Two Bites Too Many

by Debra H. Goldstein

  Sarah wondered what her mother was planning to discuss with Mr. Rogers once he felt better, but she didn’t dare ask.

  “Sarah, thanks for caring enough to follow me home, but it’s time for you to go back to Wheaton, too.” Maybelle turned off the lamp, kissed Sarah, and left the room. Alone, Sarah realized her mother had just graciously kicked her out. She took the hint.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  As Sarah drove back from Birmingham, she realized the sun would set soon. Considering everything that had happened, she didn’t feel like immediately going home, but driving aimlessly seemed pointless. Ahead, she saw the highway turnoff to reach the bluff. That seemed the perfect place to go.

  Cliff had told her she had an open invitation, but she’d felt funny going there since the day they went out on the boat. She didn’t want it to seem like she was trying to be more than friends. With him staying with Mr. Rogers at the hospital, she didn’t have to worry about running into him.

  For a moment, she felt bad about leaving RahRah and Fluffy alone even longer but quickly disregarded that thought. She needed “me” time. This way, she could enjoy the beauty of the sunset from her absolute favorite place and use the few moments of solitude to think about everything that had transpired during the past week.

  As she rounded the curve to park near Cliff’s house, she saw that his truck was parked next to his cabin. Apparently, he hadn’t stayed at the hospital too long. She guessed Mr. Good Guy’s devotion to sitting with his uncle was lip service for their benefit.

  Sarah was about to turn around and leave, but she’d come this far. She might as well watch the sunset from the bluff. Sarah thought about parking and not admitting to Cliff she was even there, but if he looked out and saw her sitting on the bluff, he would think she was being rude.

  Consequently, she parked and approached the cabin. As she reached the top of the wood-hewn stairs, she saw another car parked on the cabin’s far side. Sarah thought again about turning back and leaving, but, accusing herself of never being spontaneous, she forced herself to approach the front window and door. She was about to knock when the sound of voices caught her attention.

  Sarah moved closer to the picture window and tried to peek inside the room. Although she couldn’t tell who the voices belonged to, there was no question in her mind that an argument was going on and that the voices were male. Uncertain where the men were, she questioned if she could simply back off the porch without being seen. The problem, as she saw the shadow of two men at the edge of the room, was whether the tinted view of the room she had through the window was the same from inside the cabin.

  Now she wished she had taken the cabin tour instead of the boat ride. She paused when she heard them bantering Lance’s name. At that moment, the two arguing men stepped into full view of the window. From where she stood, their faces were shadowed, but she assumed from his build that the taller and huskier one was Cliff.

  As she watched, the smaller man shoved Cliff. Cliff stumbled backward but didn’t hit back. Instead, he regained his footing, stepped forward, and yelled something about “your stupid Ponzi scheme” at the man. The other man grabbed a vase from the small table he stood near and threw it at Cliff. It missed.

  This time, Cliff responded. He dove at the man and pushed him toward the small table. The table went over, but still the little man stayed on his feet. He was a scrapper.

  As their fight brought the men closer to the window, Sarah knew she had to leave now. Before she could move, the black suited man tripped and fell. The larger man froze, looking straight at Sarah. Recognition came over his face while, at the same time, Sarah realized she’d been wrong. The man wasn’t Cliff.

  It was Thomas. She was surprised the glass between them didn’t melt from the intensity of his look as she knew he’d recognized her. At that moment, the other man, who she now could see was Bailey, hit Thomas again from behind. He started to fall but caught himself on something below the window out of Sarah’s view. What she could see was him straightening up with something in his hand. Moving forward, Thomas swung the object at Bailey, hitting him in the head. For a moment, Bailey stood perfectly still then crumpled to the ground. He didn’t move again, even when Thomas pressed against his neck checking for a pulse.

  Sarah wasn’t sure if she’d stifled an involuntary scream, but she wasn’t going to wait to find out. She started to run back to her car, but she was too late. She heard the front door open and footsteps behind her. Adrenaline pumped her to run faster, willing herself to get to her car and not lose time looking back. It wasn’t enough. He caught her, jerking her arm so hard she yelped in pain. Tears filled her eyes from the agony caused by the sheer force with which he wrenched her around to face him. Her vision cleared, and the rage on Thomas’s face made her cringe in fear.

  Thomas pulled her back up the stairs to a place on the porch where they could both see into the cabin through the wide-open door. She questioned if Bailey was still alive.

  It was as if Thomas read her mind. “He’s dead, but, Sarah, it isn’t what you think. It was an accident. Surely, you saw us fighting?”

  “You’re hurting me.” She tried to pull away, but he held her arm too tightly.

  Thomas didn’t respond to her comment. He averted his eyes. “We were fighting over him stealing from the shelter. I wanted Cliff and him to give themselves up. Not for this to happen.”

  “Cliff and Bailey?”

  “That’s right. The numbers they gave me to report at Catapalooza seemed low. I know it sounds crazy, but between Uncle George and the money being off, I came out here to see if I could find money or something lying around. If I did, I wanted to give my brother a chance to explain before I raised a stink about them skimming off the top.”

  She knew he was right about what he’d announced being off, but she also knew he still held her arm. Again, it was as if he was in her mind. He let her go and pointed to her arm. “Sorry about that. I panicked. I didn’t want you running off from here thinking you saw something when it really was something else.”

  “I don’t understand.” She rubbed her arm. There were going to be bruise marks where her skin still showed white finger impressions from him holding her. “What made you think if money was missing, it was Cliff and Bailey who shorted the shelter?”

  “Because Bailey was the treasurer and, well, since Bailey took over for Lance, Cliff and he not only have been hanging out together a lot, but Cliff seems to have a lot of extra cash. For a guy who went bonkers when his loan was rejected, he sure has a lot of nice toys down by the river.”

  Sarah couldn’t disagree with him on that. She flexed her fingers. Her arm tingled, but she didn’t think it was dislocated. “I still don’t understand why you came out here, especially when you could have talked to him at the hospital.”

  “As upset as I was over Uncle George, that was the only thing I could think about. I guess I should have confronted him once we found out Uncle George was going to be okay, but Harlan, your mother, and you were there. I wanted to talk to Cliff privately.”

  “Even if he was guilty of a crime?”

  “Cliff and I don’t usually see eye to eye, but he is my brother. I thought I owed it to him to give him a chance to come clean. I hoped I was wrong about him being involved, but if I wasn’t, I thought I might be able to convince him to give the shelter back the donated money. It sounds sappy, but I figured if Cliff squared things away with the shelter, no one would have to be the wiser. That’s why, when I couldn’t get him alone to talk, I came out here. Like I said, I thought he might have stashed some off the money in the cabin or by the boathouse.When I got here, I parked and came in.”

  “You parked?”

  Thomas pointed toward Cliff’s truck. “Cliff and I rode to the hospital in his truck. My car is at the church. Because I needed to get back to the hotel, I gave him my keys and took his truck while he stayed with Uncle George. We figured we’d trade our rides back tomorrow. It wasn’t until I was already at the
door that I realized Bailey was here.”

  His explanation made sense to Sarah. She hadn’t seen Bailey’s car, either, until she approached the door.

  “When I walked in, I stupidly accused Bailey of playing with the shelter’s money. He didn’t deny it. Then, thinking about Cliff’s loan being called and Emily’s being rejected, I made some snide remark about him having his finger in the bank’s till, too. That’s when we started fighting, and it escalated from words to punches. I grabbed the figurine from the table and swung. I don’t know how long you were on the porch, but I know you were there long enough to see me grab the figurine off the bookcase and hit him in self-defense.”

  “Yes.” She bit her lip, realizing she probably had admitted too much.

  “Then you saw him fall. I thought, at first, I’d only knocked him out, but when I went to help him, I couldn’t find a pulse. That’s when I realized I hit him in the temple and killed him. Before I could react beyond that realization, I heard you scream. That’s when I got scared.”

  Sarah backed away.

  “Wait.” Thomas put his hand on her arm again, only more gently this time. “Please, before you leave. I need to call the police and let them know what’s happened out here. Cliff doesn’t have a landline and my phone is dead. Would you mind calling the police for me with your phone?”

  He released her arm and looked back through the doorway. “Please? I’ve got to report this. I’ve got to tell them I didn’t mean to kill him.”

  Thomas turned back toward her. With the hand he had held her with, he ran his fingers through his hair, finally resting it on his forehead. “I’ve got to tell them it was an accident. That I’m responsible for a horrible accident.”

  His face contorted. Sarah thought he might burst into tears. Seeing how upset he was, she was convinced her initial reaction to what she’d seen was wrong. He might be flawed, but there was no way this man could possibly mean to hurt her if he was letting her call the police. She pulled her phone from her pocket and stared at it as she typed in her passcode and started to dial 9-1-1. Before she could punch in the final number, Thomas grabbed her phone, dropped it to the ground, and smashed it with his foot. Stunned, she turned to run again, but he was too quick.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  Yanking her by the hair, he forced her into the cabin and into a straight-backed chair. He let go. Her scalp burned. She partially rose from the chair, but he pushed her back. She fell against the hard wood of the chair. Instinctively, she put her hands behind her and felt for its seat. One hand caught the edge and she plopped hip first onto the chair’s seat. She didn’t try to get up again because any path of escape was blocked by Thomas towering over her as he reached for the supposedly nonexistent landline sitting on a table next to her. With one tug, he pulled the phone cord from the wall.

  “Put your hands in front of you.”

  Remembering the article she’d read in Harlan’s office about how magicians escaped when they were tied up, she crossed her wrists and held her hands out toward Thomas.

  “Stop the funny business. Uncross your wrists.”

  From the way he held the telephone cord, she was afraid if she angered him, he would hit her rather than tie her up. “Sorry.” She positioned her hands separately but tightened her muscles while she kept the knuckles from both hands together. As Thomas whipped the cord around her wrists, she pulled her hands slightly toward her chest and prayed that when she relaxed there would be enough of a gap that she could work her hands out.

  “Why? Why did you do all of this?”

  “Figure it out.”

  Sarah’s mind raced, trying to put two and two together. Nothing fit until she remembered Eloise’s comment about not all loan requests being collateralized in the fashion her mother offered for Emily and Marcus and the words she’d just overheard about a Ponzi scheme. With Bailey on the floor, what Emily said about corners being cut in the kitchen, and Thomas stiffing Emily on her six months’ guaranteed salary, there had to be a monetary connection with the hotel.

  She took a stab at it, hoping to distract Thomas while she loosened her hands. “It’s the hotel, isn’t it?”

  “You are the bright one. I could tell that at lunch. You didn’t want your sister to have anything to do with my kitchen or me, did you?”

  Sarah thought she better humor him. “Not without a contract. I thought you were a man with a purpose, so she needed to protect herself. All I could do was be the voice of reason and try to keep her from acting without thinking.” She shook her head. “Little good I did on that one.”

  He laughed.

  “You played Emily like a fiddle until you got everything you wanted from her, right? Were you playing Bailey and Cliff, too?”

  Thomas didn’t laugh again. “Cliff? That boy scout? No. The only one who had his finger in the till was Bailey.”

  “At the shelter and the bank? Did he short the shelter or did you both do that?”

  He whistled. “You’re smarter than you look. So you know the shelter really was being shorted?”

  “At Catapalooza, you announced we’d only made a tad over twenty thousand. I knew that couldn’t be right because I personally collected twenty thousand in corporate sponsorships. Most things were donated, so once cash ticket sales and other private donations were factored in, our bottom line had to be higher.” She felt the cord give slightly.

  “It was, but Bailey got greedy. Stop fidgeting.”

  Sarah stilled her hands and glanced toward where Bailey lay. “Sorry, I’m nervous. You said he got greedy. Did you want some of that money for the hotel?”

  “Not from the money raised for the shelter. Too obvious. See how easily even you figured out the numbers were off when I announced the figure he’d given me.”

  “From what I understood, he was a real numbers person. If it was that obvious, what did he want the money so badly for that he took the chance of others noticing he’d sloughed off the top?”

  Thomas smiled. “To fund his Ponzi scheme.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “With Lance looking the other way, Bailey started a pyramid or Ponzi scheme using construction-related loan money. He denied a loan and then waited a few days and called the people and told them he’d found some new silent investors for them who, without worrying so much about compliance rules as his bank did, were willing to give them a short-term loan at a point above the going interest rate until they secured a mortgage or loan from another source. As each one paid the loan back, he skimmed from the top and lent the money out again.”

  “But how did he know the people would be able to pay him back?”

  “Easy. He only did it with customers whose credit and resources should have been approved to begin with. Only, this time, his pipeline broke down. He was desperate and thought he could use the cash from YipYeow to pay off his present obligation. Once he lined up a new investor, he planned to announce an error occurred when the cash was counted so the shelter earned more money than previously stated.”

  “But how are you and the hotel involved?” Even as the words came out of her mouth, she realized it must have something to do with creative financing Bailey arranged for the hotel.

  “The Howellian has run in the red since it opened because of cost overruns, but I knew I could turn everything around if I could just get more capital. Lance did part of the hotel’s initial financing without collateral, so I went back to him for an additional loan.”

  “But he passed you off to Bailey?”

  “That’s right. He was too busy with the city council duties to handle my loan request, but he told Bailey to treat me like family. Instead, Bailey turned my application down. Said I was too extended and the assets didn’t justify any further loan from the bank. In fact, he threatened that the bank might have to foreclose if I didn’t keep making my payments as due. I panicked. I went to my uncle and he refused to invest in the hotel or loan me any money. Told me the hotel was my folly and he wanted nothing to do wi
th it. He wouldn’t throw good money after bad.”

  “Is that when you threatened to put him in a retirement home?”

  “I never threatened him. I was trying to explain what his house was worth if we sold it or changed it into our own restaurant or bed-and-breakfast. He asked where I thought he was going to go while I transformed his home and I mentioned a retirement home. He freaked. Told me I was an ungrateful lout and kicked me out. Desperate, I went back to the bank to talk with Bailey again. He repeated the bank couldn’t grant me the loan, but then he offered me a way to not only borrow the money but have a portion of it forgiven.”

  “I don’t understand. When Emily and Marcus’s request was turned down, Lance told us there were a multitude of new compliance rules. This doesn’t sound like a deal that would meet any of them.” She felt one of the cords loosen ever so slightly.

  “It wasn’t. Bailey offered me a private loan from a group of investors. I’d get the money and wouldn’t have to put the hotel up as collateral if I used my family and personal connections to influence a few of the city council members to delay some votes. I said that didn’t sound legit, but Bailey explained the bank was going to reject some loan applications, but like he was doing with me, he would then offer the applicant a short-term loan like he was doing with me.”

  “But why did he need you to delay construction permit approvals or votes for a week or two?”

  “To give Bailey time to reject the bank application and then run his private deal without the person having to start over at the council. It created a temporary annoyance to the borrower, which he would aim at the council, but, in the end, the applicant got his permit and money, Bailey got his piece of the action, and the bad taste with the council would be forgotten once everyone got what they wanted.” Thinking of Marcus and Emily and how excited they were when the loan and permits came through, she knew Thomas was right.