Baby and the Billionaire

by Beverly Evans

  She hasn't told him about the links we found between Matthew Branson and the summer carnival, for his disappearance. She's testing him, waiting to see his reaction and evaluating what he's doing with the case.

  "What have you found out about Matthew Branson? The man whose identification was with the body."

  "It doesn't mean anything, Scarlett. It's a mistake. We did some preliminary searching and couldn't find anything out about him. All we know is that body isn't him. So as far as I'm concerned, Matthew Branson is a non-entity in this situation."

  "That's all I needed to hear," she says.

  He smiles, but all I can think is he should wipe that grin off his face. He has no idea what he's gotten himself into.

  Jimmy leaves without any further arguments, and seconds after he steps off the porch, our dinner arrives. The delivery man looks at us apologetically, and we have to reassure him we didn't call in the police to report late lo mein and fried rice. Scarlett settles onto the couch and pulls the book about the McVey house onto the cushion beside her. Her chopsticks dip down into chicken fried rice and shovel a large bite into her mouth as she scans over the pictures of the house again. I pick up my own container of beef and broccoli and sit beside her.

  "I take it you aren't going to follow Jimmy's instructions?" I ask.

  "If I wasn't before, I sure as hell won't be starting now, now that I've found my lost phone smashed to pieces on my front porch. I'm not letting this go. Somebody has to figure this out, and apparently that's going to have to be me."

  "Fine. I know well enough by now I'm not going to be able to stop you. But I'm also not going to leave you," I tell her.

  "What do you mean? You have a business trip next weekend. Eventually you're going to have to go back to the office on a regular basis. You have a company to run."

  "Eventually. Not right now. I can assign other people to these meetings. As for day-to-day operations, my life is just going to have to deal. Marla knows the ins and outs of that company nearly as well as I do and can make decisions exactly the way I would. She can even sign my signature so well people who've known me for years can't tell the difference," I say.

  "Your work is everything to you," she points out.

  "No. Not even close. Not anymore. The company will be fine without me. Marla will just have to deal. I found something much more important."

  Scarlett smiles, and I can't resist kissing her. I could sit here beside her and kiss her for the rest of the night. It's just a bonus to being there to protect her. Nothing will stop me from doing that. Whatever it takes, I won't let anything happen to her or our baby.

  "Can you think of anyone who might be behind these things?" I ask.

  Scarlett shakes her head. "No. According to Jimmy, the entire town thinks I've lost my marbles. It could theoretically be any of them. What about your crazy ex? She's found creative ways to torment you. Think she could have moved on to me?"

  She smiles through the teasing, and I shake my head.

  "I'm pretty sure you're safe from Eva. I don't know if she can string enough thoughts together to orchestrate something like this," I tell her.

  "She threw you a fake wedding," Scarlett points out. "And an elaborate birthday party."

  "On the wrong day," I remind her. "That's true, but that's just a Martha Stewart website and fourteen hired industry professionals. Last I checked, there isn't a specific career path in harassment."

  "Credit card account collectors," she says, then her face falls. "Which probably isn't anywhere near as funny to someone who has never even pondered life without the ability to pay a bill. Moment of clarity."

  "Regardless, you got the first note at Valentine's Day. I had barely even seen you again. Eva would have no way of knowing about you," I say.

  "That's true. That kind of drama is the last thing I need right now. Well, maybe not the last thing, but definitely on the list," she says.

  "What about your client Marilyn? You said she's really demanding about finding her a house, and she's definitely not excited to see us together," I suggest.

  "No," she says, shaking her head. "Marilyn is harmless. A little bit cracked, perhaps, but harmless. And she didn't know about us until after the notes, either. So, I guess that brings us back to our original theory."

  "What's our original theory?" I ask.

  "We didn't have one."

  I kiss her again, needing the feeling of her lips and wanting the taste of her tongue. She leans into it, sighing happily. Our kiss ends, and Scarlett pulls the book closer, staring down at the picture through narrowed eyes.

  "What is it?" I ask.

  "I don't know. That's the thing. I've been looking at this picture since the first time you showed me the book, and there's something about it that's bothering me. I just can't place it."

  I look at the page. It's the formal dining room, dripping with gold and a massive crystal chandelier.

  "It reminds me a lot of Ruby's Valentine's Day party," I joke.

  Scarlett lets out a short laugh, then shakes her head. "It's just weird. Something about this picture is off, and I can't figure it out."

  She's still talking about the picture the next day over breakfast. And lunch. It isn't until the middle of the afternoon when she finally stops and starts thinking about something else.

  Her eyes can't move away from the screen beside her, and her hand tightens around mine. In those moments, there's only one thing on her mind. Not even the phone call I made to Marla earlier can creep through.

  I understand. I can't think of anything else, either.

  "I can't believe how big she's getting," she says.

  "You're over twenty-four weeks now," the doctor says, smiling as she admires Cupcake's image on the screen just like we are. "The baby is viable. If she was born today, she'd have fantastic chances of survival."

  Scarlett cringes, but she's still smiling. "I know that was supposed to sound encouraging, but… " she shudders. "We're just going to encourage her to stay right in place for a good little while longer. No rush."

  The doctor laughs and takes a few pictures of the image on the screen. She hands the printouts to us and steps out of the room so Scarlett can get dressed.

  "Thank you for letting me bring you here today," I say, staring down at the new features and stronger clarity of the image compared to the first ones I saw.

  "Of course," Scarlett says. "I'm glad you were here."

  "I want to be from now on. I want to be a part of every appointment you have."

  She nods, seeming to swallow down a few tears.

  "Absolutely," she whispers.

  Chapter Forty

  Scarlett

  "Marla got back to me," Gavin says, coming into my office in a flurry.

  "Hi," I say.

  He smiles and leans across my desk to give me a kiss. "Hi."

  "What did she find out?" I ask.

  It's been a few days since Gavin called Marla to have her look into the holding company that owned the house before it was reclaimed by the town. I've never dealt with a company owning a house on selling rather than an individual and didn't even know how to begin trying to find out who might be at the head of it.

  Even Jimmy agrees it's important to find out who actually owns the house. After all, they've been keeping a body stashed away like an extra Thanksgiving turkey for the last twenty-five years. That's something that makes the police want to have a little bitty conversation with you.

  Unfortunately, the poking around they've done into the company hasn't come up with anything. They're trying different angles, but I don't know exactly what's going on in their investigation. Jimmy told me in no uncertain terms I am not to try to sieve more information out of him, and I am not privy to the official actions of the police department in this case.

  He simply will not believe he must have left his file of information on the top of the soda machine in the waiting room himself.

  But that hasn't stopped me. Milkshake severely underestimates how
determined I am to unravel this case. Fortunately, he also underestimates just how many resources Gavin has available to him. This time, we're not talking about his billions sitting around in the bank, or his private plane, or the two new cars he's added to the collection lined up in the hangar. This time, we're talking about Marla.

  His assistant is a force in and of herself. She and Ruby's brother Jamie would make a great pair. Or a terrifying one. It might be better just to keep the two of them apart and not find that out. Gavin called her, gave her what little information we have about the holding company, and asked her to find out everything she can. Now, she has delivered.

  "The holding company is The Masque Corporation. But there's no real indication that there is actually a corporation of any kind going on. It's not even really a holding company, because it doesn't own any stock in any other companies. It's just a shell. Marla says it took a lot of digging to find out anything about it at all. There aren't any public trade records, no website, nothing in the news. But she finally found it. Turns out it was created in the very early 1900s but has no record of any business dealings. No sales, production, anything. All it does is own property."

  "The house on Candlewood," I say.

  "That one," Gavin says. "And one more."

  My ears perk up. "One more? I didn't know of any other houses in Shadow Creek owned by a company rather than a person."

  "That's because it's not there anymore," Gavin explains. "It hasn't been for quite a while. You were very young at the time, but do you remember anything about where the carnival grounds are now?"

  I shake my head. "No. Sylvia and I actually just talked about that. We weren't friends when we were little, so we have some pretty different memories of childhood here. Which is good in this situation because it gives us a wider view. But neither of us remember the summer carnival at all. Or anything happening on those grounds until we were much older. It's strange. This all seems like something that would be one of the big legends of Shadow Creek. We have all these stories about the houses and ghosts and whatnot, but nothing about an actual disappearance?"

  "Matthew Branson wasn't a local," Gavin offers. "He wasn't one of your own. I'm sure the older generations would say it feels inappropriate to have stories about someone who isn't from around here. Besides, the company only came back to do the summer carnival one more year. Then it stopped. But the carnival grounds stayed. They were farmlands at one point, then offered over to the town to use for events. Only, there was one thing on it owned by someone other than the town."

  He reaches in his pocket and pulls out a folded piece of paper. Opening it, he sets it on the desk in front of me. I look down at the grainy picture of a house.

  "It looks just like one of the haunted houses," I comment. I scan the rest of the image, trying to orient myself as to where the building might be standing on the grounds. "It's in the same place, too."

  Gavin grins, nodding. "It is. That's because that's the original house that stood there. Now, look at this."

  He puts down another piece of paper and smooths it out. It's the same house, but it looks brighter, more cheerful. It’s draped in red, white, and blue bunting with baskets of flowers in the same hues hanging from hooks on the porch. People are scattered around the grounds in front of it, a few of them holding cotton candy and snow cones.

  "Is this from the summer carnival?" I ask.

  "Yes. Three years before Matthew Branson disappeared. People couldn’t go inside the house during the festival, but it was always decorated, and carnival goers would sit on the porch to eat," he explains.

  "And this is the other property owned by The Masque Corporation?" I ask.

  "Mmmm-hmmmm. But, interestingly, it wasn't at the time. Everyone in town knew very well who owned the house then. It used to be owned by the Bender family, but they died out in the early eighties. There was no family left, and the last member made an interesting choice when deciding what to do with their property upon their death. They left it to Harlan McVey."

  My eyes snap up, my mouth falling slightly open. "Harlan McVey? As in, the Harlan McVey who used to own the mansion on the hill?"

  "The Harlan McVey, who still owns the mansion on the hill," he confirms.

  "Why would the Benders leave the house to him?" I ask.

  Gavin shrugs. "I don't know. But the winter before Matthew went missing, McVey sold it."

  "To The Masque Corporation."

  Gavin nods. "And by the summer after he disappeared, the house was torn down. No one knew why. Some said it was just because it was old, and no one had lived there in years. Others said it took up too much space at the carnival grounds."

  "So, why was it built again as a haunted house? Whose idea was that?" I ask. "If the property is still owned by The Masque Corporation, does that mean they rebuilt it?"

  "I doubt that. There wouldn't be a lot of purpose. It was built by someone who remembers it and has a reason for wanting it to be there. I really don't think the owner of the company would care," he tells me.

  "So, Marla did find the owner."

  "One Harlan McVey."

  I blink a few times. I can't have heard that right. "Harlan McVey? He sold the house to himself?"

  "Apparently. Masque still owns the Candlewood house and the property of the carnival grounds house. But here's the really interesting thing…"

  "You have had a lot of interesting things to tell me," I point out.

  "Seems that way. After a lot of digging, Marla found out Harlan McVey owns The Masque Corporation and, therefore, those two properties. But after a whole lot more digging, there was something pretty important she couldn't find," Gavin says.

  "What's that?" I ask.

  "Harlan McVey himself. He hasn't been photographed or made any appearances at his usual functions in almost a year. Officially, he's traveling. His business associates and family all say the same thing. Harlan always talked about his plans to sail around the world one day when he retired. Only there was no retirement. He just left."

  "Which would explain why the house ended up getting reclaimed. He didn't come back when he usually would." I let out a breath, trying to let it all process. "I can't believe it was Harlan McVey who slunk around in that empty house. Why would he do that?"

  "Because he knew there was a body in a freezer," Gavin points out.

  My stomach sinks, and my heart pounds in my chest. The body. In all the excitement of finding out the hidden details of the company, the presence of the frozen body slipped my mind. And the electricity that kept him frozen.

  "The electricity never went off there. He's still maintaining the house. But then why didn't he come back? He had to have known the deadline was coming." A thought pops into my head, and I scramble to gather all my things. "We have to go. I need to get back to my house."

  "Is something wrong?" he asks.

  "There's something I need to see."

  We make it back to my house in record time, and I run inside to where the printouts, books, and other research documents are spread out over the coffee table. Dropping down to my knees beside the table, I sift through them until I find what I'm looking for. I set it aside and find the next one, then the next.

  "What is it?" Gavin asks.

  "Remember Priscilla McVey winning the contest with her green pepper jelly? Here she is." I point to the picture of all the winners of the food contest that year posing together. "She was only thirteen there. Here's a picture of her with her parents at the mansion." I show him a picture in the history book.

  "Okay."

  "Okay, now look at the picture with the jelly again." I point to her and then to the blurry image to the side of her young face. "Do you see that person?"

  "Sort of," he says.

  I show him another picture. This time of a slightly older Priscilla walking through the carnival, a smile on her face. I point to another smiling face a few paces in front of her. "How about that one?"

  "Yes."

  I show him a third picture of
Priscilla, this one of her leaned against the side of a food booth. "And this one?"

  "They all look about the same."

  "Like him?" I show him the picture of Matthew Branson on the dunking booth, then slide my finger over to the image of Priscilla's face behind him.

  "Oh," he says.

  "Yeah. I think someone needs to have a talk with Priscilla McVey about Matthew. And we need to keep looking for these tunnels. If I'm right, I might have just figured out how it was done. I just need to figure out what it was."

  I get up and head toward the bedroom.

  "Where are you going?" Gavin asks.

  "To change my clothes. I'm not climbing around in hidden tunnels in my work clothes," I tell him.

  "You shouldn't be climbing around in hidden tunnels at all," he calls after me, following me into my bedroom.

  "Your thoughts are duly noted."

  "But ignored," he says.

  I kick off my shoes and unbutton my shirt. "Not ignored. Submitted for consideration and determined to not be applicable for this moment in time."

  Gavin laughs. "I love it when you sound professional."

  He steps up behind me and helps me finish the buttons. His fingertips run down the center of my chest and lightly brush the swells of my breasts. We're in the same position we were on the Fourth of July, his body molded against mine, my head dropped back against his shoulder. Only this time, his mouth plays along the side of my neck as the attention focuses totally on me.

  His hand slips between us and slides the zipper of my skirt down. The fabric slides down my legs and pools at my feet. Rather than letting me step out of it, Gavin sweeps his arm behind my knees to scoop me up and carry me over to the bed. He settles me onto the lightweight blanket, so I rest back against the pillows. He slips off the thigh highs I've taken to wearing because pantyhose no longer fit comfortably over my belly, then unhooks my bra and frees my heavy breasts.

  The brush of his breath against my nipples tightens them, and a shiver of sensation rolls along my skin. His tongue flicks across one taut peak and then the other before he brings his mouth down to my thighs. They shake beneath the touch of his lips, gliding along the tender insides. My body is readying itself for more of his attention. Already hot and wet, my core squeezes like it's seeking him.