Foiled (The Belinda & Bennett Mysteries, Book Seven)

by Amy Saunders

  “Depending on…?” Colleen prodded.

  “Depending on how much you make my head hurt. Now, is that all you have, or did you come up with something else?”

  Colleen rolled her eyes to the ceiling in thought, which Belinda was pretty sure was an act. Colleen was an expert at dragging things out. “My police source did drop something about the Southwood police and you…which led me to that high-profile Lawson death.”

  Belinda almost said, “I thought you didn’t know anything,” but bit her tongue. This was no doubt a trap and Belinda didn’t want to fall right into it if she could help it. Not able to come up with another response, she shrugged instead.

  Colleen waited a beat, then added, “The house has been vacated. Probably because of the murder victim they found there.” Colleen paused. When Belinda still didn’t jump in, she continued, “You might be interested to know that they’ve found evidence the woman was killed in another part of the house and likely dragged or carried to where they found her.”

  “Where was she killed?” Belinda said the words, and then wanted to clamp her mouth shut. Stupid!

  Colleen’s eyes twinkled, knowing her little ploy had worked. “It was you!” Colleen pointed at Belinda’s chest. “I knew it. As soon as I heard about your accident, it all started falling together. You found that murder victim!”

  Belinda pursed her lips, swearing she would never call this woman to help her again. And knowing pitifully she would never live up to it. “Do you know where she was killed or did you lie?”

  “Oh, no, it’s true. My source says it was in a library in another part of the house.”

  Belinda tapped a finger on the bed. Maybe the same library where she’d felt someone watching her?

  Colleen leaned closer. “Is it true you found her in a hidden room?”

  Belinda nodded, more interested in anything else Colleen’s “source” had to say. “What else have you learned about the investigation? Do they have suspects or a motive?”

  “It doesn’t sound like it. I do know they’re timing it as the night before you found her. And everyone who works there has an alibi of some variety. Though the murder doesn’t smell of an unhappy employee to me.”

  Or Belinda either. Not with the other strange things going on there.

  The glass door slid open then, Bennett slipping through. Pure, unguarded relief flooded his face as he saw Belinda. Ignoring Colleen, he rushed over and took Belinda’s free hand, pressing it to his mouth before kissing her head and forehead. Then he looked her over more carefully, his gray eyes searching her for injuries.

  “It’s not bad,” Belinda said, glancing at Colleen, who watched with interest. “You remember Colleen?”

  He barely glanced at her. “Yeah. I do.”

  Colleen arched her brows at that, standing. “Well, I’ll give you two some space. And we’ll be in touch.” Colleen winked at Bennett, whose eyes snapped in her direction, his expression hardening.

  Once Colleen was gone, Belinda asked hurriedly, to avoid his questions for a little while, “How did you find me?”

  “I know one of the police officers waiting outside. He let me in.” Bennett was still examining her, taking a seat on the edge of the bed. He caressed her wrist with his thumb. “How do you really feel?”

  Belinda hesitated, then admitted, “Like a truck hit me. Or like I hit a truck…” She didn’t remember what happened very clearly. She just knew she went into the water. She thought dismally about her poor Mini Cooper. “I guess my car is trashed.”

  “Don’t worry about your car.” Bennett stroked her hair, and she realized she must have a bandage across her forehead. “Right now, I’m just relieved you’re talking.”

  She didn’t know why, but watching his mouth curve up, his eyes velvety, Belinda’s eyes started to tear up. She wanted to say something meaningful, but she couldn’t think straight. “Bennett–”

  Before she could start what would probably be a rambling string of thoughts, the door opened again. It was finally her mother, as frantic looking as Bennett had been when he entered. Her mom put a hand to her chest in relief and strode over with her arms out, her eyes watering. Bennett stood out of the way, making room for the mama drama.

  When Belinda could finally go home, with instructions to avoid anything physically crazy for a few days, Bennett rolled her out to the entrance while her mother pulled up in the car. Bennett promised to find out what had happened to her Mini Cooper, telling her to just go home and rest.

  But rest wasn’t really in the offing, despite how much her head spun and ached. Belinda stared at the ceiling of her old bedroom, forced into coming to her parents’ home, unable to sleep. She tried to reconstruct the accident, but it was all a blur. She just remembered the car speeding up without her consent.

  Belinda sighed, wondering if the tail on Bennett was meant to distract her, or if the car thing was just a fluke. And that was the crux of the problem with everything around this case. Except for the Warden’s murder, everything else looked like it could be an accident.

  And even worse, she thought, what if it really was?

  Chapter 23

  Jonas should not have been happy about Belinda’s car accident. And he wasn’t. But it did give him the reason he needed to butt into what they were doing. He could legitimately talk to the Southwood police since Belinda was connected to their murder investigation. He still might need to handle certain things on his own, but this was perfectly in bounds.

  The next afternoon, he raced over to Belinda’s family home, meeting her on the covered back porch of the gray-shingled house. He had to admit it felt less odd now that he’d been there a few times for dinner, but the view from their property out to the ocean still stunned him.

  Before he even had the chance to sit down, Belinda handed him an open laptop, sliding a printout of a car and a folder across the table. “First off, I have to confess that I went to Colleen to help me out with this.” Belinda sat back, looking piqued at best, her face bruised and scraped. “She was able to get me some information, but she had limits. I figure now is a good time to pass it to you.”

  Jonas watched her over the top of the computer, surveillance footage frozen on the screen. He didn’t really need to tell her how he felt about that, but Belinda didn’t look apologetic either. Desperate times? Maybe. But Colleen’s information always came with some sort of price.

  “What am I looking at here?” He pointed to the computer.

  Belinda explained why she checked the footage and why it was significant. Only it took several long and digressing paragraphs to do so. But she was probably minorly concussed and obviously didn’t feel well. Of course, she kind of talked like that even when she felt perfectly fine.

  “Anyway,” she said, taking a breath, “I found the footage I wanted to show you.” She waved a hand at him. “You can watch it now.”

  Watching the images barely took any time at all, but he saw her point. It did appear to be the same car in the day and night video, and it did look like they were being followed.

  “Colleen found out where the car came from,” Belinda continued. “It was a rental. They paid cash, and that’s as far as she could get.”

  Jonas had trouble believing that. But maybe Colleen realized she needed to pass the torch for other reasons. He glanced over the papers in the folder and the printout of the license plate. “I’ll have to go through the process on my own, anyway. But this is a positive trail to follow. Good thinking.” Jonas winked, conjuring a small smile from her.

  “It’s really thanks to Bennett. The cameras were all his idea.” Belinda twisted her mouth to the side. “I wish he’d install at least one at his own house, though. Then we’d know if this car followed him home or not.”

  “Well, when you guys are–” Jonas stopped just in time, almost saying the “M” word out loud, remembering last second that Bennett hadn’t managed to propose yet. Belinda stared at him wide-eyed.

  “When we’re what?” Belinda w
atched him carefully now, much more alert than she’d been seconds before.

  “Done with this case,” he finished quickly. “When things are calmer, maybe you can work your Belinda magic and convince him to install some.” Jonas smiled, trying to cover his slip, but Belinda still stared at him suspiciously. She probably suspected Bennett was planning to propose soon, but he still didn’t want to ruin everything.

  “My Belinda magic?” she said with her mouth threatening to smile, though her eyes were still more suspicious than amused.

  “Yeah…you know…you have a way of bringing him around.”

  Belinda seemed to ponder that for a moment. “Sometimes…. Do you think this information will help?” She waved in the general direction of the computer.

  “I do.” If anything, that might be the easiest part.

  “And do you know anything about my car?”

  Jonas had to suppress a smile at how forlorn she sounded about the state of her Mini Cooper. “They’re examining it to see what went wrong, based on what you said and what a couple of witnesses stated as well. I should hear something soon.”

  Belinda frowned but looked pacified for the moment.

  “I don’t think this is your fault, in any case,” Jonas added. “And I’m not just blaming the car, either.” Not after all the other experiences they’d had. And thinking back on his brief conversation with Camilla Felton days ago, he was starting to think she was right on the money about her father being murdered. He’d taken her seriously then, too, but now…well, it was looking more likely by the second.

  However, that wasn’t his focus for the time being. He was more concerned about keeping Belinda in the cupcake business. And the best lead so far was following her surveillance footage. “I need access to all your footage, not just this,” he said. “And I need to know everywhere you went the day of the accident and when your car was out of sight.”

  “Victoria’s and the country club,” she said without hesitating. “Shortly after you left Victoria’s, I went to the country club and talked to Ginny Felton. Then…then this happened.” She aimed a scone at her forehead, where a bandage covered some of her skin.

  Now that was interesting. Without much more sitting around, Jonas called Soto to come over and get all of Belinda’s surveillance video. Then Jonas headed to the country club for step two.

  ~ * ~

  Belinda wasn’t sure how upset Jonas was that she’d gone to Colleen for help. But she didn’t see another way to do it. And now he could take over, so it really didn’t matter. What did matter was that he took her seriously.

  And as Soto copied all the relevant surveillance video a short time after Jonas left, she felt sure he took her more seriously now as well. It was a far cry from him running away from her last summer.

  Soto didn’t hang around long and Bennett appeared on the porch right after he left. He stood in front of her, his face serious, his arms hanging by his sides. He studied her a solid minute or so before saying, “You think you’re up for some nighttime investigating?”

  Belinda blinked. Honestly, that was the last thing she expected to come out of his mouth. She wanted to say, “Do you know who you’re talking to?” But she opted for, “What kind?”

  “The kind that involves a house we’re not supposed to go into.” Bennett squinted out at the ocean, and Belinda thought maybe he was being sarcastic at first. But his face was still perfectly serious.

  “Really? You want to do that now?” She imagined she might have to go investigate the Lawson house solo at some point, but maybe not.

  “I don’t know that want is the right word.” Bennett dragged a chair over, leaning toward her. “But the Southwood police are not viewing Lawson’s death as a murder. We need some evidence that it could be. Not just speculation.”

  “You think we’ll find it?” Belinda wasn’t even sure there would be such a thing. “Someone could have pushed him. There wouldn’t be evidence left behind from that.”

  “I don’t think that’s what happened.” Bennett glanced at her bandage. “Except for Elizabeth Hall, everything else has been…remote. Something’s been planted or done in advance, so it looks hands-off.”

  “You believe someone triggered his fall…remotely…” Belinda wasn’t sure where Bennett was going with this.

  “If you want someone dead, you don’t sit around hoping they might just fall down the stairs one day.”

  “Okay…” Belinda sat back, scanning his gray eyes for more. “How do you think they caused his fall then?”

  Bennett scratched his head. “Truly, it could be anything. They could have just placed something small on the stairs that he wouldn’t see.”

  “Like a marble?”

  Bennett nodded. “Yeah…except for the way his body was positioned.”

  “He was face down.”

  “Exactly. He didn’t hit something with his foot and crash backward.” Bennett rubbed his hands together. “I think there was something that made him trip forward.”

  Bennett met her eyes expectantly. Belinda might have felt loopy still, but that wasn’t about to stop her. “When should we go?”

  Chapter 24

  Butterflies dueled it out in Belinda’s stomach as they approached the Lawson house on foot that night, the only light in the vicinity coming from their flashlights.

  Belinda had gone back to her own house that afternoon, which made it easier when Bennett showed up late to pick her up. And Kyle had gone to bed early, which made it doubly easy. She left Kyle a note in case he got up before she returned, then slipped off into the dark with her hunk.

  Of course, this was far from a romantic rendezvous. Bennett led her around the house to the back and pried open an old window with a crowbar. He’d poked around when they were working there, but Lawson hadn’t believed in security, apparently. Belinda had argued that anyone could’ve snuck inside and pushed him down the stairs, then. But Bennett wouldn’t buy her theory. How would they have known he was going downstairs? Or when?

  If Lawson knew the person, they might have been able to lure him there, in her opinion. But that didn’t convince Bennett, either. She finally gave up and decided to follow his idea.

  Belinda crawled through the window first, still terrified an alarm would go off as soon as she stepped inside. She waved her flashlight around, illuminating what she thought was an old dining room. It was barren now, but it connected to the kitchen. They navigated to the stairs where Henry was found dead, which seemed creepier in the dark. Nothing had seemed that scary in the daytime with all those people coming and going. But now it was empty and dark and creepy.

  “Let’s hurry and do this so we can get out of here,” she whispered, glancing behind her.

  Bennett craned his neck to see her. “This was your idea, remember?”

  Belinda wrinkled her nose. “Just examine the stairs, okay?”

  Bennett smirked, starting at the bottom step and creeping his way to the top, his flashlight swinging side to side as he moved. Belinda followed the motion, trying to spot anything unusual. But they just looked like stairs.

  “And you wanted to come here alone,” Bennett said, concentrating on his task.

  Belinda made a face but didn’t respond. She had to admit she was glad to have Bennett with her.

  Bennett got to the top, settling on his knees on one stair and examined the base of the railing up. Belinda wasn’t sure what she was looking for, but she mimicked him on the opposite side, except she worked from the top of the wall down. When she reached the baseboard, she bent down to see it up close.

  After a second, she reached out, feeling for Bennett’s arm, tugging on his jacket. “Look at this.” She moved aside, pushing Bennett in that direction.

  “What am I looking at?”

  Belinda crawled over him, bending down on the top landing and pointing. “This one spot is not the same color as the rest of the baseboard. It’s lighter like someone just painted it.”

  “Or patched…” Bennett f
ocused on the railing side again, sticking his face down around the bottom. “It’s like that here, too.”

  Belinda joined him while Bennett waved his flashlight between the two points.

  “They match up,” Belinda said, her heart beating faster, though she wasn’t sure what it meant.

  Bennett sat back on his knees, his eyes going between the two points, like working it out himself. “A wire maybe?” he finally said. “Someone could’ve put two small nails on either side, wrapping a hair-thin wire between them.”

  “So when Henry went down the steps, he’d fall forward.”

  Bennett nodded absently.

  “That sounds risky,” Belinda said. “Anyone could have taken these steps.”

  “Except Lawson and Elizabeth Hall were the only two here at the time.” Bennett scratched his temple. “But that would have been tricky. Someone had to get in and set it up–at just the right time–then quickly take it apart and patch up the wall.”

  “They might have had a chance while the Warden was getting the police. And it’s a big house. Someone could have stayed behind without anyone noticing. Besides, what about the hidden rooms? Maybe somebody hid in one of those until everyone else was gone.”

  “There’s still the problem of getting Lawson to go down the stairs at the right time.”

  “I still vote for a lure.” Belinda sat back on her knees. “A phone call, a text, something to get him out of his room and down these stairs.”

  “Or maybe he was hungry.” Bennett shrugged, glancing down at the kitchen. “People have routines. Maybe Lawson was strict about his eating times.”

  Belinda glanced away, staring through the rails toward the kitchen. “Or had to be. We’ve ignored the rumors about his health issues. Maybe he really did have something wrong with–”

  They locked eyes at the same moment, Bennett immediately killing his flashlight. Belinda followed suit, albeit a second later as the button didn’t want to work.