To Laney, With Love

by Joyce Sullivan

  “Okay, Mr. Forbes, it’s your turn.”

  Laney felt her heart sink into a cold mire of dread. At six foot, Ben, of course, had no trouble slipping the rod onto the brass hook.

  McBain was making it plain he thought they were in this together.

  Chapter Nine

  Ben swiveled to face McBain, his voice taut with impatience and concern that maybe, just maybe, McBain might charge them with murder and place them under arrest. “Nice theatrics, Corporal, but I had no reason to kill Graham Walker. All this proves is that his killer couldn’t possibly have been Laney.”

  “Exactly,” Laney chimed in, her eyes spitting blue sparks. “I hope you’re planning to try this demonstration on Kristel and Nelson. They’re both tall enough to reach the rod. And Kristel was home alone the night of the murder. Why aren’t you questioning her alibi? She could have driven up here unnoticed. Maybe she detected a change in Graham’s behavior that made her suspicious.” Her hands balled into tight fists that she planted on her hips. “Or it could have been Nelson. Dallyn Vohringer hinted there was some animosity between them. Kristel and Nelson have been open about it, too. Kristel made a veiled comment last night that Nelson had expressed concerns Graham had married her for her money. And Nelson told us yesterday he thought Graham was too ‘slick.’ I, for one, would dearly love to know where Nelson was early Sunday evening.”

  “Actually, Mr. Butterfield was holed up in the penthouse suite of the Hotel Vancouver with his wife. The room-service staff have substantiated he was present.”

  Ben didn’t bother to hide his sarcasm. “That’s a convenient alibi for a man who can afford to pay others to do his dirty work.”

  “Perhaps,” Corporal McBain admitted, then pressed on relentlessly. “But we talked to the person who delivered the food from the Chinese restaurant. Graham Walker was very much alive at 5:17 when the meal was delivered. That narrows the time of death down between 5:17 and 6:33 when the 911 call was logged. And you both were on the scene. So far, the concierge and the neighbors have substantiated your alibi, Mr. Forbes, but it hasn’t escaped our notice that Mrs. Dobson may have found a way to entice her husband to remove the crystal rod for her. You said she had a towel in her hands when you found her. The murder weapon was wiped clean.”

  Ben reached for Laney as she swayed like a sapling being battered by a gale-force wind, ripples of fear radiating in the pools of her eyes. For once he didn’t give a damn what McBain thought of their relationship. He only knew Laney needed him. When push came to shove, he couldn’t deny the fierce primal urge to protect her.

  “And you think it makes a hell of a lot of sense for her to wipe the murder weapon clean of prints and leave her negligee and her perfume in the bathroom to incriminate her?” Ben said forcefully, searching his mind for logical solutions. McBain might think he had staggering evidence against Laney, but Ben knew from years of working for the government that facts could be manipulated into many truths. And he had a lot more faith in the priceless woman he held in his arms, than in so-called “facts” delivered by the police lab.

  McBain shrugged his shoulders. “Your unexpected arrival may have prevented her from disposing of them.”

  Ben’s arm anchored gently around Laney’s waist. A warm bond of strength seemed to join their bodies where they touched thigh to thigh, hip to hip, torso to torso. The softness of her breast was pliant against his ribs. “Neither of us had anything to do with Graham Walker’s murder,” Ben said doggedly. “Why would we?”

  “Because Mrs. Dobson was afraid of losing her son and she turned to her lover to help her.”

  “That’s ridiculous. Laney and I aren’t involved.”

  “That’s not what your neighbors say,” McBain countered. “The Ottawa RCMP have talked to several of your neighbors, who are willing to attest to the fact that Mr. Forbes and his son are frequent visitors to the Dobson home. And you, Mr. Forbes, recently spent the night there.”

  Ben kept his arms defiantly around Laney and wished he had the right to do so forever. “For crying out loud, Corporal. That was the night of the burglary. I slept on the couch because the kitchen door had been kicked in and Laney’s son was scared. End of story. Next, you’ll be suggesting we staged the accident last night.”

  McBain didn’t bat an eyelash. “Did you?”

  “Of course not.” Ben shook his head in frustration. “This is getting us nowhere. Why don’t you give us a lie-detector test, Corporal? That will prove we’re telling the truth.”

  “Yes,” Laney agreed, instantly seconding his suggestion. “Then maybe you can get on with finding out who really killed Graham Walker.”

  “Now that’s an offer I can’t refuse,” McBain replied, rubbing his angular jaw thoughtfully. “We’ll set the tests up ASAP.”

  Ben just hoped they wouldn’t ask him if he was in love with Laney. He’d have no other recourse but to tell the truth.

  VINDICATION CAME that night for Laney at seven minutes after nine when McBain pronounced she and Ben had passed the polygraph test. It had been a grueling afternoon and evening. A polygraph operator had been dispatched from Vancouver and the three hour tests were administered in a room at the Fairways Hotel under a controlled environment. A camera mounted on a tripod was linked to a monitor in the room next door where McBain scrutinized the proceedings. Laney had been asked to go first.

  When she’d finished, she’d spent three nervous hours in her hotel suite—while Ben was undergoing the test—drafting notes and questions she planned to ask McBain when their innocence was formally acknowledged.

  She gave Ben a goofy smile—half-elated, half-relieved—and a stiff hug, and wished McBain weren’t such an intimidating chaperone. The half hope that Ben might kiss her again stirred in her breast. Then she’d know if the intention behind that first kiss on the Seawalk had been friendly or romantic. Though maybe, she admitted to herself as she stepped away from Ben and the tantalizing scent of his aftershave, she was better off not knowing. Why spoil a perfectly good friendship?

  She reached for the notes on the desk in the living area of their suite and focused on the events of the last few days. “Please sit down, Corporal,” she said in her most businesslike manner. “I know it’s late and you’re working twenty-four hours a day on this case, but I have some questions and concerns which can’t wait and may help you with the investigation. I’m not an expert on Graham Walker, but I do know Reese Dobson. If they’re one and the same man, they must share a few traits in common.”

  “By all means, proceed, Mrs. Dobson,” McBain responded, removing a small black notebook from the breast pocket of his patrol jacket as he eased his large frame onto the rustic overstuffed couch.

  Laney checked her notes. “Assuming that Graham and Reese are the same person, the first thing that strikes me as odd is the money Graham Walker inherited from his grandmother. Kristel wasn’t able to give us any details other than the grandmother’s name—Millie Walker—and that she lived in Brandon, Manitoba. Surely this could be checked out? It seems to me Graham may have used or subconsciously tapped into Reese’s knowledge and experience in the investments field to make a profit on the stock market. He may have used the story of an inheritance to explain his windfall.”

  McBain nodded.

  “Which brings me to the subject of Reese’s electronic notebook. I wondered if you’d found one in Graham Walker’s chalet, or in his office? Reese always carried one with him and called it his ‘traveling secretary.’ He was lost without it. Graham told Kristel he was going on a business trip. If Graham, like Reese, relied upon an electronic notebook to keep his life in order, then Graham must have had his notebook with him. If we could find it, it may indicate the name of a doctor who had been treating Graham for his amnesia. Or give us the name of a therapist who was helping him deal with his surfacing memories.”

  Corporal McBain frowned. “No electronic notebook has been found in the chalet, but if one exists, it may turn up as the investigation widens in scop
e.” He cleared his throat. “But perhaps I should clear up a point for you. Assuming Reese Dobson and Graham Walker are one and the same, we doubt very much that Reese Dobson ever had amnesia. We’ve run Graham Walker’s social-insurance number and we’ve discovered it belongs to a Graham Walker who moved to the States over ten years ago. Graham Walker was originally from Brandon, Manitoba. But his grandmother’s name was Tildy, not Millie.

  “We’ve also checked the police reports for the avalanche. Reese was the last skier in a group of ten traversing the glacier that day. He was an experienced skier and could have rigged the accident, then skied down Mount Currie to Pemberton. The police report states there was falling snow that day. It could have concealed his tracks. For whatever reason, we believe Reese Dobson deliberately faked his death and took on another identity. We’ll be delving more thoroughly into his employment with CDN Investments and into his business dealings with Connoisseur Specialty Wines.”

  Laney gulped as McBain’s information settled with a heavy and unalterable weight around her heart, confirming what she’d secretly been fearing all along.

  Reese Dobson had abandoned his wife and son.

  “I see,” she said, studiously examining her list so Ben and the corporal couldn’t see the hot tears smarting in her eyes.

  “Laney, was Reese’s electronic notebook returned to you with his personal belongings from the hotel after he disappeared?” she heard Ben ask.

  “No.” She blinked, her handwriting blurring on the page she held in her hands. She told herself that she was not responsible for Reese’s choices. She’d been the best wife she knew how to be. And Josh was a great kid. All that mattered now was finding out the truth so she could close the book on this chapter of her life. “I assumed he had it with him when he was caught in the avalanche.”

  “So he may still have had it as Graham Walker,” Ben pointed out. “And maybe he’d been using the information it contained to his advantage in the stock market. Or he was playing fast and loose with money Kristel gave him and they made up the ‘inheritance’ tale to keep big brother at bay. Nelson may have found out about it though from Kristel’s accountant. Heck, for all we know, Reese may have been involved in insider trading prior to his disappearance. Perhaps he grew worried the Ontario Securities Commission might launch an investigation into his activities and staged his own death.”

  “But why would he contact me—especially after he’d married again? Reese was smart enough to know bigamy is a crime,” Laney countered.

  Ben shot a wary glance at the corporal. “The only explanation I can come up with is that he missed Josh—and you. Maybe he discovered you were irreplaceable.”

  Irreplaceable. Laney felt her body suffuse with a golden, soothing warmth, balmy as a late August breeze. For a moment she envied Rebecca Forbes, who was so irreplaceable her husband still longed for her four years after her death. Laney doubted Ben would ever love any of the string of women he dated as much as he had loved Rebecca.

  McBain snapped his notebook closed and rose from the couch. “I think we’ve already covered this ground. Unless there’s anything else, I’ll be on my way. I’ll let you folks know what turns up. In the meantime, keep me informed of your whereabouts because you may be asked to submit to a lie detector test again.”

  “Of course, Corporal.” Laney gave him a halfhearted smile that hid the gnashing of her teeth and escorted him to the door. The tenacious corporal probably thought she and Ben would engage in wild, hot sex the minute he left. Not a bad fantasy, but it had no basis in reality.

  “How nice to have the complete confidence of the police,” she told Ben wryly as she returned to the seating area of their suite. He’d risen from the arm of the chair he’d perched on during their conversation with McBain and now stood on the area rug between the couch and the chair. Laney decided faded jeans had never looked so good on a man. The worn fabric cupped his taut buttocks and muscular thighs. She heard the rasp of the dark stubble shadowing his jaw as he stroked his chin with a distracted air.

  “Hmm?” he murmured.

  Laney firmly tucked all thoughts of slipping her arms around his broad back and slowly undoing the buttons of his denim shirt, into the “private fantasies” section of-her brain.

  But it took a moment for her to gather her wits and make her mouth cooperate with coherent speech. “What are you thinking about?” she asked, rubbing away a sudden patch of goose bumps on the backs of her arms.

  Ben looked toward her, a sheepish smile that was oddly endearing, stamped on his handsome face. “Nelson Butterfield. The guy has millions and he’s obviously protective of his sister. I’m just wondering if a sharp guy like him wouldn’t have thoroughly checked out his new brother-in-law. Maybe he bought Graham’s story for a while or he’d been keeping an eye on Kristel’s bank accounts, then got suspicious and started digging deeper. He probably hired someone to tail Graham and check out his background. Let’s say Nelson learns his brother-in-law has an alias, and a wife, and a kid. Nelson decides he’s going to teach Graham a lesson for messing with his sister, so he pays someone to set you up for the murder. Hence the burglary and all the planted evidence.”

  Laney flopped onto the couch and chewed her lower lip as she considered Ben’s theory. “It sounds plausible. But Nelson doesn’t strike me as the kind of man who’d want to advertise the fact his sister had been married to a bigamist—especially when Nelson seems so concerned with Kristel’s emotional stability. Why wouldn’t he just arrange an accident to do away with Graham? He has the resources, and it would allow Kristel to save face.”

  “Good point,” Ben admitted. “Kristel’s the emotional sort. She might have done him in herself for what she perceived to be his betrayal of her. The guy was stabbed through the heart. Maybe she didn’t have any idea who the other woman was. She just knew when she entered the house that her husband was obviously not on a business trip and was about to entertain a female companion.”

  Laney sighed. “Kristel definitely ranks up at the top of my list of suspects. I’m sure she isn’t telling everything she knows. When McBain told me Reese planned his disappearance, it made me wonder how long he’d actually known Kristel. Not that I suppose it matters if he left me to be with her, but catching her in a lie might prove to the police Kristel isn’t as innocent as she seems. I’d sure like to get another look at that photo on Graham’s desk in his office. Maybe there’s a date on it or something. Or we’ll see the outline of his electronic notebook in a pocket. I remember he wasn’t wearing a ring or his favorite watch—” She broke off suddenly. “Oh, my God, that’s it!”

  Laney sat up taller, excitement coursing through her. “In the photo he was wearing a cheap watch he’d bought the summer before he disappeared in Whistler! He’d gotten mugged in South America and knew he was going to Switzerland in the fall, so he’d bought an inexpensive watch to tide him over until his trip,” she explained in a rush.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Well, I’ll have to see the photo again to be one-hundred-percent certain.”

  Ben grinned at her and Laney felt her private fantasies about him beat a path to the forefront of her mind at the devilish charisma of white teeth and dimples. She pressed her fingernails into her palms. Why couldn’t Ben be old, flabby and have a receding hairline?

  “Does your plan to see this photo include how we actually get into Graham’s office?” he asked. “His partner kicked us out the last time we dropped by, remember?”

  Laney waved away his concern. “Details. Details. We’ll ask nicely, beg if we have to, and make a fuss until he has no choice but to give in to our request so I can snatch the photo. Simple.”

  Ben took two steps and stopped in front of her, amusement flashing in his heartbreaker eyes. “Is that the secret of your success? It sounds like Scott’s approach to getting what he wants.”

  “Where do you think I learned it?”

  Ben guffawed and Laney found herself laughing with him and enjoying the rele
ase.

  “It’s good to hear you laugh again,” Ben said softly when their laughter had died away and she was trying to catch her breath. He brushed her shoulder with his fingertips; a platonic, casual touch between friends. There was nothing romantic about it except the starburst of awareness humming in her shoulder where his fingers made contact. “I’m off to bed. We’ll make an early start for Vancouver in the morning. I’ve got an address where we can exchange the rental car, okay?”

  “Okay.” She tilted her head back to look up at him and almost wished she hadn’t. Her heart thumped and rattled against her ribs. The man was just too darned handsome for his own good.

  “Good night, then. I’ll call my mom from my room and check on the boys.”

  “Good night, Ben.” Impulsively, she reached out to grip his fingers and immediately regretted the impulse when she saw his sudden questioning frown. “Thanks for being such a good friend,” she stammered, quickly releasing him.

  He shrugged. “Hey, I owe you.”

  Yeah, right. Laney watched him walk down the hall to his room, trying to close her ears to the whispery grazing of denim against denim that punctuated his every step and made her blood stir with awareness of the masculine power of his thighs. She groaned and sank deeper into the cushions of the couch. Friendship, she reminded herself sternly, was all she could ever reasonably hope to expect from Ben Forbes.

  BEN GLARED AT THE MIRROR through bleary eyes and wondered how many minutes he’d actually slept last night. He sure as hell hadn’t lost consciousness for more than an hour. He reached for his electric razor and derived a primal pleasure from the mechanical growl it made as he skimmed it over his jaw. Laney had clearly defined their relationship last night: friends.

  For a split second there when she’d grabbed his fingers, he’d hoped she was reaching out for him. He’d searched her face for some encouraging sign to give him the courage to spill his guts. Thank God he hadn’t! What a mistake that would have been. She’d have sent him packing on the first plane this morning.