Even if I said so myself, it was delightful, the ideal end to a perfect meal. I was glad that I hadn’t let the exchanges at the table between the others interfere with my enjoyment of the food.
“That was absolutely amazing,” Killian said as he finished his portion of dessert. “Suzanne, how would you like a full-time position here?”
“I’m honored, but I’ve already got a job,” I told him.
“Well, if you change your mind, there’s a place for you. Jake, you can come, too. I could use a head of Security on the mountain.”
“Why would he be qualified to do that job?” Abel asked pointedly.
“Jake is a retired state police inspector,” I told them. After all, he’d had a chance to brag on me. Now it was my turn. “He was one of the best they ever had.”
“Really,” Jasper said, and then he bit his lower lip.
“Really,” I said.
“What do you do now, Jake?” Vera asked him.
“I’m a consultant for police departments in the area,” Jake answered.
“They bring him in whenever they can’t solve the case themselves,” I added.
“Suzanne,” Jake admonished me slightly.
“What? It’s true.” I stood and gathered our plates before Killian could say a word in protest. “Don’t. Say. A. Word,” I told him with my sternest look.
He burst out laughing, a reaction the others clearly didn’t understand.
“Would anyone like coffee?” I asked.
“Yes, please,” Abel said, and there were other nods, all except for Hank. “Can’t stand the stuff. Besides, I need to make my rounds,” he added. “Suzanne, that was amazing, every last bite of it. I can’t wait to see breakfast. You’re making us all donuts, right?”
Killian said gruffly, “Hank, she’s my guest.”
The sheer look of disappointment on his face was more than I could take. “If you can talk your boss into allowing it, I’d be delighted to whip up a batch of donuts for everyone.”
“You can dock my pay a week if you let her,” Hank said with all seriousness.
“That won’t be necessary,” Killian said. “Would you mind, Suzanne? I’m beginning to feel guilty about how much work I’m asking you to do.”
“I don’t mind, and besides, I volunteered, remember? It will be fun,” I said.
“I don’t see how, but you and your husband are banished from any more duties tonight. Go, enjoy yourselves, while we clean up.”
Jake was about to protest when I clearly surprised him by accepting our host’s offer. “Agreed.”
They were beginning to clear the table again when I pulled Jake out of there.
I couldn’t wait to hear what he had learned, and now I’d have the chance to hear everything out of everyone else’s earshot.
Chapter 6
“TELL ME WHAT YOU’VE been up to since we split up,” I asked Jake as we started up the stairs.
“Let’s wait until we get into our room,” my husband answered.
“I don’t really see any point to waiting, since everybody else that’s here is in the kitchen cleaning up.”
“I suppose that’s fair, but we don’t know where Hank is at the moment,” Jake answered.
“So if we see him, we’ll change the subject,” I said. I was going to die of curiosity if I had to wait much longer to hear what Jake had learned.
“Okay. First of all, Vera and Abel do not normally get along at all, but they’ve decided to work together against Killian in a fairly diabolical way.”
“I know. Can you believe it? They’re trying to get the grocery store chain to dip below the acceptable level of profits to force him to buy it back.”
Jake looked at me oddly. “How could you possibly know that?”
“Killian told me while we were cooking,” I said.
“Killian? That man keeps everything close to the chest. Why did he just open up to you?”
“He said it was because I was such a good listener.”
“Well, he’s not wrong there,” my husband said with the hint of a smile. “You like him, don’t you, Suzanne?”
“I do,” I admitted. “He’s built an amazing place here under trying circumstances, and he’s stood by his daughter’s side along the way. The fact that he’s lost so many people he was close to in the past makes me sympathize with him. I don’t know if I’d have the heart to keep going on like he has, and I admire him for his tenacity.”
“Killian’s certainly got that. I know the man’s not perfect, but I consider him a friend,” Jake admitted. “That’s not all I found out, though,” he added. “If you think his former partners are bad, wait till you hear what his family’s up to.”
“I’m listening,” I said as I grabbed the key and started to open the door.
The only problem was that it wasn’t locked to begin with. I knew it had been secured when we’d left—I’d double-checked it—but evidently someone had paid our room a visit without our knowledge or consent.
“Jake, I know I locked that door when we left,” I said softly. “Did you go back to our room?”
“How could I? I forgot to get another key,” he said. “Stay right here.”
“Nobody else is up here on the mountain, remember?” I asked.
“Nobody that we know of,” he insisted as he took out his gun.
“I didn’t realize you were armed,” I told him.
“Are you kidding? I don’t leave home without it anymore,” he answered as he nudged the door with his foot and peeked around the corner. As he stepped inside, I was on his heels. Ignoring his command to stay back just made sense to me. After all, I was safer with my husband than I was alone, and even if that weren’t true, I wanted to be close to him anyway.
Jake looked around quickly, so I did as well. I immediately saw that our bags had been disturbed, but I knew that it wasn’t time to see if anything was missing yet. My husband held a finger to his lips and then made his way to our bathroom. Shoving the door open quickly, he scanned the room before holstering his weapon. “It’s all clear,” he said.
“I’m not imagining things. That door was locked when we left,” I insisted.
“I’m sure that it was,” he answered. “Did you notice that our bags were disturbed?”
“I did,” I admitted as I went back and looked through mine. “Nothing seems to be missing here, though.”
“Mine, either,” Jake said as he looked through his own. “I wonder what they were looking for, anyway?”
“Is it possible someone was just being nosy?” I asked as I made things right again.
“If there was any staff up here, I might write it off to a meddlesome maid, but Hank’s the only staff member on the mountain with us, and I doubt turndown service is part of his job description.”
“I hope not,” I said, thinking about the boisterous man possibly being in our room. “Jake, do you think someone else might be here we don’t know about?”
“It’s a big place, Suzanne,” he said with a frown. “I wouldn’t be at all surprised.”
“If that were true though, why would they be hiding?” I asked him.
“That I don’t know, but I’ve got a feeling it’s not going to be good for Killian, no matter what the answer is.”
“How much more can that man handle?” I asked my husband.
“You know my philosophy on that. I don’t believe we ever get more than we can deal with, even though it seems like it’s more than we can imagine at times.”
He was speaking from experience, and I knew it, but I wasn’t about to say it aloud. “So, what do we do now?”
“We need to have another look around downstairs in the service quarters,” Jake answered. “That’s the only place we haven’t thoroughly checked ourselves.”
“We looked at a room and a communal bathroom,” I said. “What exactly are we checking the place for?”
“Someone else who isn’t supposed to be here, or a sign that they’re here, anyway,” J
ake said. “What do you say? Are you up for another expedition?”
“You know I am,” I said. “I just wish I had my softball bat with me.” I knew that my husband was armed and more than able to protect us both, but I also realized that I would feel better with some kind of weapon in my hands myself.
“You’ll just have to trust me, I guess,” Jake said with a slight grin.
“You know that I do.”
As we made our way downstairs to the lower level, I asked Jake, “What were you going to tell me about Beatrice and Jasper?”
“It can wait until we’ve looked around,” he said.
“I suppose so,” I answered a bit reluctantly.
“Suzanne, if there is someone downstairs hiding out, we don’t want to alert them to our presence. There will be time to talk about those two later. Let’s try to keep our conversation to a minimum until we’ve finished up down there, okay?”
“Hey, I can be as quiet as the next person,” I said as Jake opened the door to the rooms below the main level.
His eyebrows shot up as he looked at me, but he didn’t say anything.
I decided to prove my point and not respond, either.
It was the best example I could give him of just how quiet I could be.
And then I tripped over my own two feet and nearly knocked Jake down from behind despite my good intentions.
Maybe stealth wasn’t my strong suit after all.
“They’re all empty,” Jake said after we checked every room in the place.
“I know. That’s what’s so odd,” I told him.
“Why is that?” my husband asked me curiously.
“If the only room we found with things in it belongs to Killian, where does Hank sleep?”
Jake hit his forehead. “I can’t believe I missed that. I must be getting too old for this foolishness, Suzanne.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself. It was easy to overlook. You were searching for a stowaway, and you had no way of knowing if they were armed or not. I didn’t have that kind of pressure on me, so I was free to look around for other things. You can’t expect to see everything all of the time.”
“The problem is that is exactly what I expect of myself, and you know it,” Jake said. “I wonder where Hank’s staying? Surely he’s not going off the mountain at night and coming back the next morning.”
“I have no idea, but I’m surely going to ask him the next chance I get,” I said.
I headed for the inside stairs when Jake shook his head. “Let’s go up the back way.”
“Do you think someone’s hiding out there?” I asked him. “It’s starting to get cold.”
“No, but if anyone’s up on the main balcony, we might hear something we shouldn’t. It’s honestly the best place around to have any expectation of privacy if you don’t know about this level down here.”
“That’s the detective I know and love,” I said, approving of the idea.
“Former detective,” Jake reminded me.
“Once a sleuth, always a sleuth,” I said, giving him a smile.
“If you say so.”
We walked outside quietly, and I heard voices the moment we did.
Evidently Jake had been right. From the sound of it, Killian’s niece and nephew were outside talking about something they didn’t want anyone else to overhear.
Unfortunately for them, they weren’t going to get that particular wish after all.
Chapter 7
“HE’S NOT GOING TO GET away with it!” Beatrice said angrily. I was a little surprised she didn’t stamp her foot again for emphasis, but maybe she only did that when she had a bigger audience than just her brother. “That money is rightfully ours.”
“Beatrice, he’s the one who earned it. I saw how hard the man worked at the grocery. You didn’t.”
“No need to kiss his toes out here. He can’t hear you,” she snapped. “Don’t try to tell me you don’t need the money yourself.”
“I may have gotten a bit overextended,” Jasper admitted, “but I know when it comes right down to it Uncle Killian won’t let anything bad happen to us.”
“Wake up and smell the coffee,” she said angrily. “He made it pretty clear that he’s not giving either one of us another penny while he’s alive.” She paused a moment, and then repeated, “Not while he’s alive.”
“Bee!” Jasper exclaimed. “He’s family!”
“So are we, but that doesn’t seem to matter much to him right now, does it?”
Were we hearing the beginnings of a conspiracy to commit murder? I was about to storm up the steps to accuse them of just that when Jake grabbed my arm and held a finger to his lips. I knew he was right—we had to keep quiet and hear the rest of what they had to say—but it was against my nature to stand back and do nothing.
“It doesn’t matter. Leandra gets everything if anything happens to him, anyway,” Jasper reminded his sister.
“We both know Leandra isn’t long for this world,” Beatrice said. “All we have to do is to hold off until she’s gone, and then it’s all ours.”
The cold-blooded nature of this woman was chilling the blood in my veins. What kind of monster was she? Beatrice might have been beautiful on the outside, but inside she was rotten through and through, a pretty box that contained only garbage inside.
“You heard him,” Jasper said. “He’s changing his will tomorrow morning when his attorney comes up here to this monstrosity of a house.”
“Then it’s not too late,” Beatrice said.
“Too late for what?” Jasper asked.
She never had a chance to answer. I heard a door open above us and Vera came out. “What did you two just do?”
“What are you talking about?” Beatrice asked her. “We haven’t done a thing.”
Yet, I said to myself.
“Stop lying to me. You’ve clearly upset your uncle. You know what he’s been through. Why do you insist on being thorns in the man’s side even now?”
“You seem awfully defensive. What’s the matter, are you in love with him or something, Vera?” Beatrice asked.
“What? Don’t be ridiculous. That’s absurd.”
Beatrice wouldn’t let it go, though. “If it’s not true, then why are you blushing?”
“I’m not blushing, I’m angry,” she snapped at Killian’s niece.
“Lie all you want to yourself,” Beatrice said. “I’m getting cold. Are you coming, Jasper?”
“I’m right behind you,” her brother said and then, as he walked past her, I heard him mumble, “Sorry,” and then they were gone.
Vera stared off into the night and started talking to herself. “What a pair of idiots. They deserve everything they’re going to get, which is absolutely nothing.”
I thought the show was over, and I headed for the steps when the door opened again.
Abel asked, “What was that all about?”
“Killian finally told them he was cutting them off,” she explained. “He said he was using the next few days to take care of all of the problems in his life.”
“What exactly does that mean?” Abel asked her.
“I have no idea, but I’m guessing it’s not going to be good news for us, either,” she answered. “I still think we can turn that around, though.”
“You heard him this afternoon before that donutmaker and her cop husband showed up,” Abel said. “He’s willing to eat a two-million-dollar penalty to keep from running the chain again. If he does that, we’re both out of jobs.”
“How closely did you read that contract he signed, Abel?” she asked him, clearly pleased with herself about something.
“I saw it just before the final changes were made,” he admitted.
“You stopped one draft too soon, then,” she answered. “The last version had a few important revisions added into the back of it that cost me a year’s salary to have included, but it was worth it.”
“What did you do?” Abel asked her angrily. “You cut me out, did
n’t you?”
“Don’t worry, I won’t discard you completely,” she answered with a wicked little laugh. “I’ll keep you on in some kind of an advisory capacity as long as you keep your nose clean.”
“I can’t believe you would stab me in the back like that,” Abel said as he got closer to her, forcing her next to the railing. We could see part of what was happening through the slats in the decking, and I caught a glimpse of Abel’s angry face. The older man looked as though he was ready and willing to kill her in that instant.
“Easy there, sport. You don’t want to have another heart attack,” Vera said, but it was clear there was an edge of fear in her voice.
“I’m past caring about that,” he said. “You’ve screwed me for the last time, Vera.”
I saw his hands grab her shoulders, and the next thing I expected to see was her body tumbling down over the side of the rail and plummeting to the craggy precipice below.
Jake must have seen it, too. Bypassing me, he leapt up the stairs and had the gate open before Abel could follow through and do what was clearly in his heart. “There you two are. We’ve been looking all over for you,” he said with a false humor that was obvious, at least to me.
Jake had wanted to catch them by surprise, and it had clearly worked. By the time I got up there myself, Abel had released his would-be victim’s arms and had taken a few steps back from Vera. His face was paler than hers, if that were possible, and I had to wonder if his outburst had shocked him more than it had her.
“I’m going inside,” he said as he turned and left without another word to any of us.
“Are you okay?” I asked Vera as I neared her.
“I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be?” She looked at the way we’d just come up. “How long were you two standing down there eavesdropping?”
“We just came outside,” I said, lying as sincerely as I could manage. “Why, what did we miss?”
“Nothing. Nothing at all,” Vera said as she brushed past us and went inside, too.
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