by Amy Lillard
“And call Mads,” Helen said from the front seat. “Make sure that he meets us at Lillyfield.”
“And not Jason,” Fern instructed. “I think Mads should be there.”
“Stop giving me orders.” Arlo’s fingers were trembling so badly she could hardly thumb through her list of contacts to find the number she needed. She called Sam first. Then hung up before he could answer. Mads. She needed Mads to meet them at Lillyfield. And they already had a head start.
“Go,” Mads answered the phone two long rings later.
“Mads, it’s Arlo.”
“I know. I’ve got a cell phone.”
“I don’t have time for that right now,” Arlo said. “We’re headed out to Lillyfield. We have reason to believe that Camille and Joe might be in trouble out there.”
“Define reason to believe.”
“I don’t have time to explain right now,” she said. “Can you just meet us out there?”
“Not without a little more to go on, Arlo. I am in the middle of a murder investigation.”
“I know, but Joe Foster is really Jeff Kennedy. He was married to Mary Kennedy, who we believe had an affair with Weston Whitney. She was pregnant when she disappeared. The baby might be Weston’s, but it could be Joe’s. And Joe discovered that the woman he thinks is his daughter is working at Lillyfield now.”
“Can you repeat that?”
“No!” Arlo said. “If you ever felt anything for me at all, just meet us out there. Camille could be in trouble.”
“Fine,” Mads said. “For you. But if nothing is going on, you owe me dinner.”
Arlo stared at the phone for a moment and placed it back to her ear. “Okay. Fine. Dinner.”
“See you in a bit.” Mads hung up, and Arlo called Sam.
“Sam, it’s Arlo. We had to leave the Books and More.”
“You had to leave?” Sam’s voice grew concerned. “All of you? Why?”
“It’s too much to try and explain right now. But we’re headed out to Lillyfield. Camille could be in trouble. Can you go down and reopen the store?”
“I’m over at Chloe’s,” Sam said. “I told her I’d look into having a doggie door put in for her. Well, for Manny.”
Private dick and handyman.
“So if you’re already out there, can you meet us?”
“Well, I’m close, but I’ve got Manny.”
“Take him back to the house, and then go to the mansion,” Arlo said. “We may need you.”
“And you’ll tell me what this is about then?”
She couldn’t send him over without explaining; he could be in more danger than any of them if he didn’t know what he was walking into.
“Camille and Joe are on their way to Lillyfield to find his daughter who works there.”
“Joe Foster who is really Jeff Kennedy, whose baby is probably—”
“Mary Kennedy’s daughter. But probably not because Mary Kennedy was having an affair with Weston Whitney when she disappeared.”
“I’m pretty good at detangling puzzles and relationships, but it’s gonna take a minute on this one.”
“Just go to the mansion and make sure that Camille and Joe don’t go inside. That’s the main thing,” Arlo said. “There’s already been one murder there.”
“You don’t think Haley’s murder has anything to do with Mary Kennedy?”
“Are you willing to take that chance?”
“No,” he said. “No, I’m not.”
“Are you going to the mansion?” Arlo asked.
“Let me take this dog back to the cottage, and I’ll be over there as soon as I can.”
“And Sam,” she said. “Thank you.”
Arlo hung up the phone and waited to be bombarded with questions from the ladies surrounding her, but no one said a word. Everyone was too worried about what they were going to find once they got to Lillyfield. Were Joe and Camille already out there? Would Sam get there before them? When would Mads arrive? And when would they? It seemed like the longest trip she had ever made.
When they pulled up in front of Lillyfield a few minutes later, Camille’s car was already parked in the circular drive. Sam’s truck was nowhere around, but he could’ve walked over from the cottage, Arlo was certain. It was simply a stone’s throw from the Lillyfield back door. But they had no way of knowing if he had made it inside or was even there yet. He said had been walking Manny when Arlo, called and she had no clue how far from the house he had been when she reached him.
“Okay,” Helen said turning in the seat to look at all three of them. “How are we going to do this?”
“We go to the front door and knock,” Arlo said.
Chloe nodded. “Maybe I should do it,” she said. “I mean, I’m a tenant, so it wouldn’t be totally out of the question for me to come calling.”
“With three of your closest friends,” Fern quipped.
“I don’t think the maid who answers the door cares about that sort of thing,” Chloe said.
“Aren’t you going to tell her she watches too much Downton Abbey?” Helen asked.
“Not the time,” Arlo replied.
“Yeah,” Helen said. “You’re right.”
“So I knock on the door, and the maid lets us in. That’s the most important thing, right?” Chloe nodded, waiting for them to agree.
“Right,” Arlo, Fern, and Helen said at the same time.
“Then what?”
“I have no idea,” Arlo said. “I guess we just play it by ear.”
“Let’s do this.” Fern slipped from the driver seat, then waited for everyone else to get out as well.
Chloe led the march to the front door with the three other ladies trailing behind. She was their ticket, and they were there to let her work her magic. After that, it was anybody’s guess.
She rang the doorbell. They waited. It seemed like forever, but it had only been a few short seconds before the door creaked open. Andrea the maid stood before them. Andrea who had said she had heard Haley and Dylan arguing the day that Haley was killed.
“Hi, I’m Chloe.” Chloe took a step forward, and thankfully the maid took a step back. Chloe plowed on. “I live in the cottage out back. I’d like to talk to somebody about putting in a doggie door and building a fence.”
The girl blinked as if she didn’t understand a word that Chloe was saying.
“Is there anyone I can talk to?” she asked. “The property manager perhaps.”
Arlo had a feeling Chloe knew exactly who to talk to about some sort of alteration to the cottage, but that wasn’t the point.
She took another large step into the foyer, and the three of them crowded in behind.
“I’ll go find someone,” Andrea said. If she recognized Arlo, she didn’t say. She simply looked at them as if they had come to rob the place. Then she shut the door and bustled away.
“Now?” Arlo said. “Where do we go from here?”
Before anyone could answer, a piercing scream rent the air. It came from upstairs, the same direction they had gone trying to find Judith Whitney’s room.
“There,” Helen said.
“Let’s do it.” Fern started toward the staircase in a dead run.
Chapter 26
Arlo, Chloe, Fern, and Helen raced up the stairs with Andrea the maid hot on their heels.
“You can’t go up there,” Andrea cried.
Arlo wasn’t sure if she was upset about the scream or the fact that they weren’t doing what she said. She turned toward the maid. “Go back downstairs. See if you can find Sam Tucker.”
“Who’s Sam Tucker?”
“Never mind. Mads and Jason—the police chief and his top officer—are on their way here right now. Go downstairs and wait for them,” Arlo instructed.
She hesitated.
&nbs
p; “Now,” Helen roared.
The maid scurried back down the stairs.
“I think it came from this direction,” Fern said. She rushed toward the end of the landing. A large mahogany door gleamed, the barrier between them and…
Well, she didn’t know what or who. Joe? Pam? Camille? Judith? Maybe all of them. And why the scream? Who screamed? Not Judith. Pam? Camille?
Fern raced to the door and flung it open. Nothing. No one was in the room.
Then voices came from next door.
Helen nodded toward the second mahogany door. It was cracked open an inch or two, but Arlo couldn’t see anything inside.
Are we going in? Fern mouthed.
Helen nodded.
Chloe grabbed Arlo’s arm. Is this safe? she mouthed.
Arlo shrugged.
Count of three, Helen mouthed. She held up one hand and ticked the count off on her fingers.
One…
Two…
Three…
They pushed their way into the room, and all eyes turned to them.
“Camille,” Joe-Jeff drawled. “It looks like your friends are here.”
Arlo wasn’t sure what to make of the scene. Joe was standing in front of the large window that faced the front of the house. He looked the same as he always did. Bald head gleaming, tattoos marking him, jeans and motorcycle boots. Except today he had a gun. And it was pointed at Pam.
“Are you okay?” Helen asked Camille.
Their friend cowered in a corner with Judith Whitney. Actually, Camille was doing the cowering, Judith was strapped into a wheelchair. She didn’t appear to be able to move her body, but those green, green eyes of hers were as sharp as ever. The stroke that had ravaged her body seemed to have only done damage to the physical. Her mind appeared to be in top form. It was a sight different than the last time that they had seen her.
“Do you think I would shoot her?” Joe asked in a stricken tone. “I adore Camille.”
“There are two guns,” Helen commented.
And there were.
Joe Foster, once known as Jeff Kennedy, was pointing a gun at Pam, who was pointing an even bigger one right back.
“I’m not trying to shoot anybody,” Pam said. “I’m only trying to protect myself.”
“From?” Fern asked.
“Crazy men busting in here and trying to tell me that they know who I am.” Pam waved the gun in Joe’s general direction. Camille ducked as if she had turned it on her.
“I’ve got an idea,” Fern started, speaking slowly. She smiled at everyone in the room and inched closer into the fray. Arlo wanted to grab her arm and pull her back out of the line of gunfire. “Why don’t we all put down the guns and talk this through?”
“Not a chance.” Joe spit the words in disgust. Gone was the easygoing man who could easily bowl a 275, and in his place stood an angry man, eyes blazing with the resentment born from years’ worth of lies come to light.
“Don’t you find it much easier to talk to someone when they aren’t pointing a gun at you?” she continued.
“No.” Pam’s one word was like a bullet.
“Okay, then,” Fern continued. “Wouldn’t it be easier to listen to someone if you weren’t pointing a gun at them? You surely wouldn’t have to worry about accidentally shooting someone in the room that you wouldn’t want to shoot.”
“Not when the person you’re pointing it at ruined your life,” Joe said.
“I ruined your life?” Pam scoffed.
“I came here to meet the daughter I never had. That I had just learned about. Instead I find walking, talking evidence of my wife’s infidelity.”
“You used to beat her,” Pam said. “She told me. She told me everything.”
“Then she lied. I knew what the talk was around town, but it was wrong. I never laid a hand on her. She was a little clumsy and managed to bruise herself up just walking to the mailbox. But I never laid a hand on her.”
“And yet you killed her,” Pam said.
Joe rolled his eyes. “How could I have killed her if you’re standing here? I didn’t know about you until six months ago.”
“On the inside,” Pam explained. “You killed her on the inside. You and Ms. Fancy Pants over there.” She used one elbow to indicate Judith, all the while keeping her gun steadily trained on Joe. “I’ve heard the stories my entire life about the evil dealt to my mother.”
“Your mother never could get the facts straight.”
“Except for the one about who my father really was.”
“I’m starting to feel dizzy from all this,” Chloe said.
As far as Arlo could tell, they had gotten it right. Pam was Weston Whitney and Mary Kennedy’s daughter. Though up until a few moments before, Joe thought that she was his own.
Sometime in between, they had started pulling guns, and now she just wished that Mads would get there. Or Sam. And she hoped Sam had a gun of his own.
“I came here to get revenge,” Pam continued. She thought she had the upper hand and kept talking. “I didn’t know I was going to get it twice.”
“Twice?” Helen asked.
“I came for Judith, but it seems I can make my mother’s rotten husband pay as well.”
Chloe nudged Arlo. “Judith?” she whispered.
“If it hadn’t had been for Judith Whitney, then my father would have left her and married my mother. I would have grown up in a house like this one.” She laughed. “In this one actually.”
“That’s not true,”’ Chloe said. She stepped forward, the same way that Fern had, and Arlo was beginning to feel a little cowardly at hanging back. Cowardice and intelligence. No sense in putting yourself in the crosshairs. “The money came from Judith’s family. She was the Lilly. Your father had no money of his own.”
Chloe was right. The fortune that Weston shared with his wife was only his because he was her husband. If he had left Judith for Mary, they would have been poor as church mice.
Pam looked a bit sucker punched. “But I—” she started. She shook her head. “But I came here to—” She stopped.
Arlo watched as the thoughts chased across her face. She had known, yet she hadn’t put it all together until now.
“You came to get your revenge.” Andrea stepped into the room.
“I thought I told you to go downstairs and wait for the police to come,” Arlo said.
“But I know,” Andrea said. She trembled as she said the words, but her long-lost-little-girl look was gone, and in its place, she blazed with a new confidence. “I know that you killed Haley, Pam. I was under the stairs when you hit her in the head with the statuette.”
All the air was sucked from the center of the room in a collective gasp.
“You killed Haley?” Helen asked. Now it was her turn to advance, ever so slowly toward the nutritionist, if that was indeed what she was. Arlo had no idea at this point.
“So what?” Pam scoffed. “She got in my way. And she found about my secret.”
“That you are Weston Whitney’s bastard child?” Joe snarled.
“Sticks and stones.” Pam laughed. “That I came here to kill Judith Whitney for ruining my life and my mother’s life.”
Where was Mads? Or Sam? One of them should have been there by now. Especially if Sam had been at the cottage when she called him.
“How did you go from killing Judith to caring for her?” Chloe asked.
The question had been on Arlo’s mind as well.
“Caring for her?” Pam snickered. “How do you think she got like that?”
“She had a stroke,” Chloe said. Though it came out more like a question than an answer.
“Yeah. See I was going to poison her. Just kill her outright. An overdose of her own blood-thinning medication.” Pam gave them all an evil smile. “Did you know t
hat warfarin is the same exact chemical compound as rat poison?”
“As a matter of fact, I did,” Fern said.
That in itself was scary enough.
“A little too much, and bye-bye, Judith.”
“But she’s still here,” Helen pointed out. She didn’t bother to say that she had more limitations now than ever; the point was Judith Whitney was still alive.
“I may have miscalculated a bit. That’s what caused the, uh—” She waved a hand toward Judith’s poor body, crumpled up and strapped to a wheelchair so she wouldn’t slide into the floor. “That’s when I realized that it might be a lot more fun to play a little cat and mouse before I finished my work.”
“I don’t understand,” Chloe said. “You became a nutritionist in order to come here and make her life hell?”
“No, stupid. I printed out a fake certificate from the internet to fool an old woman into letting me in.”
“Which explains why a nutritionist was buying Cheetos at the grocery store,” Fern mused.
Pam shrugged. “There’s that.”
“And what about Haley?” Arlo asked. “She just got in your way?”
“Collateral damage. So sad, such a bright young woman.” But Pam didn’t sound the least bit remorseful. “She started snooping around and questioning the medication I was giving Judy over there.”
“She discovered your plan. And you killed her,” Arlo said. “You killed her, then framed her boyfriend for the murder.”
“Like I said, collateral damage.”
“Dylan didn’t throw anything into the lake,” Fern mused. “You did.”
Again Pam shrugged. Then she glanced around at all of them, and it took Arlo a moment to realize that she was counting. “How many bullets you got in that gun, convict?” she asked.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“At least two, I hope. I would hate for you have to take your own life by stabbing an old woman, then jumping out the window.”
And Pam’s plan became clear to Arlo. She was going to shoot them all, make it look like Joe had done it, and be the only witness left to say otherwise. They had to do something, and they had to do it fast.