Chloe Cook Cozy Mystery Bundle

by Kayla Michelle

“It didn’t turn out that way, did it?”

  Eric stared off into the distance, regret weighing heavy on his mind. “No. She kept refusing to pay. The fact is, she still hasn’t paid, and she never will.”

  “So that’s why you are at Sasha’s today. Trying to pick up the blackmailing where Ryan left off.”

  “It doesn’t matter. She never intended to pay anyone a single dime.”

  “I guess the next question is, what are in these photos that you and Ryan thought they’d be worth forty-thousand dollars?” Chloe asked.

  “Ryan told me they were of her doing some hard drugs back in college,” Eric explained.

  That answer only made Chloe more curious. “He told you? So you haven’t actually seen them?”

  “No.”

  “If you haven’t even seen the photos, no less have a copy of them, how did you expect to blackmail Sasha?”

  “She doesn’t know I haven’t seen them. I told her if she gave me the money, no one would ever see them.”

  “You blackmailed her with a bluff?”

  “I tried to, at least. It doesn’t matter now; it didn’t work.”

  “Let me get this straight, you were willing to do all that, yet you expect me to believe you didn’t kill Ryan Foster?” Chloe asked.

  “Look, you wanted the truth. There it is,” Eric replied.

  “I want the whole truth.”

  Eric stepped away from the bar. “I don’t have time for this. I need to come up with a way to get twenty grand, or that bookie is going to kill me.”

  Chloe stared into his eyes. “There’s something you’re not telling me about last night.”

  “You’re crazy. You can sit there like a little know-it-all, but ask yourself this, why would I bother killing Ryan? If anything, I needed him to stay alive. With him dead, I’m sitting here twenty grand short.”

  “Yeah, now. But maybe that wasn’t the original plan. Perhaps you were convinced that the blackmailing would work, so you killed Ryan with the intention of taking all the money. Then you could give twenty to the bookie, and pocket the other twenty for yourself.”

  Eric became defiant. “That’s not true.”

  Chloe didn’t back down. She stared deeper into his eyes. “You say that, but there’s something missing here. After all, desperate times lead to desperate measures.”

  Eric started backing away. “This conversation is over.”

  “Where are you going? You shouldn’t run. It only makes you look guilty.”

  He didn’t heed her warning. Eric high-tailed it to the door, then darted out.

  Chloe stood at the bar and sighed. She had done her best to keep things from getting out of hand. Once again, she failed.

  If she didn’t have more work to do, she would have sat back down at the bar and grab a drink. Instead, she headed back over to Sasha Irwin’s.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chloe couldn’t get over the fact that every answer she received just seemed to lead to more questions. The ultimate solution eluded her, at least for now. If she wasn’t careful, she could drive herself nuts spinning her head around in circles. As she pulled up to Sasha Irwin’s house, it was important to get her focus back.

  Chloe hated confronting people at home. There was such a limited window to work with. Not to mention the suspect had an easy out. Despite her bad past experiences, she couldn’t give up. Besides, maybe things would be different this time.

  Chloe rang the bell, then waited on Sasha’s doorstep impatiently.

  Suddenly Chloe realized that at least one part of Sasha’s alibi was true, she did have a German Shephard. Chloe could hear the dog barking like crazy as it peered out Sasha’s living room window.

  Fifteen seconds later, Chloe heard Sasha’s voice on the other side of the door.

  “Who is it?” Sasha asked.

  “Chloe Cook, from the party last night.”

  “What do you want?” Sasha wondered.

  “Can you just come out here and talk to me for a second?”

  “I’m not in the mood to talk to anyone. I just want to be left alone.”

  Unfortunately, the soft approach wasn’t working. Chloe would have to play hardball.

  “I have a very interesting picture here that I’d like to discuss with you face-to-face. If you don’t want to do that, maybe I can hand it over to the police,” Chloe said.

  Chloe heard the door unlocking in a hurry. The front door then swung open. Sasha Irwin looked completely bent out of shape. Chloe knew she didn’t have much time. Sasha looked like a volcano that could erupt at any time. What a combustible mix to have to juggle.

  Sasha didn’t waste any time ripping into Chloe. “Are you here to blackmail me too?”

  “No. I’m here to find out who killed Ryan Foster,” Chloe replied.

  “Then you’ve come to the wrong place.”

  “What is the right place then?”

  “Show me this supposed photo or the conversation is over,” Sasha demanded.

  Sasha had played Chloe’s hand. Chloe was in a bind now. Sasha clearly thought Chloe had one of the notorious photos that Ryan Foster had tried to blackmail her with. When she found out Chloe just had a photo of her and Eric Voss arguing, Chloe would probably have a door slammed in her face in short time.

  Still, Chloe had to make do with what was available. She pulled up the photo on her phone of Sasha and Eric arguing.

  Sasha scoffed the moment she saw it. “Is that all you have? Goodbye.”

  Chloe would have to talk her way back into this conversation. Now was the time to use the gift of gab that worked so well in her sales career.

  “Just because I don’t have the photo of you doing drugs, doesn’t mean it’s not out there. If I turn the picture I have on my phone over to the police and tell them about both Ryan and Eric’s schemes to blackmail you, you’d better believe the police will be searching Ryan’s house top to bottom to find that unsavory photo of you.”

  Sasha was dismissive but didn’t disappear back into her house. “Let them look. Odds are, they won’t find anything.”

  “Do you want to take that chance?”

  Instead of answering Chloe’s question, Sasha fired back one of her own. “What do you want from me?”

  “I don’t want trouble,” Chloe insisted.

  Sasha folded her arms. “Really? You could have fooled me.”

  “I just want the truth. Nothing more, nothing less. Now I’m going to be honest with you, if you don’t talk to me, I’ll go to the police. Then you’ll just have to answer their questions, and let me tell you, they won’t be as congenial as I am.”

  Sasha groaned. “Fine. Fire away.”

  “Let’s talk blackmail.”

  “That’s a waste of time.”

  “I disagree. That seems like the best use of time. Forty-thousand dollars is a lot of money, even given the fact that your reputation and job would be at stake if those pictures got out.”

  “What I meant is, it’s a waste of time because there are no pictures.”

  Chloe furrowed her brow. “What are you talking about?”

  “Everyone thinks I didn’t give Ryan the money because I decided just to kill him instead. The real reason I didn’t give him the forty grand was because I didn’t believe he actually had the photos that he was threatening me with.”

  That was an incredible yarn Sasha was weaving. Would it rip apart at the seams if Chloe started poking holes in it with a few questions?

  “Are you saying he was just bluffing this whole time? That he was trying to blackmail you with smoke and mirrors?”

  “You tell me. He went to all these efforts to blackmail me, yet never once could he produce any actual photos. Not the originals, not a copy, nothing. He kept telling me I wouldn’t get to see the pictures until I gave him the money.”

  Chloe was blown away. “That’s unbelievable.”

  “I know. So imagine my surprise when Eric Voss shows up on my doorstep trying to blackmail me with phanto
m pictures too.”

  Chloe clarified her statement. “I meant, it’s hard for me to believe your story. Why would Ryan think he could blackmail you without any actual photographs to do it with? More importantly, if you really didn’t believe Ryan had the photos, why did you storm out of the party last night in an absolute panic?”

  Sasha didn’t deviate from her story. “You said you wanted the truth. I just told you what happened.”

  “You told me a story, alright. I’m trying to figure out if it’s fact or fiction.”

  “Hey, that’s the truth. If you don’t want to believe it, that’s your problem,” Sasha said.

  Sasha then went to close the door.

  Chloe’s chance was slipping away. She had to find a way to prolong the conversation.

  “Ok, I believe you,” Chloe lied. “Just hold on a minute.”

  Sasha stared her down.

  Chloe continued. “You said earlier that if I wanted to find the killer, I was at the wrong place. Where’s the right place then?”

  “Why don’t you ask Adam Foster?”

  “Why?”

  “Figure it out for yourself. This conversation is over.”

  There was no more delaying Sasha. She’d reached her boiling point. She slammed the door in Chloe’s face.

  Chapter Twenty

  What a day. Suddenly Chloe found herself going from a baffling conversation to a potential hornet’s nest. Sasha had been mysteriously vague about her reasons for pointing the blame at Adam Foster. While she wasn’t able to figure out why Sasha was so non-specific, Chloe at least knew where her next stop would be.

  Chloe had deliberately saved confronting the Foster’s for last. It was much easier to draw information out of a suspect when she was one-on-one with them. As Chloe drove over to the Foster’s house, there was a good chance both Adam and Lily would be there. That made for a sticky situation. They could easily team up against Chloe if they wanted.

  Chloe prayed that one of them would be out of the house when she arrived. Surprisingly, she ended up getting her wish…kind of. A dramatic scene unfolded as Chloe pulled up to the Foster residence. The old saying was that timing was everything in life. It couldn’t have been more spot-on at that moment.

  Just as Chloe parked on the sidewalk across from the Foster’s house, the front door opened. Lily Foster made a tearful exit, wiping her eyes as she walked to her car in the driveway. As Chloe sat in her car, she was amazed that she didn’t see Adam Foster anywhere. Not in the doorway, the living room window, nowhere. Whatever happened between Adam and Lily, it must have been major for him to not even see her out or walk her to her car.

  Before Lily got in her car, she turned back towards the doorway and yelled. “If you change your mind, I’ll be at my sister’s.”

  Lily didn’t look like she was expecting a response. She didn’t get one either. She wiped another tear from her eye, then got into her car and drove away.

  Normally in this circumstance, Chloe would follow Lily. She didn’t need to this time. She knew exactly where Lily was headed--her sister’s house. Adam Foster was more the wild card in this instance. He could either stay inside his house, or he could leave shortly to go off to some unknown destination. Chloe felt it would be better to strike while the iron was hot and confront him now.

  As she approached the front door, she realized her worries had been confirmed. She was definitely walking into a hornet’s nest, of emotions at least. As far as she was concerned, she’d already been blown up at plenty for one day. It seemed inevitable that another drama-filled encounter was on deck.

  With her defenses up, Chloe reached the front door and rang the bell.

  She stood there impatiently as she received no answer. Chloe waited a minute, then rang the bell again. This time, she knocked as well.

  Twenty seconds later, she heard Adam’s voice through the door. He started yelling as he swung the door open.

  “Lily, I told you, it’s over--”

  When Adam realized it was Chloe on the doorstep and not his wife, he got really embarrassed.

  “You’re not Lily,” he said.

  “You got that right,” Chloe replied. She then became very confused. “Why would you think I was Lily? Your wife wouldn’t knock. She’d just use her keys to come in.”

  Adam suddenly found himself tongue-tied. He stammered while he tried to explain himself. “Right. Yeah, of course.”

  “Unless you changed the locks,” Chloe suggested.

  “That’s neither here nor…” Adam was quick to switch gears. “What are you doing here, Chloe?”

  “I wanted to see how you’re doing.”

  He was startled by that response as if it was the last thing he ever expected to hear out of her mouth. That made his reaction even more odd. Chloe couldn’t have made a more innocuous statement.

  “Um, you know, I’m hanging in there,” Adam said.

  “You must be wrestling with so many emotions.”

  “I am.”

  “I mean, with your brother having been murdered and all.”

  Adam tensed up. He looked completely uncomfortable in his skin. The one thing that was completely absent on his face was any form of remorse.

  He tried his best to pretend he was sad about his brother’s murder but wasn’t able to fool Chloe in the least.

  “Right. Yeah, that’s a terrible way to go.”

  Chloe decided to switch gears herself, hoping she could throw him for a loop.

  “Although, he did ruin your life,” Chloe said.

  Adam grimaced. “I don’t really want to talk about that, or him really. It’s uh, too painful.”

  If Adam was trying to come across as sympathetic, he was doing an awful job of it. Judging by his face, it was hard to believe he used to be part of an acting troupe, even if it was back in college.

  Chloe had him on the ropes and decided to push him further. “Let’s talk about Lily for a second then. When you opened the door a minute ago, you said it was over between you two. Is that because she still had feelings for your brother even though she’s pregnant with your child?”

  Adam started to back away. “You know what? This really isn’t a good time.”

  “I disagree. I think now is the only time. After all, it was your brother who was murdered, and you two had a bitter rivalry, not just with each other, but over your wife. As an outside observer, you had plenty of motive. I can see people pointing the finger of blame at you. The way I see it, it’s in your best interest to prove you’re innocent.”

  Adam went into denial mode. He started pointing the finger of blame elsewhere in a hurry. “You say that, but if anyone looks guilty here, it’s Paige O’Doul.”

  He was certainly quick to throw Paige under the bus.

  Chloe wasn’t about to put up with that. She fired back. “Oh yeah? Then why did Sasha Irwin tell me if I wanted to find Ryan’s killer, you’d be the one to talk to?”

  Adam began simmering with rage. He looked like he wanted to blow his top, but found enough restraint not to. “I don’t know.”

  “Really? You had plenty of motive for wanting your brother dead...without even bringing up the fact that your wife may be pregnant with his child.”

  Chloe knew that would set Adam off. She hadn’t planned on bringing that up, but when Adam pointed the blame at Paige, the gloves came off.

  Adam was having a hard time containing his rage now. Because of that, Chloe reached into her purse and put her hand on her can of pepper spray in case she needed it.

  She continued pressing him. “Tell me that hasn’t occurred to you. That it doesn’t burn you to the core. That it isn’t just a reason for you to want Ryan dead, but one of the main reasons you broke it off with your wife.”

  Chloe was hoping that in a fit of rage, Adam might let some vital information slip, or possibly even a confession.

  Instead, Adam saw through her plan and calmed himself. “I see what you’re trying to do. It’s not going to work.”

>   Chloe played dumb. “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m on to you and your mind games. Nice try, but there’s no denying the truth here that Paige killed my brother, plain and simple.”

  This time, it was Chloe who was having trouble keeping a level head. “Why would you say that? What proof do you have?”

  “You saw it yourself at the crime scene. Ryan was killed with the same golf club as in the play. On top of that, Paige admitted that she confronted my brother around the same time as the murder.”

  “You say that, but Paige doesn’t have a motive.”

  “Oh yeah, she does. A killer motive. My brother drove Paige’s old roommate to suicide,” Adam revealed.

  That answer gave Chloe some serious pause. She had trouble getting words out. Then finally, she mouthed a reply. “You know about the suicide?”

  “Of course. My brother and I were still on speaking terms back when he was dating Becca. She loved him so much, which only made it all the more devastating when Ryan cheated on her with her sister. Paige has blamed Ryan for Becca’s suicide ever since. Last night, it looks like she finally got her revenge,” Adam explained.

  Chloe shook her head. “No, that’s not true.”

  “For someone so devoted to finding out the truth, you have a hard time admitting it when it is staring you in the face. Now get off my front porch,” Adam demanded.

  He didn’t wait for her to comply. Adam closed the door and left Chloe completely hanging.

  Maybe he was a better actor than Chloe gave him credit for. He seemed entirely convinced of his argument. Perhaps it wasn’t just an act. He seemed to truly believe that Paige killed his brother.

  It couldn’t be the truth, could it?

  After that encounter, Chloe was completely rattled. She walked back to her car, struggling to straighten her thoughts out. That was a huge bombshell to have dropped on her.

  Chloe got a queasy feeling in her stomach. This case was tying her up in knots. All the suspects were so eager to point their fingers at each other. There were so many misdirection’s and lies to wade through. It would take a while for her to make sense of them all. But before Chloe could do that, there was still another suspect to confront.