The Secret She Keeps EPB

by HelenKay Dimon

  “We’re all thinking it, but thank you for saying it.” She winked at him. “Whitaker is just odd, in general. It’s a privately owned island. A rich benefactor—mysterious and unseen—owns it and runs it through a corporation. All of the property is leased and the Board, of which Sylvia is now the president thanks to a financial scandal with the last one who is off island for some me time, makes most of the rules.”

  “Very dramatic.”

  “Right?”

  “Does anyone know who the owner is?”

  “If they do, they aren’t talking.” But, man. She really wanted to know. More than once her curiosity got ahold of her and she asked around. No one had any answers and Sylvia just smiled instead of responding. It had been an exercise in frustration.

  “That’s consistent with my experience so far.” He shook his head. “There are some odd folks here.”

  “Despite the weird circumstances and tales about in-fighting by some of the original families that moved in, Whitaker is pitched as a bucolic, quiet island where people can go to start over. Reclusive and cut off with very few activities to attract tourists, so visitors beware.”

  “Is all that on a brochure somewhere?”

  “It’s what sold me.” WITSEC placed her in Portland. She loved the buzz but needed more quiet. She thought living on Whitaker would be temporary but when the months stretched into years, she realized she liked the quiet. “The Board oversees Ben. Ben reports to someone in Seattle.”

  “And the whole system works unless and until someone turns up dead.”

  “That seems to be true.” She thought back before the summer. “Literally nothing happened here until last summer. I know because I answer most of Ben’s work calls. A kid causing trouble now and then. Someone trampling on someone else’s garden. Not death.”

  “Death is everywhere.”

  “I wish you were wrong.”

  “Hey.” Ben walked into the room and closed the door behind him. He held a file and the deep lines around his mouth spoke to the pressure he was under. Again.

  Connor’s eyebrow lifted. “Well?”

  “Doc Lela is doing an autopsy. Her initial assessment is that our victim was stabbed to death.”

  “There was so much blood.” Maddie regretted the comment when she saw Connor flinch.

  Ben stared at Connor. “You don’t know him?”

  “Never seen him before.”

  “Me either.” And she would know because she made it her business to know these things. “When did this happen?”

  Ben took a quick look in his file before closing it again. “With the rain and cold temperatures, she couldn’t give a definite answer yet, but she’s thinking twenty-four to thirty hours ago.”

  That meant someone killed the man while they were living together in Connor’s cabin. “And he’s just been out there, in the woods. All alone.”

  “Damn.” Connor shoved his chair away from the table and took a long breath.

  “You okay?” Ben asked.

  “I’m not great with blood.”

  Ben frowned at him. “It’s been hours.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m not great with dead bodies either, I guess.”

  Maddie knew Connor’s reaction was about more than the man in the woods. This reached back into his memories and his frustrations. Not that he would fully admit it, but after knowing him only a short time she could see it. She wondered how his family missed the distress he was in.

  She tried to change the subject. “Does this mean we’re about to see more police on Whitaker?”

  Ben nodded. “I have to make some calls, but I suspect I’ll have some patrol and investigative help by tomorrow.”

  “Who’s the guy?” Connor asked.

  Ben didn’t check the file for that answer. “Owen Pritchard.”

  Nothing about that sounded familiar to her. “Never heard of him.”

  “Sylvia says he’s not registered at the Lodge. She’s never seen him either.”

  Connor tapped his fingers against the table. “Dom.”

  Whatever Ben had been about to say cut off and he focused on Connor. “Excuse me?”

  “Maddie and I talked with him.” Connor glanced at her before continuing. “He talked about bringing someone over from Arnold Island a few times and that he thought the guy was still here. Probably in a rental.”

  And now dead. That reality started churning deep inside Maddie. A fear everything would start spinning. Tilt until she’d be unable to straighten it again.

  Ben nodded. “I’ll check with him and about the rental properties. Thanks.”

  She tried to hold her questions in so she could analyze and prepare, but they came spilling out. “What was he doing out there? Other than the cabin, there’s trees but he was off the hiking trail and not really dressed for that anyway.”

  “Well, that’s the interesting part,” Ben said.

  Connor groaned. “I’m almost afraid of what you’ll say next.”

  “One thing first.” Ben held up a hand as if to calm her racing thoughts. “Keep in mind that he could be a tourist. This could be innocent.”

  “Well . . .” Connor drew out the word for a few extra seconds. “He was stabbed to death.”

  Her mind had already jumped ahead. She could feel that Ben was about to drop some huge information bomb on them. “But?”

  Ben stopped looking around the room and following the conversation and stared at her. “Owen Pritchard was a private investigator.”

  And there it was. The expected fall. “What?”

  “His driver’s license is from North Carolina. I did a quick check into his background and he’s from—”

  “Wait.” The trembling started in her hands but it would soon overtake all of her. All those memories would crash in and haunt every hour. She’d lose the ability to keep it together.

  Connor stared at her. “What is it?”

  “He’s from Winston-Salem or somewhere close.” She could hear the faraway sound in her voice but not the fear. Somehow, she disguised that. Probably from years of practice and pretending to be someone else. Someone with a boring life and no drama.

  Ben confirmed her worst fears with a nod. “That’s right.”

  The chair squeaked as Connor shifted position. He leaned forward, balancing his elbows on the edge of the table. “I’m thinking that wasn’t just a really good guess.”

  “You said you didn’t know him,” Ben said.

  Their voices echoed around her. She tried to concentrate, to stay in the here and now. “I don’t, but this is about me. This guy being here, possibly his murder—all me.”

  Ben’s eyes narrowed. “We don’t know that.”

  “There’s no pretending. It’s too much of a coincidence.” This wasn’t about this one guy. This was bigger. So much bigger.

  “What are you saying?” Ben asked.

  She lifted her head and stared at two of the only people she trusted right now. “That past I’m running from? It’s in Winston-Salem.”

  Chapter 19

  Ben called Sylvia in from the hall. Connor heard him say her name and the door opened, but all of his focus stayed on Maddie. The color had left her face. She sat there, pale, looking small and vulnerable. Not anything like the woman who stormed around the island asking about outsiders and talking about hiding places. This was the Maddie who had all those locks on her door. The terrified one.

  “What’s going on?” Sylvia glanced around the table, and when her gaze landed on Maddie, her mouth flattened into a thin line. “Are you okay?”

  “Fine.” Maddie’s hand shook as she reached for her coffee mug.

  Connor wanted to take her home. Not to the cabin because the police tape and gawkers made that impossible. Maybe to hers or the Lodge. He looked at Ben. “Do we need to be here?”

  “Yes.” Ben only spared Connor a quick look before turning to Sylvia. “I need a list of open properties on the island and a second list of short-term rentals. The rent likely would
have been paid in cash.”

  “You have that as board president?” Connor asked because he still didn’t understand the way Whitaker ran or how all of these pieces fit together.

  “Yes.” Sylvia nodded. “This is about the man you found?”

  “Dom suggested someone came onto the island and didn’t leave. Someone he didn’t know.” Maddie visibly exhaled a shuddering breath as soon as she finished the sentence. “That person could be our victim.”

  “Okay.” Sylvia said the word, but she didn’t move.

  “We have some questions we need to get through.”

  The comment was as close to a dismissal as Connor had heard from Ben. He opened his file and took out a pen. He didn’t clear the room but his body language said get out.

  Connor understood Ben had a job to do, but not like this. Not now. Maddie had made it clear she was ready to talk but she looked too shaky to get much of value out. “Can this wait?”

  “No, Connor.” Ben stopped writing on his notepad and looked up. “I’ve waited long enough to hear this. You and Sylvia can step into the hall.”

  “It’s okay.” Maddie rested her hand against the table with a soft thud. “They can stay.”

  “Maddie.” Ben’s tone held a warning.

  She didn’t look impressed. “Let’s not pretend we can keep this a secret. If Owen Pritchard is connected to my past, everyone will know soon enough. People here have a skill for ferreting out information, even though they all claim not to be nosy.”

  “I don’t understand,” Sylvia said as she sat down next to Connor.

  “Maddie believes the victim is tied to her past.” Ben looked around the table and stopped at Maddie. “And I’m trying to figure out how.”

  “But now?” Connor asked.

  Ben nodded. “Right now. And to be clear, everyone gets interviewed separately about their whereabouts when this death occurred. This is about background.” Ben waited for everyone to acknowledge his statement before he nodded at Maddie. “Go ahead.”

  She traced her finger over some invisible pattern only she could see on the table. Watching her sit there, struggling to find the words, made Connor ache for her. She’d gone from being painfully private to having her life laid bare. Maybe not all of Whitaker would know, but he knew from experience that talking about events like this took a toll.

  Everything would change now. She might sneak back to her reclusive ways. He just hoped she didn’t walk away from him.

  Maddie locked the information away long ago. Kept it pent up in that tiny part at the back of her mind. The dark space of things she wanted to forget. Cracking the vault open now took all of her strength, but it gave her something to focus on. If she could just repeat the words, describe the details as if they happened in a movie or to someone else, she could survive this.

  There were things Ben needed to know. Details she should have given him when she handed him the note. She’d opened the mental door to let him peek in but still kept him out. He hadn’t pushed because he was Ben, and because he likely thought he could either find what he needed or get it from Evan . . . or wait her out for a week or so. Either way, not talking might have led to this PI’s death and she couldn’t find a way to process that.

  “Maddie, do you need a few minutes?” Sylvia asked.

  No, because time wouldn’t make this easier to say. “Up until three years ago, I worked for the Edgmont Company in Winston-Salem. Commercial real estate development. Big projects, like shopping malls and university buildings.” She glanced at Connor. “It was one of those family businesses. Very insular. Handed down from their father to the two sons—Grant and Ned. I worked for Grant.”

  Ben made notes but Connor just watched her. She looked for judgment but didn’t see any. Then again, he didn’t know what was coming. Or what pieces she’d held back.

  “I started as an assistant and worked my way up really quickly during the five years I was there. Grant talked about me being like family. He and his wife—” She choked over the word and had to swallow a few times to start again. “Allison. That was his wife.”

  Connor frowned. “Was?”

  Maddie didn’t respond. Sticking to the timeline was the best way through, so she kept talking. Letting the rambling in her head flood out of her. “The company did well under their father but business exploded with Grant and Ned’s leadership. They kept the management team small. Made everyone feel special.”

  “Including you,” Ben said.

  Especially her. “They gave me more responsibility. Promoted me. I started doing some financial work for them. I didn’t have a background, but I took some classes on my own. It was all so new, and I had no idea if I would like accounting or be any good at it, so I didn’t tell them. It was a thing I did for me, but the more I learned, the more concerned I became about the company’s accounts.” She shook her head, lost in the memory of that moment when she put it all together. “Maybe I always knew because the accounts never added up right. There was money for jobs that didn’t exist. All this paperwork that didn’t match up with what I knew was really happening in terms of actual projects.”

  “Were they laundering money?” Connor asked.

  Of course he knew where to focus. He’d know what to ask because he dealt with large contracts all the time. “They got into the business of bribery, dealing information on their competitors and former friends. On politicians. They collected intel and used it. Money flowed, so much more than from the real work that they switched their focus to the dirty money.”

  “Wait a minute. This sounds familiar.” Connor squinted as if he were pulling the pieces of the story out of his memory. “The wife and husband . . .”

  “Died. Killed each other. Were killed.” None of the words fit. “The initial thought was Allison found out about an alleged affair and confronted Grant at the office. He killed her, then himself.”

  “Was any of that true?” Sylvia asked.

  “No.” Maddie inhaled, waiting for the moment where talking about this would become a relief. But it never happened. “Thinking we were like family, or at least friends, I had talked with Allison about my suspicions. Showed her the tracing I’d done, walked her through the accounts and showed her the evidence that the money didn’t match with the work orders, all thinking she’d work with Grant to get the truth out. She said we’d go to the police or the FBI together. And that night . . .” She swallowed hard. “Well, there was an affair, but it was between Ned and Allison and she warned him about my worries.”

  Ben groaned. “Shit.”

  “Before I left the office that night, Ned tried to kill me. The whole thing ended with Allison and Grant dead and the police called.”

  “Ned killed them?” Ben asked.

  She couldn’t really answer, so she nodded.

  “How did you survive?”

  “In the middle of the chaos, I hit the alarm for security.” She swallowed over the lump in her throat. “They got there, but not in time for the others.”

  Connor continued to stare at her. The look morphed from concerned to assessing. Just as she feared. He would see her differently now. They all would.

  “What happened next?” he asked.

  Time blurred in her head. “Ned blamed me. He made up the affair story. I was arrested.”

  “What?” Sylvia sounded appalled on her behalf.

  “Technically, I did help move the money around. The accounts didn’t match up and I ignored the signs until I couldn’t anymore.” If she could go back and replay all those moves, call the police in sooner, Allison and Grant might be alive. That awful bit of timing changed everything and she’d never figured out a way to live with that.

  “But someone followed your tracing, agreed with you, and you became the star witness,” Connor said, filling in the pieces for her.

  Sylvia hummed. “Good guess.”

  “It’s not a guess. I remember the story now. A city politician is in jail. Others were implicated. A lot of powerful people start
ed scrambling and pointing fingers.” Connor let out a long exhale. “And Ned died in prison while waiting for trial.”

  “Not before he paid for someone to kill me so I couldn’t testify about what happened in the office that night.”

  Ben put his pen down. “And that explains your time in WITSEC.”

  “He hired a guy he knew who had worked on his car. Some people say the guy wanted more money and turned on Ned when he wouldn’t agree. Others say the guy was decent and only agreed so that he could go to the police and turn Ned in. The why didn’t matter to me. I was just grateful he talked.” The one piece of luck she was ever thankful for. “But Ned was desperate and a lying narcissist, and everyone believed he would try again.”

  “But when he died in prison, the threat against you, conceivably, ended.”

  Maddie understood Connor’s careful wording. The notes suggested someone out there still viewed her as a threat.

  “Being in WITSEC is voluntary.” And suffocating. It filled her with fear and paranoia and she couldn’t live that way one more day. So when she got the out, she took it. “I left over the objections of Evan, the marshal assigned to my case.”

  “Are you still in legal trouble?” Ben asked.

  “No. When I answered the questions, that helped put the politician and another businessman in prison. Unlike Ned, they took a plea and my charges went away.”

  Connor’s mouth dropped open. “Why in the world do you think it’s safe for you to go around without protection?”

  “Most trial witnesses don’t get WITSEC protection. It was the breadth of the case that opened that option. Like you said, a lot of powerful people paid a price.”

  “And some of them have the money to hire people to kill you.” Sylvia shook her head. “It’s called revenge.”

  “They want revenge on the old me, Ellen Samuels, not Maddie Rhine. Ellen is gone.” That was the price she paid for not calling out the problems she saw sooner.

  “You can’t believe that.” The edge to Connor’s tone mirrored the disbelief on his face. “Someone is sending you threatening notes and a PI was here looking for you or following you.”