Endless

by Tawdra Kandle

  I felt as thought I were going to be sick. Nick really had killed Helene. Did he plant me here to keep my eye—or rather, my ear—on Ben and the congressman? Knowing that even hearing it, I didn’t have any evidence that I could take to the police. And Ben. . .he knew it. All along he knew it. He had planted her in Nick’s life, practically sent her to her death, though probably he had only intended to use her to get the inside news on their possible opponent.

  I needed to get out of the office, but I knew I couldn’t leave yet. My stomach heaved and roiled, and I drew in deep breaths.

  The door opened, and one of the other volunteers walked in.

  “Hey,” she greeted me. “Quiet in here, huh? Where’s Chelle? I got bored at the rally and drove back early. Are you okay? You look kind of green.”

  “I don’t feel well,” I answered. “Chelle is at the dentist, she should be back in a little bit. Ben is in the back—doing an interview. Can you take over here? I really just need to go home.”

  “Sure.” She peered at my face, concerned. “Are you okay to drive? Want me to call anyone?”

  Right away I thought of Michael, but the idea of drawing him into this made me feel sicker yet. I would tell him, of course, but not yet. There was someone else I needed to see.

  “Actually, I think I will call my friend to come get me.”

  Cathryn pulled up to the curb, and I climbed into the passenger seat. She eyed me suspiciously.

  “You’re not going to be sick, are you? Because I really don’t like people to be sick in my car. We could park and walk around. That might make you feel better.”

  I lay my head back against the seat. “I don’t think you want people to hear what I have to report. Not this one. Matter of fact, is Emma really in Gainesville? Because we might want her to make us a perimeter.”

  Cathryn frowned. “Did you do something? Should we get Zoe?”

  I shook my head, keeping my eyes firmly shut. “Not anything I did, just what I heard. Come on, I’m okay. I promise not to hurl in your precious car. Just take me back to campus, okay?”

  I felt our speed increase. The farther we drove away from Ben Ryan and the campaign headquarters, the better I felt.

  “Can you talk now, do you think?” Cathryn asked.

  “I think so.” I proceeded to tell her every detail of my afternoon, from Chelle’s dental appointment to every word spoken and thought between Ben Ryan and the journalist.

  She was very pale when I finished. “He really did it?” she murmured. “I can’t believe that.”

  “Ben seems to think so. I mean, he didn’t see it happen, but the circumstantial evidence is pretty damning.”

  “It is circumstantial, though.” Cathryn was almost talking to herself.

  “Cathryn, I want to go talk to him. Myself, in person.”

  She looked at me as though I’d grown a second head. “What are you talking about?”

  “I want to see Nick Massler. I want to talk to him and listen to him. I need to know for sure.”

  Cathryn shook her head. “Are you crazy? You want me to send you in to talk to a man whom we are relatively sure is a murderer? Oh, yes, that’s a grand idea. Wait’ll I tell Michael that I let you do this. He’d kill me. He made me promise you would be safe, you know.” She shot me a sidelong glare.

  “I won’t be in danger. We won’t tell him what we heard. But I think if I feed him a little bit of info, I’ll be able to know if he really is guilty. If he killed Helene.”

  She was silent for a few minutes, considering. “If you go to his house, his staff will be there. You’ll be safe. I could send Emma with you?”

  “No, just me. He knows me. After what happened with Nell, I really don’t think he’d try anything. And like I said, I’m not going to confront him. I’ll just drop some information and see what happens.”

  Cathryn drove onto campus and dropped me off in front of my dorm. “I’ll set it up with him and message you the info on the secure line. You’ll call me going in and you’ll call me coming out. Are we clear?”

  “Crystal,” I said, shutting the car door.

  I was happy that Sophie wasn’t in our room. I went into the shared bathroom, showered and scrubbed my face clean, put on my sweats and climbed into bed with my homework.

  When I opened my eyes, two very concerned faces were staring down at me. “Hey! I’m sorry, I must have dozed off. Long day. What time is it? What’s wrong?”

  Michael sat down on the edge of my bed. “It’s after six. I waited for you at the dining hall. You never called me this afternoon on your way home, and then when you didn’t meet me. . .” He ran a hand over his face. “I was imagining the worst.”

  I saw his eyes skitter across my neck, with its delicate scars, and I reached out to cover his hand. “I’m so sorry. I wasn’t feeling well, so I came back early and climbed into bed. I guess I just zonked.”

  “Where’s your car?” Sophie asked. She looked a little rattled, too. “Michael called me, and I was walking back from the library. I went through the parking lot, looking for your work car.”

  “I didn’t drive home because I was feeling sick. Cathryn drove me back to campus.” Michael looked decidedly suspicious, but I squeezed his hand. “I’m really sorry,” I repeated. “I didn’t mean to worry you.”

  Sophie stood up from her bed. “Well, I’m going to get my dinner. Want me to bring you back anything from the dining hall?”

  I shook my head. “Thanks, Sophie, but I’m not hungry.”

  “I’ll get you soup,” Michael announced. “There’s that place off campus that make the lemon orzo you love. Doesn’t that sound good?”

  I smiled. “That I could eat.”

  He dropped a kiss on my cheek and whispered in my ear, “We’ll talk when I get back.”

  The next morning, there was a simple message in the secure email.

  4 PM today. Your car has been returned to the lot. Keys are in the glove compartment. The address is programmed into your GPS. Go through the back door. You will be expected.

  Michael had accepted my explanation that I was just overtired. If he was slightly skeptical, he didn’t voice his thoughts.

  I zombie-walked through my morning classes. At lunch, I went back to my room, heated up the soup from the night before and sipped on it while I texted Michael that I had to do something for work that afternoon and promised to call him on my way back to campus.

  Okay, Sleeping Beauty, he replied. Don’t forget.

  My trepidation continued to grow all afternoon. After my final class, I hurried back to the parking lot and found the car. As promised, the keys were there and the GPS was programmed. I followed the directions as though I were going back to the Remington estate, but I didn’t turn down that road.

  Instead I followed another hidden turn through woods that gave way to fields. Horses were grazing in the pastures and the view was gorgeous.

  The winding road led me to a large white house. Since there was no helpful valet waiting at this front door, I continued to drive around to the back and parked next to several other cars near what looked like a stable.

  I didn’t love going in the back like a servant, but I understood the need for discretion. I knocked at the plain wooden door.

  The woman who answered was petite, with gray hair and a bright smile.

  “Ms. Vaughan, welcome. Come right in please.”

  I stepped into a kitchen that smelled a little like heaven should. I couldn’t suppress an appreciative sigh, and the woman grinned.

  “Like that, do you? My famous muffins. I’ll send some up with your tea.” She led me to a doorway on the far side of the kitchen and pointed up a set of stairs. “Go up these steps, and then follow the hallway to the very end. Mr. Massler is in his study waiting for you.”

  I followed her directions and within a few moments, I stood in the doorway of the study, my heart thumping in anticipation. Nick Massler sat at a large oak desk in the corner of the room, head bent over papers.
I cleared my throat and knocked on the side of the door.

  “Ms. Vaughan.” There was a great deal of irony in his voice. “Nice to see you again. We meet under the most unusual circumstances, don’t we?”

  I bit my lip, looking into the face of the man I had despised since I’d known his daughter’s story. His skin was drawn, and his eyes were bleak.

  “Come in.” He rose from his seat and walked around the desk to gesture me inside. “Close the doors behind you, please?”

  I turned and drew them shut. The room was dimly lit, with wooden louvered shutters closed against the sun. I noted that while Harper Creek had echoes of a more northern home, transplanted in new soil, the Massler estate was purely southern.

  Nick leaned against his desk as I came further into the room. He was watching me with great caution, and I realized that he was working to keep his mind shut off from mine. A sardonic smile twisted my mouth.

  “Afraid I might hear something incriminating?” I inquired.

  “Thoughts are unreliable things,” he responded. “They’re easily misinterpreted. Well, now, of all the people in the world, imagine how surprised I was when Harley Watson told me who would be working on my case. It really is a small world, isn’t it?”

  “And getting smaller all the time.” I looked around the study. Bookcases lined two of the walls, and shuttered doors made up a third. It was comfortable and masculine. A table against the back of a small love seat in the center of the room held framed photographs, and I wandered over to look at them. There were children in several, but I didn’t recognize any of them as Nell.

  “No, I’ve no pictures of her here. It was what she wanted. No part of this house or this family.” He sighed and took a seat in one of the wing back chairs that flanked the loveseat. “Please, Tasmyn, come join me. Sit down.”

  I did as he requested, perching on the edge of the opposite chair. “You haven’t been to see her.” It was a statement, not a question.

  “No, but you have. Thank you. I appreciate that, and I have to believe that somewhere deep inside, Nell knows it and is grateful. She wouldn’t be happy for me to visit. She never was.”

  I gritted my teeth. “But you sent her mother away and then you left her. How else could she feel?”

  Nick shook his head. “Tasmyn, you don’t have the whole story. I didn’t want to leave Nell in King. Believe me, after what I went through with Alyse, it was the last place I would want my child raised.”

  “That’s just it though—she was a child. She might not have liked it at first, but eventually, here with you and your family—she would have grown up and understood you loved her enough to do what was best for her.” I heard my own words and my heart sunk. “But you didn’t, did you? It was far more convenient to leave her in King. Out of sight, out of mind.”

  Nick’s mouth twisted, and I felt his anger. “You really don’t know anything about this, and it isn’t any of your business. But if you must know, Alyse’s family threatened to fight me for custody of Nell. They didn’t want her taken away from King. At that point, after what had happened. . .I couldn’t stomach any more of it. So, all right, yes. I left her there. I went back enough to make it look good, but for all intents and purposes, I was living here. And Nell was raised by the same twisted women who made her mother into the nut job she was. You don’t think I live with that guilt every day? I do. So now I leave Nell to her own peace, in her own world. Trust me. It’s much better for her.”

  I was silent, trying to determine how much truth was in his words and how much was put on pathos, his attempt to get my sympathy. Finally, I just nodded.

  “I think we’re going to have to agree to disagree on that. It doesn’t have anything to do with why I’m here. But you know, I do have some questions.”

  Nick spread his hands wide. “Ask away. I’m an open book.”

  I barely resisted rolling my eyes. “Did you kill Helene Gamble?”

  He winced as though I’d struck him and then set his mouth in a hard line. “No. I didn’t have anything to do with it.”

  “Then why did you bring in Carruthers? Why not just wait until they find the killer?”

  “Because real innocence and guilt sometimes have very little to do with perception in this world. Even though I didn’t hurt Helene, her death could easily sully my name. Again. After all, I had nothing to do with Alyse’s crimes and I still paid for them, didn’t I?”

  This time I couldn’t hold back, and I did roll my eyes. “So, damage control. It’s too bad Helene is dead, but you can’t let it hurt your precious name again, is that it?”

  Nick’s temper was barely in check. “I’m glad Carruthers sent someone who is on my side, who is paid to help me get through this. To give me the information I need. So glad.”

  “I’m doing my job, Mr. Massler. But I need to ask you a few more things.”

  He tilted his head in acquiescence.

  “Did you know that Ben Ryan had planted Helene in your life?”

  Like lightening, Nick was on his feet and not only was his mind no longer blocked, the rage and betrayal was pouring over me.

  “What are you talking about?” he demanded.

  I licked my lips and took a deep breath. “I heard Ben thinking about it.”

  “It’s not true.” He was seething, even as he struggled to regain control. “Helene was not working for John. She couldn’t have been.”

  As much as I disliked this man, I felt horrible that I had dropped this information on him. There was no doubt in my mind that he hadn’t known. And that led me to my next question.

  “Helene was killed in an apartment you own.” He nodded, a sharp jerk of the head. “Did you invite her to meet you there the night she was killed?”

  “No. I wasn’t supposed to see her that night. I had a charity function, and she knew that.”

  I frowned. “She did? You’re sure?”

  “Of course, I’m sure. You don’t think I’ve gone over every detail of that day, of that night? Of my last conversation with her? We had been out three nights in a row that week. She was tired, she wanted to stay in. I told her to rest up, order dinner in and I’d talk to her in the morning.”

  This definitely didn’t jive with what Ben had said. And as far as I could tell, Nick was telling the truth.

  But why would Ben have been thinking what he did? It hadn’t felt like a set up, and I couldn’t imagine how he might know about my mind hearing.

  “It had to have been John. He was desperate. He doesn’t want me in this senate race. You have no idea what he’s capable of doing.” His mouth tightened.

  “Oh, I think I might have a clue,” I said.

  Nick raised one eyebrow. “Oh, really?”

  “Are you talking about what happened in King? With Alyse?”

  His eyes widened. “He told you? Or you heard it?”

  “I heard his guilt, and he told me the story. I think he might have been a little relieved to share it with someone. Have you known all along?”

  Nick raised one shoulder. “Almost. Alyse babbled about it when they first let me visit in the hospital. I thought it was part of her delusion, but then the more I thought about it, the less unlikely and outrageous it seemed. And then I asked Derrick about it—Derrick was the man my wife wanted—which was a little awkward of course, but he finally admitted that yes, John had helped set up some of their meetings.”

  “Is that why you stopped being friends?”

  His mouth twisted sardonically. “It is not easy to remain friendly with the man who encourages your wife to sleep with another man. Oh, and then who takes away all the rest of your dreams, too.”

  “Politics?”

  “It had always been my plan.” He dropped his head into his hands. “And it’s gone, and over. I thought it might be coming back. I thought I might have another shot, with the senate race and Helene. But he took those away, too, didn’t he?”

  “You really think the congressman set up Helene’s murder?” I just
couldn’t fathom it. He hadn’t sounded any guiltier than Nick did now. “I asked him. He denied it.”

  “Of course he did. I’m telling you, he knew I was about to enter the race. He knew I had a real shot at winning. And John Remington would do anything to stop me from taking that senate seat away from him.”

  “I don’t think he’s capable--”

  “Don’t let him fool you, Tasmyn.” Nick’s voice was harsh. “John might have sold you his Southern gentleman persona, but it’s a fraud. He tore away my wife and my family. Why do you think he did that?”

  “He thought he was just going to give you a push, to get back here and back into politics. He didn’t know that Alyse was pretty much insane, and he never thought it would go so far.”

  “He lied to you. Before he introduced Alsyse to Derrick, I had told him that I was moving out of King, that I was going to enter the state senate race. I had my backers, I had almost convinced Alyse that living part of the year away from King would not mean the world was ending. We had begun entertaining a little, making connections.

  “And then he tore it all apart. So don’t tell me what John Remington isn’t capable of doing. I’m telling you, he’s behind this. He saw me with Helene a week before she was killed. We ran into each other at some benefit. I saw him look at her, and I knew. He couldn’t bear to see me win. He never could.”

  I drove away from the Massler estate, more confused and discouraged than before. The deeper I fell into this mess, the less I understood. It was sad and painful and ugly.

  I called Cathryn and let her know that I had escaped from Nick Massler without injury.

  “He didn’t do it, Cathryn. I don’t know who did. Every time I think I have a hold on it, someone else convinces me of his innocence.”

  Cathryn let out a breath, and I heard relief. “You’re sure?”

  I grunted in frustration. “No. Didn’t you just hear me? I’m not sure. But at this point, I don’t see how or why he would have killed Helene. Nick is sure John did it. Ben is sure Nick did it.”

  “Who does John think killed Helene?”