by Maia Ross
“There was a bomb threat at the clinic this afternoon. Did you know that?” she said.
Richard’s face went blank.
“The police are going to bring bomb-sniffing dogs in tomorrow. To make sure there’s no bomb on the property. This is a serious situation, and you need to start understanding that.” Then Charlotte added, “Drive on please, Antoine.”
Richard reached his hand out for the cart to stop. Then he stepped closer. I could see he was unshaven, his collar open, his tie jerked to the side. His eyes were red, and he looked like he hadn’t slept in days. “Don’t you push me, Charlotte. Or so help me…” He towered over her, and she shrank back.
My stomach soured. He was a coward in a good suit, that’s all he was. The IV hack had been a coward’s weapon, one that was intended to ensure its victim would die helpless and alone. I was sure Richard was a man who couldn’t be trusted, and that wasn’t just because Irma was rubbing off on me. I knew desperate people when I saw them, and Richard Van Oot was a desperate man.
Antoine backed up away from Richard and for one sweet moment, I hoped he was going to run him over. But then he sped away from Richard, toward the house.
Twenty-Seven—Irma
Violet texted me about Richard’s awful behaviour, and since Camille had nagged me about bringing my cellular with me, I actually got the message. And when we arrived at the estate, I discovered that Richard’s gate edict somehow included me, which was just plain old bad manners.
“I can tell you for sure that the security of this estate is not acceptable,” Camille hissed at me. She had my foot in her hands and was vaulting me up and over the wall at the estate’s perimeter. I hadn’t made it the first time. Or the second, honestly, which is what you get for being born short. But I’d always been an optimist and the third time was a charm.
I scampered up the wall and seated myself on the top. “Why’s that?”
“Because we’re only a few hundred feet from the entrance gate, it’s taken us seven minutes to get you up there, and no one has spotted us. We could have gotten six men over the fence in this time. Merde.”
“No reason to rub it in, dear,” I said mildly.
“Sorry,” she hissed. “I do not like you going in alone. What if they have dogs?”
“I’ll be my usual charming self,” I said, “And Richard is afraid of dogs.” I had half a mind to sick Mr. P on him, frankly, but I kept that to myself.
“What do you want to do with your bags?”
“Please just leave them in the car for now. I’ll send Antoine later.”
“I’m going to run background checks on all of Charlotte’s staff.”
“Thank you, dear. Have you heard back about the other ones I asked you for? Especially Emily’s?”
“Should be any minute now.” Then she made a tiny French sound. “We shall keep your friend safe, Irma. I promise.”
I never made those kinds of promises, and the only reason Camille was doing so now was because she was young. In ten years or so, she’d stop saying those kinds of things. She was only in her thirties; I’d worked with her father and had seen her grow up and move into the family business. I sighed. For a long moment, I wished I was sitting on my dock watching the sun go down. I so wanted to take a quiet moment with an old friend and a stiff drink.
“Thank you, dear.” I wiggled my fingers at her, then climbed down the other side. I stayed along the fence line instead of walking up the main driveway, and rang Charlotte as I walked to warn her I was coming so I wouldn’t get shot for the second time today. One gunshot wound at a time really was my limit.
“Hello.”
“Evening, Charlotte,” I said, as I ducked under a tree branch. “I’m on my way toward the house. Could you perhaps ensure I won’t be target practice for some overly testosteroned security guard?”
“Heavens,” she said. “Of course. How far out are you?”
“Ten minutes? I’m taking the long way.”
“Probably for the best. I’ll meet you at the east entrance.”
“How many security staff in that area?”
“I haven’t seen anyone.”
That was disconcerting. Why would Richard be so focused on using his regular security if he wasn’t going to actually use them? Why did he want Camille’s team outside the fence?
Bother. I needed some proof of what Richard was up to or Charlotte wasn’t going to believe me. She was so kind-hearted—yet so unbelievably stubborn—that she’d always had a hard time believing the worst in people. Especially family.
“I’ll be there soon,” I said and disconnected the call. Then I put some pep in my step and reached the entrance in nine minutes. Not bad. I was glad I’d packed my good sneakers. I needed a run tomorrow.
Charlotte met me at the door, sweeping me inside the house and into a room facing the water, which was crashing against the shoreline in a reassuring kind of way.
After a brief chat, she went to check on dinner. I wanted to caucus with Violet, so the timing worked perfectly. I made my way to her room and found her sitting in the dark, which was mildly alarming.
“What are you doing?”
She moved, and I could see that her head had been blocking the small laptop she was working on.
“I’ve been going through those threatening emails. The ones that go to OotCorp? Wooooow.”
“Any patterns?”
“They don’t like Richard, I can tell you that. To have a doctor in charge of a company that lies about a narcotic? Woah. And some of them are maaaaaaaaad at Charlotte. Her name and picture are on the company website—it shows she holds some sort of honorary position. We need to get that taken down.”
“You’re quite right, dear.” I tried to ignore the unease her words had kicked up inside me. “Do any of them mention the fundraiser?”
She nodded vigorously. “Yup. A few say they can’t wait until the fundraiser, they have tickets, that kind of thing.”
“Any specific threats?”
“Like?”
“Like, ‘I’m going to strangle you and put you in the hallway closet at 7:03 pm,’ ‘I’m going to bludgeon you with the beaver-shaped ice sculpture after cocktails.’ That kind of thing.”
“One of them said they would be here for the fundraiser, and they were going to make her pay. It’s a little more…uh…generic than your examples, but I didn’t love it.”
She pulled up an email on her phone and showed it to me:
So glad you’re throwing a big do this weekend. Can’t wait to make you pay for what your family has done to mine. I’ll see you there, Charlotte.
It was unsigned.
“Can you send the email to the police, please, dear? They can track the sender, yes?”
“I actually cloned the mailbox and I’m working on the duplicate emails. The police have access to the original mailbox, and they’re taking a look at the data. And the email about making Charlotte pay could have come from anywhere. It was routed through an IP address out of Fiji. Someone must have been using a proxy, a fake sender. The police can get the internet service provider to give some more info on the address, but that’ll take a few days.”
“We don’t have a few days.”
She met my eyes, worry in hers. “I know.”
Twenty-Eight—Violet
When we got here, Charlotte had ushered me into an awesome bedroom on the mansion’s second floor that was apparently mine. I’d told her I wasn’t sure if I was ever going to be ready to leave, and I was only partly kidding. The room had a view of the water and the rest of the estate’s amenities. I could see the little clutch of cottages; they must have been for people Charlotte wanted to keep at arm’s length.
She had also generously loaned me something to wear so I could “dress for dinner,” which I hadn’t realized was actually a thing. But the outfit Charlotte had rustled up was beautiful, a light summer floral maxi dress with flat sandals. Then she’d informed me that pre-dinner drinks were being served in the s
tudy.
So far, only Charlotte and Emily and I were pre-dinner drinking. It was a nice continuation of my recent day-drinking, which was literally the only thing on my vacation bucket list I’d accomplished so far.
And Emily would not stop talking. I’d never heard of event planners moving into a property they were prepping for a fundraiser, but apparently, this was common for her, and I knew that because she’d said it four times so far. It was her first year planning the event, and she wanted to be as close as possible “to the action.” She was definitely back to her usual perky self, which made me uncomfortable. I didn’t like it when people acted differently based on their circumstances.
The study itself was wonderful, though: air-conditioned, full of buttery leather club chairs, floor to ceiling books. It was dark and wood-panelled and mysterious. It even smelled good, some sort of clean scent mingling with the odour of old books.
Then Irma appeared, wearing a groovy sixties-patterned dress, and seated herself in a chair beside me. “Charlotte, thank you so much for letting me and Violet stay here,” she said.
“I should thank you,” Charlotte answered, her mouth downturned. “I’m sorry to be a bother.”
Heat flared in my chest. I didn’t want anything to happen to the kind, older lady. She’d already been through enough.
“Charlotte, dear, I need to speak to you about the security situation here,” Irma said, as patiently as I’d ever heard her speak. “And a few other things. Richard is—”
“Evening, ladies.” Richard was in the doorway, standing in that elegant way only rich people could. “And Irma. What am I exactly?”
“A twit,” she replied crisply. “You can’t possibly believe Charlotte is safe with the same level of security you have every year. Someone took a shot at her outside the clinic today, for heaven’s sake.”
Emily put her hand on Charlotte’s arm. “You’re so brave.”
“I heard about what happened, and we have an excellent team here,” Richard said. “And it’s my responsibility to deal with my family.”
But Irma just smiled that don’t-mess-with-me-darling smile of hers. “Everything can be improved upon, Richard,” she said.
He sniffed. “Not by having a bunch of strangers in my parents’ home.”
Well, that was interesting. Why did Charlotte own the estate if it originally belonged to Richard’s parents? They were cousins, not siblings, right?
“You can sniff all you want,” Irma said sweetly, “but Charlotte needs more protection. You don’t just open the estate to hordes of strangers and expect things to be safe. Especially since Charlotte is at such risk.”
“I’m quite sure whoever took that shot in front of the clinic was aiming at you, Irma. So perhaps you could explain to me why you’re always putting Charlotte in harm’s way?” Richard looked over the room, gesturing expansively with his drink. “Emily, how much security do you generally recommend for events such as this one?” he asked, and there was a sudden kindness to his voice I hadn’t heard before. I saw Irma’s head tilt to the right like it did when she was contemplating something deeply.
“It depends,” Emily answered. And was her voice on the more saccharine side as well? It definitely didn’t have the undertone of hostility she’d had at the clinic a few days ago. “We deliberately don’t make recommendations about that sort of thing, because we’re not embedded in our clients’ lives and homes on a regular basis. Plus, a lot of security depends on how the client assesses their own comfort level. But you’ll want to have the appropriate amount of staff to make you feel at ease.”
I marvelled at Emily’s ease with words. If I’d been able to phrase things even slightly as well as that, my career would have been a lot less bumpy. My career. I took a swig of Charlotte’s excellent Chardonnay, because up until a few weeks ago I’d thought all my career hiccups were behind me. For a minute, I had to strain not to burst into tears. Forty-three employees. Two partners. One big, fat embezzlement. And I wondered where Shane was today, what he was spending my money on.
“If you’ll excuse me.” Emily stood up and inched out the door around Richard. His face softened as she went.
“See?” he said. “We should be at ease. I don’t feel at ease with Irma’s thugs around. Do you hear me, Charlotte?” He’d migrated from the doorway and was now standing in front of Charlotte’s chair. He wasn’t a tall man, but he towered over her. She shrank away from him just like she had when we were in the golf cart earlier.
Irma was on her feet so quickly she was a blur. She slid between Richard and Charlotte’s chair somehow, even though there was absolutely no space for her to do so, bending both time and space to her will. I could see her nostrils flaring from where I was. She didn’t say a word, but her eyes spoke volumes. I could feel my neck go cold, and she wasn’t even looking at me.
Richard’s lip curled up and he looked like he wanted to take a swing at Irma, which I’d actually like to see. A small scar between his eyes glowed angrily in the light. “I know when I’m not welcome. I invite you all to please dine without me.” Then he turned on his heel, huffily, and stormed out.
Right after Emily.
Twenty-Nine—Irma
Studies showed that 3 a.m. was the very best time to interrogate an enemy. There was some sort of hormonal brew that got released at that time of the morning which increased anxiety and fear and confusion. Which was why I was sitting in a chair in Richard’s bedroom at 3:03, watching him sleep.
I’d left my gun in my room, obviously. Not that Richard’s room wasn’t full of weapons. Honestly, all the average person had to do when defending themselves was look around them. Chairs? Wonderful projectiles. Lamps? Excellent for bludgeoning. And don’t get me started on the kitchen.
But I wasn’t going to stab Richard to death while he was sleeping, even though he probably deserved it a little. I wasn’t going to do it, because Charlotte had asked me to be nice to him. There was a lot of wiggle room in that statement, and I planned to be as nice as I possibly could, considering the circumstances.
Richard was lying on his back, full-throated yodelling snores erupting out of him every few minutes. I was quite convinced after observing him that he had sleep apnea, and somewhat hopeful that it would kill him. Sooner rather than later would work best for me.
I leaned forward in my chair, making it squeak. It would be ideal if he woke up on his own before noticing that I was sitting here. I’d tried a few techniques over the years, and this one had always been the most successful.
I was glad I’d taken a power nap after dinner, which had been a beautifully grilled swordfish with a cilantro-mint chutney, Hasselback potatoes, and a green pea puree I was still remembering fondly.
Richard rolled over, and I squeaked the chair some more. Patience had never been my strong suit, after all.
While he snored, I tried to put all the recent events together. I hadn’t missed Richard’s googley eyes at Emily in the den during cocktails. It hadn’t occurred to me that Richard might have an accomplice right under his nose. Emily had been around the clinic when the bomb threat had been called in, and she was well aware Charlotte was at the clinic. I took a moment to kick myself for dithering around instead of getting a background check on her earlier.
Then I looked at Richard again. In my experience, most people didn’t confess when they still thought they could get away with their misdeeds. Well, sometimes they did, but it took a lot of energy out of their interrogators. And interrogators were not perfect. Personal bias, lack of sleep, even a pair of overly-snug underpants could throw you off your game. Also, Richard was a sociopath, and sociopaths were excellent liars. Bad Irma complained that there was no time to perform a decent polygraph on him.
I needed proof or a confession; it was the only way Charlotte would believe Richard was up to something, to say nothing of the police. That was the problem. I knew he was engaged in nefarious deeds. He was, at the very least, lining his own pockets at Charlotte’s expense. Tha
t, we could prove. The other recent events were still up for grabs.
Which was why I was here, to scare Richard enough to keep Charlotte safe tomorrow. After that, I was going to take her to Vancouver myself if I had to.
On a happier note, all of Camille’s men had infiltrated the estate. Right now, she had a man watching the outside of Charlotte’s room—probably stuck to the ceiling like a fruit bat—and one under her window. Her men were also patrolling the perimeter on land and watching from the water. There was a veritable army of Camille-staff here, which left me with a warm and cozy feeling. Unless someone shot a missile at the house, Charlotte was safe tonight.
Tomorrow, with the estate full of people, she’d be so exposed, I couldn’t guarantee her safety at all, and the chaos from the fundraiser would make it the perfect time for someone to try something nefarious.
Abruptly, Richard sat up in bed and snorted.
That’s when I turned the light on.
Richard let out a shriek that could only be described as girlish. On the bright side, his cottage was so far away from the main house that no one would ever hear him. He clutched at the covers. “You!”
“Hello there, Dickie.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I just wanted to have a little chat, Richard, dear.”
“I have nothing to say to you.”
“It won’t take long.”
He fumbled on his nightside table, grabbing his glasses and shoving them on his face. His hair stuck out in so many directions he looked like the Lion King.
“I know you bought into Renée’s with Charlotte’s money, then had the store over-insured.”
“I just—”
“Right before it was robbed.”
“I didn’t—”
“And I know you took Scooter’s laptop from Renée’s, and I’ll bet that there was something that incriminates you on it. And I know that because it’s not in your cottage anywhere.”