“I bet I could solve it,” the woman said in a voice filled with indignation.
Ben smiled. “You probably could, but let me try first.”
“What does this have to do with you?” Dom asked Connor directly.
Maddie felt her blood pressure rise. It ticked up and her brain scrambled to come up with a sharp answer.
Connor beat her to it. “Not a damn thing.”
“And you?” Mary looked at Jenna. “Who are you?”
Then the whole room turned to Jenna.
Maddie waited to see what the woman would do. She owned the island. She could tell them all to swim to Seattle. Instead, she shook her head. “I don’t know Owen or the woman. I’m here visiting Sylvia for a few days.” She glanced at Ben. “Maybe longer.”
A chorus of “oh” sounded around the room. A few people smiled. No one asked a follow-up.
“What just happened?” Connor asked Maddie in a low voice.
“They probably assume Jenna is Sylvia’s new girlfriend.”
“Oh.”
Maddie wished that’s exactly who Jenna was. That would make sense and erase any doubts about her motives. But her showing up when she did and not offering much in the way of an explanation still didn’t sit right with Maddie. Jenna could come and go as she pleased, but she didn’t. That was the point. No one knew her and she didn’t stop by for tea—ever.
Maddie met Jenna’s gaze across the room and nodded.
There were other things that didn’t add up. Jenna couldn’t be more than thirty-two or -three. The idea that she owned all of this had Maddie shaking her head.
“Ben?”
He sighed before plastering a smile on his face. Maddie knew the difference between the real one and the one he wore as part of the job. This was the my-tolerance-is-running-low smile.
He nodded in her direction. “Yes, Mary.”
“There she is.”
He frowned. “Excuse me?”
“You wanted us to watch out for this woman.” Mary shook the flyer in the air, then pointed at the doorway into the dining room. “I did and she’s right there.”
Almost every head in the room turned.
Daria stood there in black pants and a slim-fitting lightweight down jacket. She now wore her black hair in a bob. The style flattered her face. Made her look younger than thirty-five. She’d been young when she met Ned. He strung her along as a girlfriend for years, insisting he couldn’t marry until his multimillion-dollar company was more stable.
The brighter skin and lightness around her suggested she might be happier now.
That only made Maddie more confused about how and why Daria found her way to Whitaker.
Once she had all their attention, Daria smiled. “Hello, everyone.”
“You’re this lady.” Mary pointed at the flyer.
“Yes.” Daria stared at Ben. “I think you’re looking for me.”
Chapter 28
The uproar in the room took another fifteen minutes to calm down. People fired questions at Daria. Someone offered to tie her up so Ben could interrogate her. Daria stood there, taking it all in, with her gaze locked on Maddie. Connor noticed because it was hard not to notice. He also managed not to frisk the woman for weapons, though he was tempted.
Sylvia had cleared the dining room and shut the large double door entry. Connor couldn’t remember ever seeing the doors shut since he got to the island . . . which now felt like years ago.
Connor and Maddie lingered because there was no way they were missing the explanation after trying to reason this situation out for days. Sylvia waited behind the bar.
Jenna, the wild card in all of this, insisted on staying. Ben couldn’t exactly say no to his boss, so he didn’t try. But he did take the lead in questioning Daria after he conducted a brisk pat down.
She sat in a chair at a table by herself. Every now and then her gaze would wander around the room, taking in every photograph on the wall and person hovering around her.
Ben waited until the people cleared out and the room slipped into silence to pull out a chair and sit across from their newest guest. “Daria Jones.”
“Before you ask, it’s my real name.”
He hadn’t tied her to the chair. The questioning struck Connor as informal, which was likely the right answer. It matched the island vibe and she could shut down if prodded. They needed her talking.
Maddie didn’t wait for more. She jumped right in. “Why are you here?”
“Maddie.” It was hard to miss the warning in Ben’s tone.
“I’ve been looking for you.”
What she said sounded pretty creepy. The way she said it didn’t. Connor wasn’t sure what to think.
Daria’s dark eyes didn’t blink. “Ned was killed in prison.”
Maddie nodded. “I know.”
“Of course you do.” Daria broke eye contact with Maddie and looked at Ben again. “You had questions?”
It was a gutsy call to come out swinging. Connor admired the courage but doubted the strategy would work for her. Every person in the room, except for maybe Jenna, had run through their patience and now wanted answers, not games.
“What are you doing on Whitaker?” Ben asked.
She barely let him finish the question before she shot back an answer. “Is it illegal to come here?”
It was going to be one of those conversations. This woman might make Dom look easy to crack. Connor didn’t envy Ben but the person he felt most for was Maddie. Having her past burst through the door couldn’t have been easy.
“It is if you came here to hurt someone.”
Daria waved off Ben’s comment. “Just a tourist.”
“You’re saying it’s a coincidence that you ended up on the same island as Maddie.”
Daria shrugged. “It happens.”
Which brought up the issue of where she was staying. Connor was about to ask when he saw Ben move. His chest lifted and fell on a heavy exhale. “Maybe it would help if I let you know we found Owen Pritchard.”
“The man who was murdered on the island. I read about that in the island newspaper.” She continued to pretend, putting distance between her and the PI.
“The man you hired,” Ben answered without missing a beat.
Her strategy was transparent. They knew too much of the background. Connor wondered how long it would take Daria to realize that. Because tough-guy acts tended to get exhausting very fast.
“You’ve done your homework.” Daria looked at Maddie. “Did you fill them in on everything?”
Maddie stared back with a blank expression on her face. “Why did you hire a PI to follow me?”
“I needed answers.”
Maddie shook her head. “To what?”
“What really happened that night.”
“What are you talking about?”
Daria’s gaze lingered on Maddie for a few seconds before traveling around the room. “Do they know about the fraud and the bribery? About the rumors and your deal with the prosecutors?”
“Yes.”
Whatever big reveal Daria was going for here wasn’t working. Maddie had spilled all of this days ago. Connor could go online and search for the details if he wanted to. He didn’t because Maddie back then didn’t interest him nearly as much as Maddie now. The facts might fill in the holes and help him understand why she was so self-protective and spooked. But he’d rather hear what he needed to know directly from her.
“You’re the one who convinced the prosecutor I didn’t know what was going on in that office.” Maddie’s voice sounded hollow and confused. “We were friends.”
Daria shrugged. “I thought so.”
Silence pounded through the room. The tension ratcheted up with each verbal volley and now it crushed in on them.
“Let’s back up,” Ben said, breaking through the suffocating quiet. “You admit you hired Owen Pritchard to follow Maddie.”
“I knew her as Ellen, but yes.”
Connor saw Jenna loo
k at Sylvia. The two of them didn’t say a word but they watched and listened. He got the impression neither woman missed a thing. Jenna seemed to be assessing the situation and Ben at the same time. Her employee. The one who might be able to break through to Daria and end this.
“Did you know she was in witness protection?” Connor asked because that point pricked at him. It couldn’t have been easy to find someone who didn’t want to be found. Not when she’d had the full force of WITSEC behind her until very recently.
Daria’s dark gaze landed on him. “As she just pointed out, I helped get her in.”
“Which makes me wonder why you needed the PI.” Ben didn’t ask. He made a statement.
“She disappeared. The questions I had didn’t.”
A cryptic answer. It was on purpose and that’s the piece Connor couldn’t figure out. He assumed Maddie held back pieces when she’d told the story of that night in her old office. The story sounded too neat. With all those bullets flying the ending turned out too clean.
“What were your orders to Owen?” Ben asked.
“Track Maddie . . .” Daria smiled. “Is that what I should call you? Do you have a lot of different names now?”
The snide edge to her tone ticked Connor off. “Track her? Once he saw her, why not call you? We have phones here.”
“She didn’t want to be found. It took time to hunt her down and when I did I had to figure out how to approach because she had a new life now.” Daria’s gaze traveled over Connor. Up and down, not giving anything away. “And recently added you to the mix.”
“You decided to sneak on the island and follow her instead of having a talk,” Ben said.
“Owen found her. He told me and I came with him. That’s when I saw Maddie for the first time. She was having breakfast in this dining room.”
Maddie sat forward in her chair. “When was this?”
“Months ago.”
Maddie visibly tensed. Her whole body stiffened. “After summer.”
The pieces made sense. Connor didn’t know all the facts and he could put them together. “When the notes started.”
Daria frowned. “What notes?”
Ben’s frown matched hers. “How long have you been on Whitaker?”
“A few days.”
“And you didn’t call Maddie or talk with anyone other than Owen?”
“I got here and wanted to . . . watch her.” Daria waved her hand in the air. “I didn’t have a solid plan. It was about collecting information and seeing what Owen was seeing.”
Connor scoffed. “Because that’s not creepy.”
“I’m going to need specifics from you and an official statement, but let’s go back to Owen. What else was he supposed to do for you?” Ben asked.
“That’s it.” Daria threw up her hands. “Find her. End of my story and how I got here.”
“Then why is Owen dead?”
Daria slowly lowered her hands. The sarcastic edge to her questions and replies vanished. “I was hoping Maddie could answer that. Needless to say, when that happened I became less inclined to knock on her door. I’ve been hiding in the house we rented, trying to figure out what to do next.”
Ben sighed. “You should have come to me.”
“I don’t exactly trust police and investigators right now.”
Connor understood that reaction. The rest of the situation and all the facts and questions spinning around were harder to track.
“I didn’t touch him.” Maddie shook her head. “I didn’t even know who he was or that he was connected to you.”
Ben exhaled before diving in again. “What do you think is happening here? Spell it out for us so we can see your side of this.”
“Maddie pulled off a pretty spectacular scam back home. Now she’s willing to do anything to protect the secrets she has.” Daria’s body language shut down. She went from lounging in her chair, crossed legs with her foot bobbing up and down, to still. Both feet dropped to the floor and she sat up straighter. Her hands balled into fists on her lap.
“Scam?” Maddie sounded stunned at the accusation.
“I’m no longer convinced you’re as innocent as you claimed.”
“Why would you think that?” Connor asked, because it was the question that wouldn’t leave him. It felt like Maddie held something back, something big. Maybe Daria sensed that, too.
But Daria kept her gaze locked on Maddie. “Who really killed Owen? I know it wasn’t me and you’re the only one with big secrets.”
“You’re clearly unfamiliar with the people who live on Whitaker,” Jenna said in a hushed tone just loud enough for everyone to hear.
“I hired Owen. Killing him didn’t help me.” Daria hesitated for a few seconds before dropping her last bomb. “And of the two of us, Maddie, I’m the one with nothing to hide.”
“Okay, we’re done here.” Ben stood up and gestured for Daria to do the same. “We’re going to my office for formal questioning.”
Maddie scrambled out of her chair. “Ben, no.”
“I don’t know what’s going on between the two of you. Don’t really care. I do care about threatening notes and attempted break-ins and assaults and a murder. All of those happened recently and all of it leads back to you.” Ben pointed between Maddie and Daria. “The two of you.”
Daria stood up and walked over to Ben. Didn’t try to get out of the questioning or walk away. “Ask me anything. I tell the truth.”
I tell the truth.
The words still rang in Maddie’s head a half hour later. Sylvia had suggested she and Connor stay and have coffee. Maddie wanted out of there. Out of the Lodge. Off Whitaker. So, they left and went back to Maddie’s house.
Her past caught up with her and delivered a smashing blow. The urge to run overwhelmed her.
Daria leveled accusations. Put them out there for the whole room to hear. They couldn’t be stuffed back and hidden away again. The whispers would start. On top of being on the run and exhausted she would need to deal with everyone’s doubts.
She couldn’t live like that again.
She paced around the small area between her couch and the coffee table. “Any word from Ben?”
“Still no.”
She glanced over at Connor. He bent over the kitchen island, balancing on his elbows while he studied something on his phone. His neutral look suggested he was relaxed and unconcerned but she knew better. A quiet Connor in the car was a thinking Connor. He likely turned over every word Daria said, searching for an underlying meaning. He could be searching for more information on his cell right now.
“How could he believe her?” She referred to Ben, but the he could stand for anyone in the room who listened to Daria’s comments.
Connor finally set the cell aside and looked at her. “I don’t think he knew what to believe.”
“Did you?” she asked, then held her breath, waiting for the answer.
He hesitated, not diving right in. For a few seconds he studied her. His gaze roamed her face. “What was she talking about?”
Pain exploded inside her but she refused to let it show. She forced her knees to lock so she could stay on her feet and not drop to the couch. “You can’t be serious. She convinced you not to trust me after a few minutes of questions?”
“I didn’t say that.”
The room spun on her but she blinked a few times to bring it back into focus. She fell back on denial. Tried to push the conversation there to keep it from going anywhere else. “It feels like it. The judging. The questions.”
“For the record, you’re a bit too defensive. You might want to bring it down a bit if you hope to sell this act.”
A shocked sound escaped her. But the truth was bigger. He saw through her and she hated that. Being able to trick people, convince them, served her for so long. With him those old standards didn’t work.
The realization made her retreat even further behind her emotional safety wall. “I don’t—”
“Listen to me.” He stra
ightened up and walked over to her. “I don’t care what happened back then. I know you now and what I see is a survivor. That appeals to me.”
He said that but there was always a but. Those were the right words. The ones you said when you didn’t want the sex to end. “I didn’t scam anyone.”
“Never thought you did.”
The closer he got, the harder it became for her to mentally retreat. Her breath came in pants now. She couldn’t wrestle it back under control no matter how many times she counted to ten in her head. “Then what are you saying?”
“You can tell me anything. If you need to say it, I’ll listen.”
His soothing voice had a hypnotic quality. The kind that could lull a person into divulging things they shouldn’t. She felt his inner strength pull and tug at her, enticing her to let the last wall fall.
Her mind rebelled and she came out verbally swinging. “You haven’t dealt with your sister’s death and you think you can handle my past?”
She tensed, waiting for him to fight back. That’s what she hoped for. A reaction that would shift the conversation in a way that made it impossible for them to double back to it without remembering the carnage.
But his anger didn’t rise. He didn’t give one hint that the blow landed.
He shook his head. “Trying to piss me off won’t work.”
Full-scale flailing started inside of her. Anxiety welled and formed this hard ball that bounced around in her stomach. “I’m being serious.”
“So am I. Whatever this is, whatever is eating away at you that you’ve buried and hope will never see the light again, it won’t change anything.” He didn’t touch her. Didn’t move to close the gap between them.
He stood there and took it. Offered a lifeline and waited for her to grab on.
The last of the air left her lungs. A crushing sensation pushed down on her. “You don’t know that.”
“If you did things—”
No, no, no. “I didn’t.”
“Hypothetically, if you were stuck in a terrible situation or in danger or panicked.” His voice grew softer, sweeter, the more he talked. “None of it matters to me.”
The Secret She Keeps EPB Page 20