Impostor's Lure

by Carla Neggers

  Kevin shook his head in disbelief. “This guy, Colin.”

  Yeah, Colin thought. This guy. “It wasn’t Jolie Romero, Rex. You killed Stefan Petrescu, you slipped Verity Blackwood opioids, you killed Graham Blackwood and you grabbed Tamara McDermott and took her to your family’s farm. Why bother with Tamara? Did she surprise you and you needed to find out how much she knew about what you’d done?”

  “No, no, no,” Rex said, shaking his head, adamant. “None of that’s true. Did you find Tamara’s car? It’s not on the farm. It has to be out here somewhere. I found the key while I was looking for my father. It’s in my pocket. I took it with me. I brought him up to the farm this morning. I let him take a nap in the room in the guest cottage where Jolie stays. The key was on the bedside table. I freaked out when I saw it. I knew what she was up to.”

  Kevin angled a skeptical look at him. “Figured you’d plant the key here at the gazebo?”

  “No. I’m not planting anything. I was in a panic.”

  “I bet,” Kevin said. “Having Tamara’s rental car key on you isn’t in your favor.”

  “That’s what I’m saying. She’s framing me.”

  “You’ve been doing a lot on the fly, Rex,” Colin said. “You hid Tamara’s car by the nuns’ shed and transferred her to Jolie’s van. What did you do, drug her with some of your mother’s meds?”

  “Jolie did,” Rex said calmly. “It’ll all come out. You’ll see.”

  “The police are searching for Graham’s old hunting rifle,” Colin said. “They’ll match it to the weapon used to kill Stefan. Hope you have an alibi for where you were that night.”

  Rex stared at Colin and, for once, was quiet.

  Colin squished some water out of his shoes. “What if I told you someone saw you out here on Sunday?”

  Rex didn’t hesitate. “I was here. I admit it. It was part of her plan. Graham called me that morning and asked me to meet him. I told her. I was doing a run to Cambridge in Jolie’s van and detoured up here to see him. I parked at the convent and walked down the road to the cove and got onto the trail. I don’t know this area. I got a bit lost. Graham didn’t show up. He’d said he was going to kayak out to an old gazebo. I was already running late and didn’t want to wait. So I left. I didn’t see Adalyn’s mother.”

  “Where was Jolie Romero?” Colin asked.

  “I thought she was at the farm, but she must have followed me. She probably took my father’s car since I had the van. He doesn’t drive anymore, obviously. Did she drug Graham? Is that how she killed him? Or was it just a contributing factor? She could do it. Kill Graham, kidnap Adalyn’s mother. You’ve seen her. She’s tough. She hauls paintings. She used to go shooting with Graham.”

  “You’re all over the place now, Rex,” Kevin said without sympathy. “You should pick a story and stick to it. You don’t have much working for you.”

  “I see everything so clearly now, but I’m the one who looks guilty.”

  Kevin sighed. “That’s because you are guilty, Rex.”

  “What did you do with the rock you used on Graham?” Colin asked.

  Rex smacked his mouth shut and looked away.

  “You threw it in the water,” Kevin said. “That would make sense.”

  “You don’t understand.” Rex gave a long-suffering sigh. “Jolie manipulated my parents. All of us.”

  “It’s over, Rex,” Colin said.

  Kevin got him up. “Let’s go.”

  The EMTs got Timothy onto the marine patrol boat. It was the fastest way to get him to a hospital. Colin gazed out at the water. The lobster boat had gone. Bright buoys bobbed under the clear sky. He walked up to the ledge, where he could get a decent signal, and called Finian Bracken. “Meet me at hospital. Bring Faye and Lucas.”

  He’d get Emma and bring her there himself.

  26

  Emma finished up with the state and local police at the Campbell farm. She stood outside of the barn. She’d finally taken a look inside and had seen the damage from the fire. A wonder no one had been killed. The art in the studio had been Rex’s last hope for maintaining his lifestyle. It included his attempts to imitate his father’s work with a River Cherwell “series,” based off that one last painting Fletcher had done in Oxford in the fall. Rex had substituted it with a similar painting his father had started and he’d finished. He’d left the fake for Graham to collect from the Campbell cottage.

  The genuine Fletcher Campbell painting burned in the fire.

  What a blow that must have been for Rex, Emma thought. He’d have sold it when the price of his father’s work had increased to his satisfaction. Since it was the first in a series, who would ever question the authenticity of other River Cherwell paintings, including the one in the Blackwoods’ drawing room?

  Stefan Petrescu, for one. An observant friend.

  Increasingly desperate and entitled, Rex had spiraled out of control, and now he was under arrest in Maine, thanks to Colin and Kevin.

  Emma felt no sense of relief.

  Yank and Tamara had been transported to the hospital. Tamara seemed to be in good shape—worried about her daughter and desperate for a change of clothes. Sam Padgett was escorting Lucy Yankowski to meet her husband. Yank needed surgery, but he’d managed to make a statement to police as EMTs were loading him onto a stretcher. No question Fletcher hadn’t shot him. Yank had spotted him seconds before getting hit. Fletcher had pointed past Yank, into the trees where Rex must have been, and yelled something about a gun. It was enough for Yank to draw his weapon and protect Adalyn.

  Of course, Yank was mad at himself for not having seen through Rex sooner.

  Emma hadn’t told him about her father. She’d head to the hospital in Maine where he was as soon as she could get her car out. It was still blocked by emergency vehicles.

  She noticed Jolie Romero edged toward the row of sunflowers by the barn. “They reseeded themselves,” she said quietly. “Rex didn’t plant them. He got rid of the property manager this spring. That should have been a damn clue money was tight, but I didn’t pay any attention. He was scrambling to figure out what expenses he could cut, what he could sell.”

  “I’m sorry, Jolie,” Emma said.

  “Yeah. Thanks.” She touched a yellow sunflower petal. “Happy flowers, aren’t they? Rex—he’s in custody, the police said. He did everything, didn’t he? Killed Stefan, set Verity up to overdose, killed Graham, kidnapped Tamara. Sociopathic SOB. Any word on your father?”

  “He’s in the ER.”

  “He has family with him?”

  “My mother and brother. My husband. I’ll get there as soon as I can.”

  “Rex shot Agent Yankowski, too. He ambushed him and then gave his own father the gun. He said it was me and I set them up to take the blame. He didn’t care what happened to Fletcher. Rex would never have managed to get away if he hadn’t fired at Yank and Adalyn. It was a risk because you FBI agents are armed, but Rex is a good shot.” Jolie shuddered, rubbing her upper arms as if she were cold. “One of his English gentleman skills. He liked playing the role. He had a good time being Fletcher and Ophelia Campbell’s son, but ultimately, he gave up everything for self-absorbed parents with talent and no limits. I loved them, but I did see that about them. He should have walked away at eighteen.”

  “He didn’t have to kill anyone,” Emma said.

  “No.” Jolie propped up a tall sunflower bent over in the afternoon heat. “I was fooled, Special Agent Sharpe. One hundred percent. I wasn’t a part of this scheme. Rex didn’t risk trying to finish off Agent Yankowski and kill Tamara—kill Adalyn and me—but he had his fake alibis and fake motives and whatever lined up so he could pin everything on me. Bastard. Narcissistic psychopath. Those are the ones who fool you, aren’t they?”

  “We’ll do a thorough investigation.”

  “A nonanswer answer. So
rry if I’m jabbering, but I just had the living daylights scared out of me, and a young man I trusted...” She blew out a breath at the sky. “I bet killing felt good to him. It was a release. Empowering after living in his parents’ shadow. Get rid of threats against him at the same time. Win-win.”

  “I’ll never understand how taking a life is empowering,” Emma said.

  “He slipped opioids left over from his mother into Verity’s herb bottle and planted them at the house she and Graham rented. I can’t believe he killed poor Stefan. Where’d he get a gun in England? The Blackwoods? Graham had this old relic...” Her lower lip was trembling now. Shock, adrenaline. “It’s the gun Rex used, isn’t it? Never mind. I know you can’t say.”

  Henrietta and Oliver had been in touch with Emma. The police had searched the Blackwood home in Oxford and discovered a Rigby .275—the weapon used to kill Stefan Petrescu. They were in the process of searching the Campbells’ Oxford cottage.

  Jolie looked up at the sky as if somehow it could provide answers, or at least understanding. “I was so focused on saving what paintings I could after the fire. I just didn’t see anything else.” She swallowed, turning to Emma. “I’m still putting the pieces together. Rex grabbed Tamara because he needed to know what she was up to with the FBI and the Blackwoods. He took my van in order to frame me if it came to it. Here I was helping him. I gave him a break on the salvage work I was doing. The ingrate.”

  Emma said nothing. Let Jolie ramble.

  “I didn’t notice anything off about the painting that night at dinner with the Blackwoods. Maybe if I had...” She shook her head. “Rex would have killed me, too. He kept telling everyone Fletcher was doing a series of River Cherwell paintings. More lies.”

  “Rex dug himself deeper and deeper into a hole,” Emma said.

  Jolie nodded, still obviously trying to process what had happened. “He thought he’d get away with it. The easygoing son of intense, spendthrift artists who’s actually arrogant and aggrieved. I wonder if he’d have turned violent if his parents hadn’t squandered his inheritance. Well, it was their money. That was what my mother used to say about her money. Rex was free to earn his own income.”

  “Did he ever hold down a job?”

  Jolie shook her head. “Not really. He was at his parents’ beck and call. He never believed he would measure up to his father either as an artist or a lover.”

  “Worshipped or hated him?”

  “Both. Fletcher was a larger-than-life type, and now he’s been brought to ground by Alzheimer’s. He’s human after all. I thought Rex was coming to terms with his father as someone he didn’t have to hate or worship. I was wrong about that, too.”

  A detective drew Jolie away for more questions. Sam Padgett joined Emma. “Yank will make it. They took him straight into surgery. Lucy’s knitting in the waiting room. Hell of a day. How’s your dad?”

  “He’s still in the ER. I adore my father, Sam. He’s a regular guy. He never wanted Lucas and me or anyone else to worship him. I think Fletcher Campbell wanted Rex to worship him. Do you worship your father, Sam?”

  “Nope.”

  “Is he still alive?”

  “Yep. We talk every Sunday. He always thinks it’s about to snow up here.”

  “Is he retired?”

  “My dad will never retire. That’s what he says. Hell for him is an umbrella on a beach. He owns his own business. Construction. My brother and sister work for him.”

  “And you went into law enforcement,” Emma said.

  He grinned at her. “Someone had to be the black sheep.” His grin didn’t reach his eyes.

  “Yank will need time to recover. What do you think this means for HIT?” Emma asked.

  “We carry on,” Sam said.

  “Unless the director shuts us down.”

  “Yeah. There’s that.”

  “I need to get to the hospital.”

  “Want me to drive you up there?”

  She shook her head. “It’s not far. I’m okay. My car’s here.”

  “I’m sorry, Emma. Be with your family.” He kissed her on the cheek. “Keep me posted.”

  As she started for the parking area, she recognized Andy Donovan’s truck as it pulled up next to her car. Colin got out. He was wearing what he liked to call Rock Point clothes. Cargo pants, sweatshirt, running shoes. “You went in the water after my father,” Emma said.

  “Andy brought me dry clothes when he picked me up at the hospital. You good to go?”

  She nodded. “Dad?”

  “He’s where he needs to be.” His eyes connected with hers, and he seemed to understand what she was trying to ask. “It wasn’t Rex. It wasn’t suicide. He lost his footing. It’s a tricky spot. He wasn’t reckless.”

  “You’ll tell me everything he said?”

  “Everything. Come on. I’ll drive.”

  * * *

  Adalyn sat next to her mother on uncomfortable chairs in the surgical waiting room. Lucy Yankowski had stepped out to get coffee, leaving behind her knitting. She was working on a sweater made with gray-blue alpaca yarn. She’d told Adalyn about it, had shown her the pattern—a coping mechanism while her husband was in surgery. He’d lost a lot of blood. Lucy had stared at Adalyn and her mother, the blood on their clothes, stuck in their fingernails. Adalyn had scrubbed and scrubbed in the bathroom in the ER waiting area while doctors examined her mother. They’d cleaned up her cuts and scrapes, checked her vitals and released her. Just like Tamara McDermott, wasn’t it? Drugged, kidnapped, held for almost three days...and just fine.

  Jolie had finally called and said she was going home to drown herself in vodka martinis. I never saw it coming, Adalyn. Never. I just thought Rex was a lot of fun and didn’t have a care in the world.

  Adalyn couldn’t imagine going back to work on the Campbell paintings. Jolie probably couldn’t, either.

  First things first.

  “You need to find a new place to live, and a new job, Adalyn,” her mother said, as if reading her mind. “Too much baggage working for Jolie Romero. I don’t care if she was oblivious to what was going on. Two men were killed. She has a lot to sort through—emotionally, professionally. You’re only twenty-one. You just don’t need that. You don’t need to ask that of yourself.”

  Adalyn nodded, stretched out her legs. Her mother could be so imperious but right now, she didn’t mind. “I have friends looking for someone to share an apartment. I thought it’d be romantic—different—to live above an art conservation studio. It’ll be okay. I never got settled.”

  “You know I try not to put my foot down very often.”

  “Huh?” Adalyn grinned at her. “Seriously?”

  Her mother smiled, patted her on the shoulder. “Compared to what I want to do, I don’t put my foot down often. Better? It’s your life, Adalyn, but, damn it, all I could think about when I was locked up in that nasty, awful little shithole of a bathroom was...” She bit back a sob. “Was you.”

  “I know, Mom.”

  “And you—were you scared?”

  “More and more, but mostly I thought you took off early for vacation.”

  “You were pissed at me, then.”

  “Yeah.”

  Her mother hugged her, kissed her on her forehead. They weren’t the hugging-and-kissing types, but it felt okay. Natural, even. “I’d never have missed your birthday dinner,” she whispered. “I’ll make it up to you.”

  “Mom...it’s fine. I got to have dinner with two stud FBI agents and a brilliant art crimes FBI agent and see them go into action.”

  “You’re not considering—”

  “A career in the FBI? No. I’m over that. I’m looking forward to classes starting.” She saw Lucy chatting with a nurse outside the waiting room. “I’ve taken up knitting. Well, I’ve got yarn, and knitting needles—and I picked out a patter
n. A baby blanket.”

  “You’re not—Adalyn, don’t tell me—”

  “No! Mom, I’m not pregnant.”

  “Phew. I just survived the worst ordeal of my life. I can’t take any more surprises.”

  “I heard the doctor. She says you’re as strong as an ox.”

  “Those were not her exact words.”

  Adalyn laughed. They’d be all right, her and her hardheaded, hard-assed mom. “I don’t want to abandon Verity. I’m going to write to her and see her when I go back to London. Which I will. I have to. I can’t let my life be tainted by Rex’s actions.”

  “I have faith in you to figure out what’s right for you,” her mother said.

  “You have good friends in the Yankowskis, Mom.”

  She smiled, leaning toward Adalyn. “I’m still not going to start knitting.”

  Adalyn jumped to her feet when she saw her father through the glass door. He poked his head in the waiting room. “Okay if I say hi?”

  Her mother sniffed. “Did you bring your girlfriend?”

  “No, no, I—”

  “It’s okay if you did. I was just asking. I’m glad you’re here for our daughter.”

  “I am, too. I wish I’d gotten here sooner.” He walked into the room, kissed his ex-wife on the cheek and then Adalyn. He was a handsome man, fit at forty-seven, with graying hair and dark eyes, and he had a great career as a criminal defense attorney. Right now, though, he looked haggard, the effects of the past few days bringing out the lines and shadows in his face. “Thank God you both survived.”

  Adalyn fought tears, but her mother waved a hand. “My office is going to have a field day over my being held in a bathroom. They’ll want to hear all the details, and I’ll have to tell them I stood on a toilet and slept on a smelly yoga mat and...” She sucked in a breath. “It was awful, guys. It was truly awful, but it’s done and we’re here.”

  “I’ll go with you on vacation,” Adalyn said.

  “No, you have school, you have to find a place to live, a job. You have your own life. I planned to meet friends in Nova Scotia. I can fly up there once I get free of the FBI and various detectives.”