find some answers there. Murray Claybourne, CEO of a financial firm. He founded the company at the young age of twenty-five. He was at least closer in age to Lorelei. He died when he was thirty, which meant Lorelei would have been about twenty-five or twenty-six at the time. I was shocked to see that Lorelei actually had her picture taken quite a bit with this guy. They were always attending charity events, and she appeared to actually like the guy. But then I remembered Barty’s words, that Lorelei was very convincing at making people think that she was in love with his father.
I leaned back in my chair and stared out the window. So, what made Lorelei suddenly turn on Murray and kill him off? I had to agree with Barty, if anyone was in the car with Murray on the day he died, it had to be Lorelei. The police report very clearly showed erratic tire tracks all over the road. This was not as simple as him losing traction and crashing. Someone was purposely trying to kill Murray, and if my black widow was in the car with him, there had to be a reason she was trying to kill him.
But as I searched through his records, there wasn’t a trace of any financials that tied the two together. She didn’t get anything upon his death, and they didn’t share any bank accounts. There wasn’t even a bank box that had her name on it. I searched for hours, but I came up with nothing. So, why did she kill him?
I thumbed through the files again, sure I was missing something. Murray had made exactly three trips to Lorelei’s home town in West Virginia, twice before Matthew died and once after. He must have found out that Lorelei killed the kid. That had to be the explanation. He found out that Lorelei had murdered someone and he was blackmailing her. But for what? Maybe he pressured her into marrying him…And when she decided she didn’t want to marry him, she had him killed off. He probably refused to sign anything over to her. Maybe he asked for a prenup or something. She knew she wouldn’t get jack squat out of him, and she decided it was better to kill him off than be married to a man that would hold the kid’s murder over her head for the rest of her life.
But at this point, she had realized how to get exactly what she wanted from people, and that’s when she went after Arlen. She saw him as the target of a lifetime and had learned from her mistakes with Murray. She had to worm her way into his life, make it so he couldn’t live without her. She had to somehow convince him that she was the single most important person in his life, and I would bet that all stemmed from Arlen’s relationship with his kids.
Lorelei
With the guys working inside on finishing up the kitchen, I really didn’t have anything else to do right now. I had finished my afghan last night by the fire and then slept under it last night. But I was running low on firewood, so I needed to take care of that before I did anything else with the house. With the cold weather creeping further into the house, I had decided to sleep in my living room in front of the fire. It was better than freezing under layers of blankets.
As I trudged out to the trees behind my house, dragging my axe behind me, I thought about the idea Andrew had for my breakfast nook. It sounded absolutely perfect. In fact, it was so perfect that I talked to Eric this morning about making those changes. It wouldn’t be easy. With winter coming, and me living in the house, it was going to be a project that would be a tad difficult, but he promised to look into all the aspects of it as soon as they finished the current project they were working on in the kitchen.
When I reached the stump for cutting wood, I got to work chopping up wood. Bracing my hands around the handle of the axe like my father had taught me, I raised the axe above my head and took my first swing. I was a little rusty, but after a few swings, I was on a roll, splitting logs like it was second nature. I started sweating, and had to remove a layer so I could move more swiftly, without sweating my ass off.
I was just about to start up again when I saw someone walking toward me. No, scratch that, hobbling toward me. I picked up the axe and swung over and over again as Andrew trudged toward me. With the last log I split, I wiped at my forehead and stared at the pile I had created with pride.
Andrew, however, did not look proud. He looked a little terrified. “So, afghans at night and splitting logs during the day…” He said it like he was trying to figure it out, not as a statement or a question.
“Well, I have to heat the house.”
“They have people that do this sort of thing.”
“Why pay someone to do it when I can do it myself?”
He frowned, shaking his head slightly. “Fixing cars, crocheting afghans, splitting logs…” he mumbled. “I just don’t get it.”
“What don’t you get?”
“I mean, none of it makes sense.”
My breath was huffing out in white puffs as my heart stopped racing from my exertion. “What doesn’t make sense?”
He shook his head. “Nothing. I’m just trying to figure you out.”
“I didn’t realize you had to.”
He didn’t say anything for a moment, but he looked conflicted, almost scared, like I was going to pick up the axe and murder him. I didn’t want to murder him. I needed him on my side.
“Do you think you could give me a hand bringing the logs inside? Or is your foot too injured?”
His eyes shot up to mine and he looked at me like I had just insulted his manhood. Maybe I should be playing this up as more the little woman that needed help. I wasn’t used to that though. I was used to doing things for myself. I had done it for so long, and around Arlen, I had to literally be smarter than him about everything. But Andrew…I had a feeling that wouldn’t get me anywhere with him.
So, I pretended to be the little woman that didn’t know any better. I stacked two logs in my arms and started trudging across the lawn to the house.
“What are you doing?” he called out.
I turned and quirked my head at him. “I’m taking the wood inside.”
He sighed, shaking his head. “You can’t carry this whole stack inside. You’ll wear yourself out. Do you have any equipment in that barn?” he nodded toward the slightly crumbling structure.
“Um…”
He sighed and moved that way. “Let’s go check it out. You’re going to be doing this all winter. There’s no point in doing it the hard way.”
I smirked as I followed him. I knew there was a snowmobile in there, though I hadn’t seen yet if it was working. Plus, there was a small tractor and a wagon. I could easily stack the wood on the wagon and haul it over to the house.
“You seem to know your way around a farm,” I said as we walked across the yard.
“I grew up on a farm. Before my dad started leasing out the land, we had to work it with him.”
“He doesn’t farm anymore?”
“No, he and Ma moved to North Carolina. He was tired and my Ma wanted someplace warmer to live. They’ve been there for a while now.”
“So, no one runs the farm?”
He shook his head. “My brother lives in the house and he keeps up the property, but all the fields around it are leased out to other farmers.”
“You must miss it.”
He shrugged. “Sometimes. I miss living in the country, not having people around me all the time. It’s weird to live in town now.”
“I was going to ask you, why do you live with your brother and his girlfriend? It seems like a pretty small space.”
“Joe just started his tattoo shop about a year ago. I would help him financially, but he would never accept it, so I pay half the rent and everything else to ease the burden. Plus, Sofia’s pregnant. Pretty soon, they’re going to have a baby to take care of.”
“That’s really sweet.”
He shrugged. “It’s just what family does for each other. Besides, it won’t be long before his business is taking off. He’s actually a great tattoo artist.”
“Yeah?” I grinned. “I love tattoos, but I’ve always been afraid to get one.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. What if I have to run someday? It would be an identifying marker,” I laughed.
He stopped and turned to me with a frown. “Why would you have to run someday? Are you in trouble?”
I looked at him funny. “It was a joke, Andrew. I don’t have a tattoo because I don’t think it’ll look good on me in old age.”
He looked over my face and his eyes trailed down my body that was fully covered. “I don’t see how that’s possible.”
I felt like we were about to have a moment, like maybe he would move in and kiss me, but instead, he turned and opened the door to the barn. Waving away the dust, he walked inside and headed right for the tractor. He climbed up and tried to start it, but it wouldn’t turn over. I opened the hood and started fiddling around inside. I didn’t know a lot about tractors, but it couldn’t be that much different from cars.
“Try it now.”
He turned over the engine again, and this time it started with a few chugs. He shook his head and scoffed. “How the hell do you know how to do that?”
“My—“
“Father. Yeah, he seems to have taught you a lot.”
I looked down, sad that I didn’t have that relationship with him anymore. “He used to. Things are a lot different now.”
“Is that why you never go home?”
My gaze snapped up to meet his and I looked at him waril
y. “How would you know that?”
He looked panicked for a second, and I could have sworn he was hiding something, but then he looked away. “Just…with your husband. After he died, you didn’t go home, so I assumed that you didn’t want to be around family.”
He wasn’t wrong about that. I would never go home again. I hated it there. Everything I used to love about that place was tainted, and not just because of my father, but because of what I had done. I would never look at that place the same way again.
“My father is a very difficult man. When my mother died, he changed a lot. He became someone that I hated. He was drunk all the time, he couldn’t hold down a job, and it was left up to me to take care of things around the house. Every good memory I have of him has been wiped away.”
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly.
“I have no one now.”
“You have your step-children,” he said, almost accusingly.
“They hate me. They never wanted me to marry their father.”
“Why did you? He was so much older than you.”
I swallowed hard, and said what I had practiced so many times before. “I fell in love. Arlen was the man that literally saved my life. He was this gentle soul that came in and realized what I needed, and took care of everything.”
It was total bullshit. Arlen was an asshole, and there was nothing he could do for me in any way. If anything, I was more self-reliant than him. He couldn’t tie his own shoes without my help. Okay, that might be an exaggeration, but it was mostly true. He was a great businessman, in that he always took what he wanted, but in reality, he just didn’t have it in him to do what really needed to be done. And that’s where I stepped in.
Andrew frowned at me. “I’m confused, you don’t seem very upset that he died.”
I put on my emotionless face, trying to make him think that I was hiding my true feelings. “I’ve learned in my life that people die all the time. So, as much as I loved him, I can’t spend my days mourning him. He’s gone and being sad about that won’t bring him back.”
Tangled Web: A Small Town Romance (The Cortell Brothers Book 6) Page 9