Baby and the Billionaire

by Beverly Evans

  “Don't try to distract me with visions of my cat looking fabulous for Halloween. Besides, he's already chosen his outfit. He's going as Prince. What are you planning on doing with the manager?”

  “Like I said. Exactly what he told me to. I'm going back there tonight when the maze is open.”

  Sylvia tried at least six different ways to keep me from coming back to the maze tonight. Not so much because she genuinely believes there's any danger for me to be afraid of, but more that she thinks I'll create it. The excuses and tactics started out fairly routine; decorations for the open house mysteriously going missing and showing up under a picnic blanket in her trunk, calling in some friends to linger at the open house and pretend to be interested in buying. It was when she resorted to a spontaneous and miraculous, fake pregnancy that I knew she hit the bottom of the barrel. I asked her to come along, but she refused.

  That means I'm here alone again. At least this time, I'm not really alone. There are other revelers and thrill-seekers darting through the houses and tumbling out of the corn maze between a scream and a laugh. For the first few minutes, I try to create a cover by visiting the funnel cake stand and occasionally glancing at my phone like I'm waiting for someone. When the funnel cake is nothing more than a fried dough memory and sticky melted powdered sugar on my fingertips, it's time for action.

  I slip along the side of the corn maze until I get to the back and the orange stripes of spray paint in the grass. Not wanting to waste any time to look, I bound across the stripes and around the back of the maze. It's just as dark as last night, but the feeling is heavier. I can feel eyes on the back of my neck, making the tiny hairs stand up and creating tiny bumps along my arms. I shake my head, excusing it away as chill from the night air. No one notices as I move along the edge of the corn. Fingers on one hand stretch out at my side to touch the stocks as I move past, reminding me I'm close enough to dive into the maze if I have to.

  But I don't. My stomach knots as I approach the broken cornstalks and see the pile of hay bales. I take another step and realize something's different about it. Moving closer, I see something sprawled across the hay, dripping dark, glistening drops onto the grass. My breath catches in my throat.

  The body is pale and streaked with dirt where it isn't soaked with blood. I struggle to breathe and force down the scream creeping its way up my throat.

  It takes two more steps for my mind to clear and to realize what I'm seeing is a mannequin. Someone put a prop on the hay bales and doused it with stage blood. It's the kind of sight that would have made me laugh, but now it makes me sick. The only thing worse is the question swelling in my mind.

  Why did someone put it there?

  Chapter Nine

  Gavin

  Thanksgiving…

  Few things are more depressing than an empty dining room table on Thanksgiving. Fortunately, my files, contracts, and various other bits of work are enough to fill the majority of the space for at least four of the places at my table. The fifth is reserved for me and my dinner plates.

  Usually I'd stick to just one plate, but this is Thanksgiving. A second is justified for the holiday. One plate is dedicated to slices of turkey breast, a puddle of gravy, and a cluster of fluffy rolls glistening with melted butter. The other has all the sides. Mashed potatoes, candied sweet potatoes, green beans, brussels sprouts, dressing, and cranberry sauce mingle together in a mound of perfection.

  The rest of the spaces at the table will just have to fend for themselves. Come Christmas I'll have a dinner party for some of the people at work, but tonight it's just me. That's how it always is on Thanksgiving. This is the one weekend of the year I let my entire staff off and hunker down for a few days of solitude. The office is closed while everyone else darts around the country visiting family or braces themselves for the onslaught of their own homes.

  While others are comparing sweaters and preparing lists for Black Friday shopping before God wakes up, I keep working so the company runs smoothly and doesn't hit the same slump so many do during the holidays.

  And because all the sweaters I own are solid colors, and the idea of Black Friday shopping has at least six things going against it for me.

  Add to that a family with all the closeness of slow dancing on a plague island, and a glimpse of my preferred Thanksgiving celebrations comes into clear view.

  The massive feast my cook prepares for me and enough meals, snacks, and goodies to fill the weekend and several extra days is a delightful bonus. I've come to enjoy my solitary holiday so much each year I start turning down invitations to join other families starting in October. Last year one was from Eva's family. I turned it down without a second thought. That should have raised a few red flags.

  My phone rings, and I glance over at it. I've learned to be cautious and screen my calls on holidays, but this one makes me smile. One of the invitations to join for the Thanksgiving holiday this year was from Beck and Ruby, and I've been expecting them to call. I almost took them up on the invitation, but several deals are looming over the company, and I want to get them settled before Christmas. I prefer to start the new year without lingering projects from the year before whenever possible. It's a superstition I picked up from my mother when I was young. I carried it with me after she died and it has translated into my company. In a way, it keeps her with me.

  "Beck, it's good to hear from you," I answer.

  "Happy Thanksgiving!" Beck and Ruby call out together.

  I'm still getting used to that. I don't know Ruby terribly well on a personal basis, but Beck has talked about her so much ever since I've known him, I feel like I do. It was obvious he loved her from the first time he said her name, even though he referred to her as his best friend's little sister. Now that they are married, they're more of a unit than any people I've ever encountered. I miss having him in Richmond with me. He's one of the few people outside of my company and my staff I spent any time with. But it's good to see him happy.

  "Happy Thanksgiving. I'm sorry again for not being able to make it out there for dinner," I tell them.

  "Don't worry about it. We know you're busy," Beck says.

  "I'm very familiar with men passionately devoted to their work," Ruby teases from behind him, having relinquished the phone.

  "Anyway," Beck says. "It would have been good to see you, but it just means you'll have to make it back to Shadow Creek sometime soon."

  "I absolutely will," I tell him. "I've been thinking about it since leaving after Halloween. As a matter of fact, I was just reading up on the news."

  Beck laughs. "You were?" he asks.

  "Yes. It turns out Shadow Creek's website posts the local newspaper every day. I've been keeping up on all the happenings around town," I explain.

  "Anything in particular catch your interest?"

  "The Holiday Jam Fundraiser sounds like fun," I muse. "Grab me a couple jars of strawberry."

  "You're reading the newspaper to find out about local fundraisers?" Beck asks. I can see his eyes rolling from all the way out here.

  "Actually, I was reading to see if something else might pop up, but it didn't."

  "The girl from the night of the Halloween party?" Beck laughs. "Trust me, everyone in Shadow Creek has been waiting for that article. Scarlett has made enough of a fuss about it. But it doesn't look like it's going to happen," he says.

  "Scarlett?" I ask.

  It's the first time I’ve heard her name. It's oddly perfect. I've never thought of names as having any particular meaning or significance to the people who have them. They're just random titles that have nothing to do with the person. Most of the time, they're chosen before birth, before the person even has begun being a person.

  Not her. Somehow, Scarlett is exactly what she should be.

  "Scarlett Duvall. She's a real estate agent in Shadow Creek. Turns out she's the one who ran like hell from the corn maze the night of the party. Like you said, she was determined she saw a murder that night. She didn't let up. Went to the
police, stalked the maze, got banned from the maze, stalked it in costume, got arrested."

  "She got arrested?" I ask, trying to decide if I'm shocked or amused.

  "It's fine. She was only in the tank about two hours before her best friend fished her out. But she was formally banned from the Halloween haunts," Beck explains.

  "Did anything ever come out of it?" I ask.

  "Nothing. No body ever showed up. No one was ever reported missing. Not among the carnies traveling with the haunts or from Shadow Creek. She even said she found some blood, but it was in an area covered with stage blood. The conclusion is it's exactly what everyone figured from the beginning. She went to the maze, got scared, and completely misinterpreted something she saw," he tells me.

  "Does she believe that?"

  Chapter Ten

  Scarlett

  "No. I still don't believe it."

  Sylvia lets out an exasperated sigh and tosses her head back before slinging it forward to drop her forehead on to the table. The plate of food beside her bounces slightly, but the gravy manages to stay in place in my chosen vessel. That's one of the benefits of using a coffee mug for gravy rather than a real gravy boat. It's harder to spill out of.

  “Scarlett, you've got to work with me here. It's been more than a month, and nothing has come out of any of this. They never found anybody murdered, and nobody just up and disappeared around that time. When are you just going to accept that you were wrong? When are you going to be satisfied?”

  “Never,” I insist. “Not until I know the truth about what happened that night.”

  She stabs a chunk of turkey, swirls it around in her mashed potatoes and gravy and stuffs it in her mouth.

  “You do know the truth about what happened that night. Everybody does. You got all big and bad because of how much you love Halloween and your ability to handle anything. You went back into the maze, not thinking they could actually surprise you by changing anything. But they did. They scared the bejeezus out of you, and it made you think you saw something you didn't. It's an honest mistake. Just let it go.”

  We are sitting on the floor in my living room, eating Thanksgiving dinner off cheap paper plates with multi-colored turkeys, and sipping cranberry flavored soda from wine glasses. It's a tradition we've maintained since college, when neither of us went home for the holidays and put together a makeshift version for ourselves.

  Now that we're back in Shadow Creek, Sylvia goes to her grandmother's house with Jackson and her parents, but the night before she comes to see me. This is my Thanksgiving. Some years I go with her to Birdie's house. But it's those years, surrounded by her loud and adoring family, that I usually end up feeling at my loneliest. I'd rather enjoy my dinner with her, then stay up and wait for her to show back up with a pumpkin pie and all the Black Friday shopping ads.

  “I can't just let it go, Sylvia. I know what everybody says. I know nobody believes me and...”

  “Thinks you're half-cracked?”

  “Possibly. It was so real. Everything about it. It just wasn't like any of the fake murders that happened in those places. It wasn't big and dramatic. There was no screaming or flailing. I know I saw someone murder someone else. Then they saw me and chased me down. They were coming after me, and I don't think they stopped. Every time I went to the maze or tried to talk to the police, it was like someone was right behind me.”

  “Probably was. Half of Shadow Creek, who also went to the haunted maze and saw super scary stuff that wasn't real,” she points out.

  “You know that's not what I mean,” I protest.

  “I do. But I also know it's not doing you any good to keep dwelling on this.”

  My shoulders drop under a long sigh, and I crunch through a forkful of green bean casserole.

  “You might be right. I just can't stop thinking about that night,” I mutter.

  “Maybe you just can't stop thinking about your superhero. I sure wish we knew who he was.”

  I brush her off.

  “I think that's something else we should just let go. I haven't seen him since. He was just a masked Halloween fantasy,” I shrug.

  “Is that something like a Christmas miracle?” Sylvia asks.

  “Maybe,” I say with a laugh. “It did have the whole virgin thing going for it.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Gavin

  February…

  I need a new gatekeeper.

  That's the first thing on my to-do list when I get home next week. It seems the one who up until recently was in my employ has a problem with the concept of not just flinging the gate open on a whim. Or, at least, not opening it every time he sees Eva. Granted, she was wearing almost nothing when she showed up yesterday, and what little fabric was on her body was primarily sequins and glitter. It's entirely possible he was bedazzled by it and couldn't think clearly.

  If it was the first time this happened, I might give him the benefit of the doubt. Unfortunately, her early Valentine's Day display came at me close on the heels of her New Year's Eve demonstration and appearing at my house in Mrs. Claus themed lingerie Christmas morning. Extreme potential for hypothermia aside, her increasingly lavish and lascivious attempts to reclaim me have worn my patience thin.

  Fortunately, my escape plan was already in the works. After much cajoling and encouraging, and Beck playing the I-missed-his-wedding card despite that already being part of his encouragement for me going to the Halloween party, I agreed to return to Shadow Creek for Valentine's Day. Usually I'm not one for heart-shaped boxes of chocolates and red roses, but it's the perfect opportunity to cut out for a couple of days.

  Even if I did manage to convince Eva not to continue increasing her campaign through Valentine's Day, there are still expectations. If I was in town, I would be expected at one of the countless charity galas and events thrown this weekend. Where rumor pages would be thirsting for the perfect picture of me with a date draped on my arm.

  I've seen it all before. I've played the game. It doesn't appeal to me anymore. Besides, Marla has been binge-watching doctor shows recently and has gotten onto a kick about stress. She's convinced if I keep going at the pace I do and don't take time off occasionally, my heart's going to explode in my office one day. In exchange for her agreement to stop sending me pictures from medical journals and no longer swapping my cream for almond milk, I told her I'll try to take more time off.

  This weekend seems like the perfect time. Besides, it was great catching up with Beck over Halloween, and I look forward to spending more time with him. When I get to Shadow Creek, Beck's house is quiet. But that's what I'm expecting. Before my plane landed, he sent me a text saying he would be at work when I arrived, and Ruby was bringing baby George over to see her grandmother for the day. He told me if neither of them were home when I got there to let him know. Setting my suitcase down on the porch, I take out my phone and call him.

  “Are you there?” he asks.

  “Yeah. I just got here. Doesn't look like anybody's home.”

  “No problem.” There's a click in the door, and a light pops on inside. “Go ahead. It should be open now.”

  The door handle turns under my hand, and I step into the foyer. Pulling my luggage in with me, I close the door.

  “I'm in,” I tell him. “That was cool.”

  “Perfect. When I had the house built, I had it equipped with smart features because my darling wife has a problem remembering to lock doors. It's not usually an issue in Shadow Creek, but after the events from a couple years ago, I tend to err on the side of caution,” Beck explains. “There’s a key hanging on the wall beside you, in case you need to go back out before someone gets there.”

  “Well, thanks for that. It's freezing outside. It wasn't this cold when I left Richmond.”

  “It's supposed to warm up a little. It's February. The daffodils will be out soon. Make yourself at home. Feel free to grab something to eat and relax. Ruby shouldn’t be too much longer, and I’ll be back tonight.”

 
; “Looking forward to it,” I tell him.

  I end the call and make my way upstairs to the same room where I stayed in October. It looks exactly like it did the last time I saw it, and I breathe a sigh of relief. Far too often, the wives of the wealthy and powerful men I know fall into the habit of continuously redecorating their homes. Suddenly the pages of home magazines become the adult version of peer pressure, and every few weeks sees brand new color schemes and furnishings. It’s disorienting, and I often I wonder if there’s a closet somewhere in those homes where if someone pried open the locked door, they’d be instantly smothered in an avalanche of cast-off duvet covers and throw pillows.

  When my clothes are put away and my toiletries set up in the bathroom attached to the guest bedroom, I make my way back downstairs. A cold fireplace tempts me from the living room, and I suddenly have a taste for bourbon. Grabbing my coat, I head out for a trip into the village. Even a town this small has to have a liquor store.

  As it turns out, Shadow Creek most certainly does have a liquor store. Not only that, but the purveyor is extensively knowledgeable and passionate about bourbon. We get into a long discussion, and I tip back a few samples of his impressive collection. I don't know how long I've been there when I finally select a few bottles and walk back out onto the sidewalk.

  The temperature seems to have dropped even further, and the sun's position in the sky tells me the afternoon is ticking by. It shouldn't be too much longer before Ruby and Beck get back, but I look forward to getting a fire roaring and relaxing with a drink.

  Thinking it might be nice to have a few snacks waiting for when my hosts arrive back home, I turn away from where my rental car is parked and walk down the sidewalk. The owner of the liquor store clued me in to a small gourmet market less than two blocks down. I'm almost to it when the door opens, and a woman steps out.