by Diane Capri
I gave him a smug smile, I couldn’t help myself. “I’m happy that you took my advice and followed the money.”
He shook his head. “There’s no point in correcting you on that, is there? No point in telling you how a proper investigation is conducted, and how there is a way of doing things that don’t involve going off half-cocked, running around the island thinking you’re Magnum PI.”
“No, probably not.”
“I didn’t think so.”
“If you are so on top of it, why haven’t you issued a warrant for Steve Bower’s arrest yet?”
He gave me a look. “Who says I haven’t?”
“Oh,” I said, not wanting to eat crow. “Well done, then.”
“What were you looking for in his hotel room, anyway?”
“The spa robe. The one he would’ve worn after stashing his suit in the shower drain.”
“And was it there?”
I nodded. “Oh yeah. I also found some socks drying out in the bathroom. I bet if you tested them, you’d find chlorine on them.”
“Good to know. Thanks.”
I smiled. “Wow, you actually showed me some gratitude. I’m stunned.”
“Don’t get used to it.” I may have been seeing things, but I swore I saw his lips twitch up inside of down. “Now, go home. I will locate Pamela Bower and Sasha Wilkes and her baby.”
“Go easy on Sasha, okay? She may have been part of Thomas’s blackmail scheme, but she’s a good girl. That baby has no one but her.”
“Noted.” He tipped his hat to me, then left the hospital.
Chapter 36
I made my way back to the stranded golf cart. Ginny was there waiting patiently for me. The minute she spotted me, she jumped out of her cart. “Oh my God, did you hear? Sheriff Jackson is going to arrest Steve Bower for that guy’s murder.”
“Wow, is there nothing that’s secret in this town?”
She shrugged. “Not really.”
“I’ll have to keep that in mind.”
“You must be so relieved that it’s going to be all over soon,” she said.
“I am.” It was true, but there was still this niggling of doubt bothering me. Like when something gets stuck between your teeth and you keep touching it with your tongue. That was me with the fact that Pamela and Sasha knew each other.
I grabbed the jerry can from Ginny and filled up the tank on my cart. It was way past time I got back to the hotel and finally got some rest. I was starting to crash and burn. The end result wouldn’t be pretty.
“Oh hey, look.” Ginny showed me her phone screen. “You’re famous.”
I took the phone from her and saw my photo, one of me golfing. It was from the fifth tee when I’d smacked that ball and nearly got a hole in one. Despite how tired I’d been that morning, I thought I looked pretty good. My legs at least looked trim and shapely.
“Where’s this photo?”
“The hotel’s web page. We always have pictures from all the events on here.”
As I stared at my photo, I remembered flipping through the photos on the Park Hotel’s page when I was looking for one of Lonnie Morehead. That event had been last year’s Flower Festival. I tapped on the screen to access all the photos. I went to the Flower Festival album and started scrolling through the pictures. I remembered seeing a couple of Steve and Pamela Bower on there. I found the one I was thinking of and zoomed in on it.
Between the two Bowers was another woman. A young woman with long, curly dark hair. Pamela had her arm around her, and they were both smiling. It was Sasha Wilkes. Under the picture was the caption: The Bower Development Team. Sasha had worked for the Bowers—that was how she and Steve had met. Pamela had to have known about their affair. Why didn’t she do something about it? Unless…
She was the one who set it up.
“Holy crap.”
Ginny grabbed her phone. “What? The picture’s not bad. You look pretty good, I think.”
“It’s not my picture,” I said. “Do you know where the Bowers are building houses?”
She frowned. “What? Why?”
“Do you know?” I must’ve given her a hard glare because she frowned even deeper.
“They have a few housing developments around here and on the mainland, I’m pretty sure.” She tapped on her phone. “I can look them up.”
“Is there one by the water? Maybe called By the Sea or something like that?”
“Hmm, there’s one on the other side of the island called Eden Beach?”
“That’s got to be it.” I jumped into my golf cart. “Do you know where it is?”
She put her hand on her hip and gave me an inquisitive look. “What’s going on? And don’t lie to me, Andi Steele. I know all your tells.”
I sighed. “Well…”
“You don’t think Steve Bower did it.”
“I don’t not think that. I just think there’s more going on, and I think Sasha Wilkes, the woman I helped have a baby today, may be in some trouble.”
She walked around my cart and slid into the passenger’s seat. “I’ll get the guys to come down later and collect my cart. I’ll direct you.”
“Are you sure? I don’t want to drag you into this.”
“Hey, Batman always needs Robin.”
I made a face. “Could you do a different reference? I’m not a big comic book fan, to be honest.”
She shook her head. “Just drive, Sherlock.”
Chapter 37
Ginny directed us out of town and down the shore of the lake to a new housing development being constructed by the Bowers. There was a big sign, Welcome to Eden Beach, as we passed twin stone pillars that formed the “gate” to the new subdivision. As we drove down the darkened road, there were a couple of streetlamps glowing—Victorian, like those at the hotel—and two houses that had lights on inside. I assumed Pamela, Sasha, and the baby were in one of them. I parked the cart right before the first house.
“So, what’s the plan, here?” Ginny asked. There was a slight waver to her voice. I didn’t know if it was because she was cold or a little afraid. I, in fact, was a bit of both. An open golf cart gave no reprieve from cool lake air.
“I don’t know, honestly.”
“Andi, we should just call the sheriff and let him handle it.”
“Okay, but I just want to make sure that Sasha is here and that she and the baby are safe.” I jumped out of the cart before Ginny could protest, as I knew she would, and ran across the yard to the first house. I flattened myself against the side wall and peered into the large living room window.
Thankfully, there were no blinds or curtains covering the window, so the room was clearly visible; I could also see part of the kitchen. The house was furnished with high-end pieces, but it didn’t look “lived-in.” There were no magazines or books on the side tables, or cozy blankets thrown over the sofa. No remote lying on a cushion or on the coffee table readily accessible for an evening of television. It was not how a normal home would appear. This must’ve been one of the show homes for the new area, where everything was clean and organized and fake.
I waited for another few minutes to see if there was any movement in the house. Everything remained still and quiet. I glanced over my shoulder to check on Ginny. She was still sitting in the cart, her hands gripping the steering wheel hard, ready to make a speedy getaway if we needed to. I decided to check out the second house.
I dashed across the expanse of lawn between the two estates and plastered myself up against the wall. Slowly, I moved along until I could easily peer through the side window into the living room. After a minute or two, I thought I’d made a mistake, but a shadow of movement flitted by the sofa. Getting my face even closer to the glass, I could see the baby in a carrier on the floor near the coffee table. For now, he seemed safe.
I took out my phone and called the sheriff. He answered almost immediately. “You’re calling me from the hotel, right?”
I put my hand up over my mouth to talk. “I’m
at the Eden Beach housing development. I can see the baby inside one of the houses. I’m sure Sasha and Pamela are here, too.”
“You’re what? I didn’t catch that.”
“Eden Beach. Get your butt here—”
From inside the house, the sound of shattering glass permeated the heavy silence, sending a wave of goose bumps up my back and down my arms. My hands flinched, and I dropped my phone onto the cement. The screen spider-webbed into a hundred fragments. I picked it up and tried to turn it on, but it was dead.
Chapter 38
Without thinking, I rushed to the front door and tried the knob. It was locked.
“What’s going on? Is everything okay?”
I jumped, my heart leaping into my throat. I whipped around to find Ginny had crept up on me and was now standing on the bottom porch step, eyes wide.
“Call the sheriff, tell him it’s an emergency. I can’t. My phone’s broken.” Then I stepped off the front porch and ran around to the back of the house. There had to be another way in. Ginny followed me.
“I’m coming, too,” she loud-whispered.
“Call the sheriff,” I loud-whispered back.
“I’ll text him.” She quickly typed up an emergency text. “Damn it, I can’t get service.”
I crept onto the balcony, still trying to stay to the shadows. Through the big windows, I could see Sasha sweeping up glass shards from the counter and into the trash bin. I was relieved to see it was just a glass that had broken and nothing more ominous. The screen door was open a crack.
I turned to Ginny. “You stay here. I’m going inside.”
She grabbed my arm. “Let’s wait for the sheriff.”
“I’m not sure he’s coming,” I said. “And I need to make sure Sasha and the baby are safe. You keep trying to call him. Go back toward the road to see if you can get a signal.”
She let go of my arm, and I shuffled closer to the door. I slid it open and stepped inside the kitchen. Sasha looked up, a surprised O on her face. She did a quick glance over to the living room.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, her voice low and controlled.
“I wanted to make sure you were okay. When I heard Pamela Bower picked you up, I became concerned.”
“I’m fine.” Another glance over her shoulder. “You should go.”
“Steve’s being arrested for your brother’s murder, did you know that?”
She nodded. “He deserves it. He killed Thomas.” Then she grabbed my arm and started nudging me back toward the open screen door. “You should go, Andi.”
“Pamela hired you to work at the company, didn’t she? And the major part of your job was to seduce Steve?”
She didn’t say anything, but the look on her face told me the answer.
“She was going to give you a big payout once she divorced, right? His affair would’ve broken the prenup. Pamela could take him for everything now. It would definitely set you up for a while.” I frowned, trying to put all the pieces together. “Your pregnancy was a mistake, though. That wasn’t supposed to happen.”
Sasha chewed on her bottom lip, and she was close to tears. “Anthony is not a mistake.”
“How did Thomas fit into all of this? That I can’t quite figure out. If you are getting all that money from a divorce settlement, why the blackmail?”
Pamela limped into the kitchen, leaning heavily on a cane. “Hello, Andi.”
Chapter 39
“You don’t seem too surprised to see me.”
Pamela smiled, but it was cold. A shiver ran down my back. “I knew you’d get here eventually,” she said. “You’ve been snooping around long enough.”
“Sheriff Jackson is on his way.” I figured the little white lie was in order. Honestly, he could be on his way. He might’ve heard and understood my last message before I dropped and broke my phone.
She arched a brutally sculpted eyebrow at me. “I have nothing to hide.”
“You paid Sasha to seduce your husband.”
“Between you and me, it’s not illegal. Private investigative firms do it all the time,” she said. “Besides that, she worked for Bower Development and was paid regular wages. There’s nothing untoward about that.”
I turned toward Sasha. “Why are you trusting her?”
“Pamela is helping me out.” Her voice wasn’t that steady. I didn’t think she was too secure in her decision.
Pamela took a step toward Sasha, her cane tapping on the kitchen tile. “That’s right. Sasha is a former employee that I saw needed a hand, so I’m doing that for her.”
I regarded them both; this was not the pretty picture they were trying to paint. There was something wrong here. I could see it in the way Sasha fidgeted and rubbed her hands together. She was nervous. If Pamela were truly a friend in all of this, Sasha wouldn’t look like she was about to jump out of her skin.
Pamela tilted her head and smiled at me. “There’s nothing nefarious going on here, Andi. I’m helping out a new mother. I’m known for my charitable acts.” She put her arm around Sasha’s shoulders. “Sasha is naturally grieving the horrible loss of her brother, by her ex-lover no less. I mean the fact that Steve smashed Thomas’s head in…it’s unconscionable. I hope he rots in jail for a long time. I don’t want a murderer around my children.”
I frowned as I watched her. She moved her head again, and the light in the kitchen glinted off her gold earrings. I stared at her ears. I’d seen those type of earrings before. In the pocket of Steve’s suit jacket that had been stuffed into the drain in the spa.
“How did you know Thomas had been hit in the head?”
She shrugged. “It must’ve been in the paper or on the news.”
“It wasn’t. Sheriff Jackson suppressed that information. Only a few people knew that was the cause of death. The sheriff, the medical examiner, me, because I read the autopsy report, and…well, the killer.”
Sasha’s head snapped to the side to look at Pamela. “What is she talking about?”
“Nothing.” She sniffed derisively. “Andi is just grasping at straws. She’s trying to prove that she’s still some hotshot lawyer from California, instead of just a simple hotel concierge.” Pamela glared at me as she came around the kitchen island, the tapping of her cane echoing through the silence in the empty house. “I think you have overstayed your welcome here. It’s time for you to leave.” She pointed her cane at the sliding door I had just come through.
My gaze went to her polished wooden walking cane. The brass handle was curved, one end blunted, the other came to a point. A point that could quite easily, with enough force, make quite an indent in someone’s temple. The medical examiner reported a wound just like that in his preliminary report.
“Steve didn’t kill Thomas.”
She frowned, the lines on her forehead deep. “Of course he did. All the evidence points to it.”
“Evidence you planted. Steve’s suit stuffed in a drain, the spa robe in the closet in his hotel room, the socks. What you didn’t realize, though, is that there was an earring in his pants pocket. Just like the earrings you’re wearing now. In fact, they are identical. What’d you do? Buy another pair?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she spat. The small veins along her temples and neck flared.
During our little conversation, Sasha had started to back up out of the kitchen. Her face was a mask of fear. I didn’t blame her. I looked at her. “Sasha, get your baby, and get out of here.”
“Don’t you move, you little whore.” Pamela turned toward her, her one hand twisting on the handle of her cane, the other clenching into a fist. “After all I’ve done for you. You’d still be on the street if it wasn’t for me.”
I didn’t like the menacing look on Pamela’s face, so I stepped forward, putting myself between her and Sasha. I put my hand out toward Pamela. “Maybe it was an accident, and you never meant to kill him.”
“He got in the way. He shouldn’t have taken it upon himself to blackmail Steve. It was
stupid.”
“You killed Tommy?” Sasha pushed past me to advance on Pamela.
Pamela took a step back and slid her hand down the length of her cane. I shoved Sasha into the kitchen counter just as Pamela swung the stick like a baseball player at bat. I ducked just in time. The end smashed the two glasses on the counter, sending tiny glass fragments like missiles through the air. The sting was instant as a tiny fragment grazed my cheek.
All the commotion woke the baby, and he started to wail. I grabbed Sasha and pushed her toward the living room. “Get him and get out!”
Pamela swung her cane again at Sasha as she scrambled over the broken glass on the floor and out of the kitchen. The woman was wild with rage. Her face was contorted and beet red. She hit the counter this time, and it rattled her, knocking her a bit off balance.
Using this to my advantage, I swiveled and rushed her before she could swing that thing again and clock me in the head with the pointy end. I wrapped my arms around her, trapping one of hers to her torso and took her down to the ground. The cane clattered onto the floor as we landed on the hard tile with a thud and a groan. I knocked one of my knees on the metal leg of one of the island stools. Pain zipped up my leg like electricity. The takedown move looked so much easier online.
Pamela tried to shove me off, but I still had a solid hold on her. When that didn’t work, she yanked on my hair and raked her fingernails over my face.
“Yow! That hurt!”
“Good,” she growled, then yanked even harder on my hair and rolled me onto my back so she could straddle me. I tried to buck her off, but her legs crushed me to the floor.
She reached for her cane, grabbed it, and raised it above her head over me. The maniacal look in her eyes made my blood run cold. I lifted my arms and crossed them over my head to block the swing. Squeezing my eyes shut, I braced for the blow.
“Andi!” It was Ginny’s voice.
I opened my eyes just as Sheriff Jackson dragged Pamela Bower off me.