I still wanted to talk to him. Even if he was innocent, he lived in this house with my three other suspects. Maybe he’d seen something or knew something he didn’t realize he did.
Zander was still the focus of my suspicion, and his interference in Miranda’s meltdown only added to that. He could have been defending Skylar in his actions, but I didn’t think so. I thought that Miranda had been on the verge of spilling something and he was trying to shut her up. As it was, she’d already given up quite a bit of information.
How did she know that there was a new will and that it didn’t leave all the money to Skylar? Even Skylar wasn’t sure what her great-gran’s will said, so how could some diner waitress? And Miranda’s anger at Skylar for being an outsider, for coming in and becoming a threat to the fortune—wasn’t that a motive?
Miranda knew something about what was happening here, and I was sure it was because she was seeing Zander. And Zander was clearly the one who’d switched the medications. I just had to prove it.
I set the phone aside and ran my hands over my face, exhausted. We’d walked for hours, searching for Aurora, but no one had seen so much as a footprint, let alone any evidence she’d ever left the house. Skylar was beyond emotionally overwrought. She’d dissolved into tears when the sheriff’s office had ended the search for the night. Miranda’s insistence that Aurora was dead had really gotten to her.
Skylar was in the shower, trying to wash the day from her thoughts. My guess was the silence was only making things worse. I wished I could feel confident that she might want me in there, that I could offer her some sort of distraction. But she’d been so hot and cold lately that I wasn’t sure my presence was welcome. All I wanted was to make things better for her.
How was I supposed to convince her that I didn’t mean her any harm? That I cared. Hell, that I absolutely adored her. I’d never meant to hurt her, but clearly something I’d done or said had been wrong. I just… Why was this so difficult? Why couldn’t it be simple? Why couldn’t we just tell each other the truth and leave it at that?
But the thing was, the truth was just as painful as this game we were playing with each other. She was in love with another man and I was destined to pine after her from a distance. What a joke that was! Me, a guy who could get any woman he wanted—except for the one he really wanted.
She came out of the bathroom, a long T-shirt with a picture of Woody Woodpecker on the front the only thing covering her beautiful curves. Her hair, still wet, was hanging over her shoulders in long, silky strands, her skin reddened by the heat of the shower, shining from the lotion she’d rubbed into it. There was nothing more beautiful than a woman fresh out of the shower.
“You hear anything interesting?” she asked, gesturing toward my phone.
“Nothing I didn’t already know. But the cop seems to think I’m a gold digger and Zander has an attitude problem.”
She shook her head as she moved around the bed, pulling back the bed clothes. “Anything useful?”
“Not yet. But I have some ideas.”
“So, what? We go to bed and sleep warm and safe while my great-gran continues to be… wherever she is? With some street drug still working its way out of her system?”
“You get some rest while I keep working on this.”
“No.” She crossed the room and held out her hand to me. “You can’t scheme and plot when you’re exhausted. And I won’t be able to sleep alone in that big, empty bed.”
“I don’t want to be in your way.”
“You’re not in my way. You’re providing comfort to a stupid girl who doesn’t know which way is up anymore.”
I stood and pulled her into my arms, cradling her against my chest. She sighed, the heat rushing through my shirt to my skin, making me wish so many things all at once that I couldn’t begin to separate it all out into one coherent thought. I breathed deep of her scent as I bent close to her, telling myself to hold on to this moment for as long as possible because it was all I was going to get.
She took my hand and led the way to the bed, and… oh, hell! I wished there was another reason why she was welcoming me into that bed! I kept all my clothes on, everything but my shoes, needing so desperately to keep a barrier between her and me. She curled up against my chest, her body so frail, yet so strong against me, her breathing shallow at first as she fought more tears. Her world was falling apart and all I could think about was how my own heart was breaking. Maybe I really was the asshole she’d accused me of being.
I ran my hand along the length of her back, trying to offer her comfort the only way I knew how. Slowly—excruciatingly slowly—her breathing became regular, her body releasing the tension that had made her muscles feel like steel. As she drifted into deep sleep, my hand wandered a little too far along her hip. Her skin was like silk, the scent emanating from her body like a rose garden in the spring. And that little bit of bareness on her hip… she wasn’t wearing any underwear.
Was she trying to kill me?
Despite the fact that I knew it was wrong, I let my hand linger, sliding over her lovely little bum, touching what wasn’t mine to touch. The memory of her kiss still burned on my lips, the feel of her body opening to mine something I would not soon forget. I ached all over whenever I was near her, this need I’d never known before burning like a fire that nothing could put out. I wanted her, and I knew that when I kissed her, she wanted me too. It was only when reality came back into the equation, when we were no longer touching, that she remembered I wasn’t the one she really wanted. I was just the one who was here.
What sweet torture this was! Feeling her, getting to know her, only to know that the moment she woke, all this would be stolen from me. Was it payback for what I’d done as a young man? Was it some sort of karma for marrying Alison, then running from her? Was it because of all the young women I’d known since coming to the States, all the women I’d shared a bed with who thought I meant it when I said I would stay, the women whose hearts I’d broken?
Maybe I deserved this. But that didn’t make it any easier to swallow.
“I love you,” I whispered into the dark as I ran my hand over the small of her back, rolling into her to kiss the center of her forehead. “I’ve always loved you.”
***
It occurred to me in the darkest moments before dawn that any lawyer worth her license would make sure her client had a copy of all the paperwork they worked on together. Aurora’s will was still in question. How many were there? What did they say? When was the most recent one drawn up?
I slipped out of the bed—most reluctantly—and silently left the room, headed down to the study that had once belonged to Aurora’s husband. The house was still, no movement from anything, human or animal. I went into the dark room and closed the door, risking a small light as I began going through the drawers of the massive oak desk. They were mostly empty, containing only a few pens and paperclips. The file cabinets were empty, too.
This was a dead end.
I peeked into the study that belonged to Aurora, a smaller, brighter room, but there was nothing there but the hospital bed that had been abandoned the day before. When I’d first come in here, there had been a desk and set of filing cabinets in here. Where had they gone?
I used the flashlight on my phone to search the first-floor rooms. There were so many of them! Who could possibly need so many rooms in a house? The second floor was mostly guest rooms, including the room Skylar and I shared. The third floor… I stumbled on a room that was decorated in pinks and blues, posters for the Jonas Brothers and Justin Timberlake on the walls. Had I stumbled on Skylar’s childhood bedroom? I allowed myself a moment to wander around, amused by the romance novels stacked on the side table and the stuffed animals that were the only thing sleeping on the twin bed now. Some things never changed. She thought I didn’t know about the novels in the bottom drawer of her desk at the office, but everyone knew. I’d even peeked at a few, thinking that maybe… But that was before I found the note she’
d written to Ox.
I can’t stop thinking about you. I know it would be complicated, a relationship between us, but I really believe we could make it work. We’re from different worlds, but sometimes differences can be overcome, even create a complement to one another. I can make you happy if you’d just give me a chance…
I didn’t memorize the whole thing, but those lines always stuck out to me. Different worlds. Turns out she’s not as different from Ox as she wanted the world to believe.
I continued my search, stumbling upon what appeared to be a storage room at the end of the third-floor hallway. Inside were a desk and a set of filing cabinets. Had to be the ones from Aurora’s study! I immediately dug through the drawers, then the cabinets, looking at every piece of paper I came across. The funny thing was, I didn’t find the will right away, but I did find enough to put together an interesting picture of Aurora’s business.
I hadn’t been incredibly clear on what Aurora did to maintain her fortune, but I could see it now. She owned every bit of land this town was built on. The diner, the hotel, even the city hall. It all sat on land she owned; all of it was real estate that belonged to her. The only thing she didn’t own was the post office, but she’d donated that land to the federal government. She received rents and revenues from every business, every building. Even the private homes… There was an entire subdivision across town that she owned. Every penny those people paid in rent went straight into her bank account.
She owned the entire town. And the quarry on the outskirts of town was how her husband made his money years and years ago. It’d flooded in the seventies, but she still held the deed to it. And, according to the documents in her desk, there was a group of businessmen interested in leasing it, pumping the water out, and resuming extraction of the stone. The business plan promised her a huge payout on the whole thing. Huge. More money than I’d ever see in my lifetime.
The contract was unsigned, but my guess was that she would have gone through with it. And that would mean dozens of jobs for the townspeople, jobs that would allow some in town to increase their incomes twofold. It was a coup all the way around.
Why hadn’t she signed it yet?
The will, when I finally found it, was at the back of a file cabinet. It was dated January 2012. Aurora left small sums to Johnny, Hannah, and Zander individually. She left nearly half her net worth to various charities that included local charities as well as national ones. The rest she left to Skylar with instructions to do with it as she pleased.
Interesting.
I continued to search through the paperwork, convinced there must be another will that left the money to someone other than Skylar. To the town, perhaps. Or to Zander and his parents. Or maybe Nolan was included in the new will. Miranda had said that Skylar had been written out of the will. If that was true, there had to be a new one here somewhere.
I hunted all through the paperwork, rechecking everything I’d emptied out of the drawers. There was nothing. I was about to give up, even stood to grab a pile of papers and put it all back. When I did, I thumped my knee on a drawer and a false bottom popped up, revealing itself. I almost laughed because false bottoms in desk drawers… wasn’t that a typical wealthy-person game? I got a pen from the center drawer and used it to pry the false bottom up until my fingers could get under it. Once it was free, I could see the will sitting there as pretty as can be, just waiting for someone to come liberate it.
And the very first line on the second page revealed who the culprit was. Just reading that name made everything fall into place. It all made sense.
I cursed under my breath, chastising myself for not figuring it out sooner.
“You’re not going to believe this, Sky…” I said to the empty room.
“I would,” a voice behind me said.
I turned, but not quickly enough. The twin points of a taser slammed into my side, a million volts of electricity rushing through me. My muscles stiffened, and I fell off the chair where I’d been sitting, falling to the ground in a heap of useless movement.
“Should have kept your nose out of it.”
I couldn’t have agreed more in that moment.
Chapter 17
Skylar
“Prescott?”
I reached for him before I even opened my eyes, missing his arms around my waist. When my hands came back empty, I rolled over, forcing my eyes open. The sunlight coming through the tall windows forced me to blink a few times, my eyes fighting to adjust to the sudden light. When they finally adjusted, it was clear the bed beside me was empty.
I sighed, taking his pillow and folding it into a ball that I held against my chest. It smelled like him a little. The smell of his shampoo, the woodsy scent of his cologne. I wasn’t surprised that he was gone, to be honest. It seemed that he couldn’t get away from me fast enough most days. But that didn’t mean it didn’t bother me.
I took my time getting up, dressing slowly, tying my hair up in twin ponytails rather than a single one so that it would take longer to do. When I was finally ready to face the world, I took a side trip into the dressing room, wondering if maybe Prescott had wandered in there for some reason. He wasn’t there, but his wallet, his keys, the money clip he liked to keep in his shirt pocket when he went out on the town were all on the dresser by the door.
At least I knew he was still here somewhere.
Zander was in the sitting room when I entered, lounging on the couch with a stack of papers on his chest.
“What’s that?”
He sat up, clearly startled that I’d come into the room. Or was he startled that I’d caught him at something?
“Nothing important. Just an application for the University of Washington.”
“Who’s going there?”
He rolled his shoulders. “Would it be insane to hear it might be me?”
“No.” I sat beside him and stole a piece of paper from his clutch, reading the information he’d already filled out. “I think about going back all the time.”
“Do you?”
“I never should have dropped out, but my job took up so much of my time, and it was so important to me that I thought it had priority. Sometimes I worry that I gave up too soon.”
“I never went, but I always wanted to. I was thinking… I can’t work here forever.”
“Have they heard anything?” I asked, standing again, a shiver running down my spine as I thought of my great-gran suffering exposure in some cold place at that moment. “The cops or anyone?”
“I haven’t heard anything, but I know the search parties are already headed back out.” He reached over and took my hand. “I didn’t mean anything against Aurora. You know that, right?”
“Of course.”
“I just… if this situation proves anything, it’s that things change. She’s not going to be here forever, and the next owner of the place might not want me around all the time.”
“Next owner? I haven’t even thought that far ahead.”
Zander snatched the paper from my hand and straightened it with the others. “Your husband isn’t exactly my biggest fan.”
“There’s no guarantee that she’s left it all to me. And even if she has, I’m not sure I’d want to live here without her.”
Zander didn’t respond to that. He stood and walked over to the china cabinet, sliding his papers into a drawer that had once held thousands of dollars of silver. “I have to get to work.”
“Have you seen Prescott? I was hoping he could drive me into town.”
“Nope. I assumed he was still upstairs.”
I watched him go out the back doors. As I turned to search for Prescott, I nearly ran headlong into Nolan.
“Hey, Ms. George,” he said, pulling an earbud from his ear. “Any news?”
I shook my head.
“I kind of thought she’d be in her bed when I got up this morning. It was a shock to find it empty.”
“Nolan, can I ask you about the pills you gave to my great-gran?”
>
“What about them?”
“Where did you get them?”
“The pharmacy downtown.”
“Did anyone in the house have access to them at any point?”
He frowned. “Johnny always picked them up and Hannah was always in and out of the room. She could have touched them, I suppose, but I don’t know why she would.”
“Anyone else? Anyone outside of the house?”
Nolan tilted his head slightly. “There weren’t a lot of visitors over the past few months. Not since those businessmen came by in May.”
“What businessmen?”
“The ones who want to reopen the quarry.” Nolan touched a finger to his lips. “It’s supposed to be all hush-hush, you know. She didn’t want the people in town to find out about it.”
“Why?”
“She wasn’t going to do it. She never liked the quarry and didn’t want to dredge up old memories by reopening it.”
“She told you that?”
“Yeah. She talked to me a lot. I think she liked that I didn’t talk as much as everyone else; I just let her ramble on and on. She thought I wasn’t listening, but I just liked the sound of her voice, you know? She’s a sweet old lady.”
I nodded. “She is that.”
“I can’t wait till she comes back. It’s a little boring around here without her.”
Nolan moved past me and threw himself on the couch, popping the earbuds back in.
I walked through the house, looking for Prescott. I thought he might be in one of the studies, looking through paperwork. He’d said something about it. But he wasn’t. He wasn’t in the dining room, either. The Hummer still sat in the driveway and Zander was the only one outside.
I called his phone, but he didn’t pick up. It went straight to voicemail.
Had he decided to go back to San Antonio? But his wallet was up in the room. He couldn’t fly without his identification.
Did he—
My phone began to ring. It was a blocked number, which always gave me reason to ignore it. But I had this weird feeling in my chest, this conviction that this was a call I needed to answer.
Caballo Security Box Set Page 59