Jack said, “And you broke the elephant.”
Thelma didn’t seem to know what he was talking about. “Oh yes. There was an ornament in a case. I was so agitated that I knocked it to the ground and it broke. I used it as my excuse for leaving. I didn’t dare tell Mr. Howland the truth. I knew he’d laugh at me, and worse, he’d probably talk me into staying.” Suddenly, the memories seemed too much for her. “Mother and I have work to do.” It was a dismissal.
“Sure,” Jack said, and minutes later, he and Kate were in their rental car.
“She said she’d own Oxley Manor no matter what she had to do.”
“Think that includes killing her half brother? But Nicky got into the car instead?”
“At Nicky’s funeral, Bertram said one of them had killed his son, but he was drunk so no one paid any attention to him. Bella was there so he was probably including her in his accusation.”
“Whatever she had to do, she did buy it,” Jack said.
“With the money given to her by a woman who likes to help people,” Kate said. “Rich and gullible.”
He glanced at Kate. “We may have left Sara alone with a murderer.”
Thirty
Sara didn’t know why she was so afraid, but then, wasn’t most fear irrational? She was in the bathroom dropping toiletries into her carry-on bag. There was no proof that Bella was... What? A criminal? A murderer? Just because all the pieces of the puzzle fit together meant nothing.
She looked at her watch again. How long would it take Chris to exercise his horse? It would be longer than a dog since a saddle was involved. But Chris was Australian. Maybe he rode bareback.
Trying to get a grip on herself, she stopped and took three deep, slow breaths. In the whole time they’d been searching for Sean’s murderer, she’d never had any fear. Maybe that was because she’d always felt that his death had been a crime of passion. It had happened in the moment.
But Mr. Howland was killed because he knew something. There’d been no passion involved, just a cold-blooded need for survival. His life taken to keep somebody’s secret.
Sara looked at the case she was packing. Why was she bothering with that? Inside her head a voice seemed to be crying, “Out. Out. Out.” Over and over.
She left the bathroom, telling herself to grab her phone, her passport and her camera bag. The rest of it be damned.
The first thing she saw was that her phone wasn’t on the foot of her bed. But that’s where she was sure she’d left it.
She’d sent the text to Jack and Kate—her cutesy little one-word text that she now regretted—then she’d run upstairs to her room. She’d meant to write more to them, but instead, she’d started packing. At the time, getting her belongings out had seemed important.
She stood there staring at the empty bed. One of the worst things about getting older was the world’s assumption that you became senile. This belief was so ingrained that the “accused” began to believe it. Every time you forgot something, misplaced an item, you felt panic. Was this forgetfulness or the beginning of Alzheimer’s? Dementia?
All Sara could think was that she’d stupidly left her cell in the kitchen. She’d forgotten it, had walked off and left it.
She was going to have to leave the relative safety of her room to go get her phone.
Taking more deep breaths, she put her hand on the door. She was being ridiculous! Bella was in London. She’d known the woman for years. Just because some rotten things had happened in Bella’s life didn’t mean she was capable of murder.
Quietly, Sara unlocked the door and peeped out into the hall. It was empty—as was the entire hotel. It had that eerie feeling that old, abandoned buildings had. As though every deceased person who’d ever been there was waiting for the living to leave so they could come out.
“You write too damned much fiction,” Sara said aloud, then straightened and started toward the stairs.
Her cell phone was on the second stair down. Smashed. Its little screen was cracked in a rather pretty starburst pattern.
She bent to pick it up.
An arm grabbed her, a cloth was put over her mouth and she felt a needle in her arm.
When she woke, she was sitting in the passenger seat of one of the Oxley Manor trucks. Vaguely, she wondered if it was the same one used to transport Sean’s body. No, of course not. That was too many years ago.
She tried to move but her body had the consistency of overcooked spaghetti. Besides, something tight was around her waist. She was tied in! She managed to turn her head a couple of inches. Her eyes were blurry, but she could make out who the driver was.
“You’re awake,” Bella said. “The trouble you have caused me!”
“Friend,” Sara managed to say, although the word was slurred.
“You’re saying I’m your friend?” Bella laughed. “Never! It took me years to find you. I needed someone alone and rich. Do you know how difficult that is to find? Money attracts people. Rich old men buy pretty young wives.”
“Money,” Sara said.
“Of course it’s all about money, but even that wasn’t enough. First, I had to get rid of Bertram. My brother!” She sneered the word. “A rotten piece of vermin, he was. But his drunken son drove the car that day. I could have managed that kid but Bertram was another matter.”
“You found me,” Sara whispered. She was trying to move her arms. Maybe she could get out of the truck. Then... Her mind was too fuzzy to think past that. She couldn’t think how to untie herself.
“I researched,” Bella said. “I used my job at the hotels. I questioned every guest who stayed in the presidential suite.” She smiled. “I’d almost given up, then there you were. Writing those stupid, disgusting books, one after another, while money piled up in your accounts. I had contacts. I said I was doing background checks. In exchange for a free weekend I was told about your millions. Just sitting there. Your brother in prison, no husband, no children, no one at all. You were what I needed, what I had to have.”
When she stopped the truck, Sara saw they were at the Preserve. There was still yellow police tape around the site. The gate was standing open.
“That night when you thought we first met, in the restaurant in New York, I planned that. The rain was a godsend. How could you turn away someone as drenched as I was?”
She looked at Sara. “But then you were so alone that you welcomed anyone into your life. How hard that night was! I had to talk to someone like you about your despicable books and your petty problems. You’ve never known anything about true tragedy.”
Bella got out of the truck, went around the side and untied the rope around Sara’s waist. “The problem with murder is that you’re left with a body to dispose of. Howland was easy. I dropped pills in his drink, then covered his face. Everyone believed he’d killed himself.”
“Not me,” Sara whispered.
Bella pulled her from the truck. Sara barely managed to stand upright enough that she didn’t hit the side of the vehicle. Her legs gave way, but Bella caught her.
“Do you know what hell you put me through this week? Had I known about that skeleton, I would have blown up that damned hole with that freak in it.”
“Puck,” Sara said.
Bella was half dragging Sara through the open gate. “Yes. Her! Always spying, always hiding. She was beginning to suspect me. She—”
“You called the bank,” Sara said.
“Oh yes, that was me. I tried to warn you. Tried to save you from yourself but you and your little entourage wouldn’t take the hint. You filled my beautiful home—the one I’d worked so hard to get—with that riffraff. Scum of the earth. Howland’s death is your fault. Yours!”
They were standing at the edge of the pit. The rusty bars covering the opening and the vines were gone, cut away by the police in their investigation. It was just a big, open, deep hol
e in the ground.
“Who cared about some randy stable boy being shot? No one! But you had to stick your nose into it, didn’t you?”
“I—”
Bella put her hands on Sara’s shoulders, smiled into her face and gave her a push.
Sara fell backward into the hole. Her arms were too weak to flail. She just went down and down and down.
* * *
When Sara woke, she thought she was in heaven. A beautiful blond angel was leaning over her.
“You’re awake?”
She closed her eyes again. Every muscle in her body hurt. She could feel bruises. She just wanted to lie very, very still.
“I think you should wake up. We’ve both been asleep and from the look of the light, it’s been hours. We need to figure out how to get out of this place.”
Reluctantly, Sara opened her eyes. Straight above her, she could see a round circle of light, but it seemed far away.
“I checked and I don’t think any of your bones were broken. Didn’t mean to be so forward but circumstances merited it.”
“Chris.” Her memory was coming back to her—and with it, panic. “She—!”
He put his hand on her arm. “You need to worry about your injuries. See what you can and cannot move.”
With a nod, Sara obeyed. Starting at her toes, she worked upward. She could move all and nothing seemed to be broken. “Bella pushed me.”
“Me too.” Chris leaned against the wall of the pit. “She ran out in front of me. Poor horse bolted. Ran away. She said you’d fallen and she needed help getting you up. Of course I went with her.”
Sara was doing her best to try to sit up. “Then she shoved you.”
Chris nodded.
For the first time, Sara really looked at him. “How are you?”
“A bit smashed, I’m afraid. Cracked forearm, leg broken rather badly.”
Sara’s mind was beginning to function. What had cushioned her fall so that she wasn’t broken into bits? “Did this happen before or after I landed on you?”
He gave a one-sided grin. “Leg before, arm during. I heard it crack.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, “but thank you.”
“Least I could do.” He looked up. “I don’t know how we’re going to get out.”
Sara swallowed. “I’m not sure, but I think Bella means to blow up this hole.”
Chris blinked a few times, then recovered. “I can stand on one leg, and thank God, you’re small.”
She knew what he meant. “I can climb on your shoulders and get to the ledge. It’s not far up from there. I think I can make it.”
“With the vines gone, it won’t be an easy climb.”
Her eyes were clearing from whatever drug Bella had injected into her and from the trauma of the fall. “We can—”
There was a voice from the ground above.
Chris put his good arm in front of Sara, and they backed up against the wall and into the shadows. She felt his grunt of pain as he moved.
With pounding hearts, they looked up into the light.
When a woman’s face appeared, Chris leaned in front of Sara, ready to protect her.
“They’re not here,” the woman said, then her face disappeared.
“It’s Nadine,” Sara whispered. “It’s—” She broke off her words, took a breath, then let out a scream worthy of a horror movie.
Seconds later, Nadine’s face reappeared, then Teddy’s, then Puck’s.
Sara stepped out from behind Chris and went to the center of the pit. “You have to be careful,” she called upward. “Bella is here and she’s—”
“We know. The inspector has her in handcuffs,” Nadine said. “We figured it out. Like you taught us. We were in the car and we each revealed what we knew. She’s Bertram’s—”
“Half sister,” Sara said. “Chris is hurt.” She couldn’t stand any longer and sat on the ground. “I broke his arm when I fell on him.”
“An ambulance is on the way,” Nadine said. “Willa and Clive went to get a ladder.”
Sara looked up. “Jack and Kate?”
“They texted us that they’re on their way here. They found out everything too. Mrs. Aiken told Puck about Bella, and she told us. Byon figured it out.”
“Mrs. Aiken was trying to save her own neck,” Teddy called down. “She suspected Isabella of killing Granddad so she told on her. Thought she could exchange one murder for another. She—” Teddy choked on tears and couldn’t say more.
There were more voices, then Jack and Kate looked down into the hole.
At the sight of them, Sara lost all her bravado. She dissolved into tears. Minutes later, Jack and Kate had climbed down a rope. The three of them held each other. They were one solid being of tears and love combined.
* * *
ISBN: 9781488056475
A Forgotten Murder
Copyright © 2020 by Deveraux Inc.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
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