by Jessica Beck
“I’ve got this. Just follow my lead,” my brother said.
“Do you have a plan at all?”
Pat just gave me two thumbs up and smiled.
That’s when I knew we were in trouble.
Robin answered right away with a stern look on her face. “Hi. What are you two doing here?” It was a legitimate question, but unfortunately, I didn’t have an answer for her.
“We were worried about you,” Pat said smoothly. “With all that’s been going on, you must be coming unraveled. Is there anything we can do for you?”
Robin’s expression softened immediately. “How sweet of you both. Please, come in.”
As we did, Pat glanced back at me and winked so Robin couldn’t see what he was doing. The rascal had managed to not only get us inside but to soften Robin’s attitude toward us as well. Sometimes he amazed me.
“Could I trouble you for a glass of water?” Pat asked as he spied Robin’s purse sitting beside the sofa.
“Of course,” she said. “Would you like some too, Annie?”
“If it’s not too much trouble,” I said, making it a point to sit as far away from her bag as I could without looking too suspicious.
“Let me help you,” Pat said as he followed her into the kitchen. He was trying to buy me some time, and doing quite a good job of it at that.
As soon as they were in the other room, I started for her purse, only to see Robin’s head suddenly pop up from around the corner. “How about tea, instead? I can make us all a fresh pot.”
I pretended to stretch before settling back down. “That would be lovely.”
“Excellent. I won’t be a minute.”
Pat showed up for a moment. “Come on, Robin. I’ll keep you company.”
“It’s really not necessary,” she protested.
“I insist,” he replied with a grin.
It was charming, and Robin felt the full intensity of my brother’s attention. He wasn’t the most handsome man in the world, or even the smoothest, but he had one thing going for him that few other men had, in my experience. When he gave a woman his attention, she had every last bit of it. Without fail, women found it intoxicating. I was just glad my brother had a kind heart. If he hadn’t, he’d have left a trail of broken hearts everywhere he went.
“Come on, then,” she said, showing a dimpled little smile.
I had to move quickly. Hurrying across the room, I started digging through her purse looking for her keys. I found her car keys and hoped the office key was with them. There was one door key on the ring, but something wasn’t right about it.
I was about to take it anyway when I realized that it had to be the key to Robin’s own front door.
So, where was the office key?
Digging around a little more, I tried to navigate the flotsam and jetsam of the woman’s life, dodging tissue packets, makeup, loose wrapped candy, and a dozen other things, but still no office key.
“That is so sweet of you,” Pat said loudly, much closer than I realized.
They were coming back in, and I still hadn’t found the key yet.
By chance alone my fingertips brushed something, and I found a single key with a tag on it. It simply said, “Office,” so I knew that I’d finally found it.
The only problem was that I was about to be caught stealing it.
“That’s a lovely dish. It’s Depression glass, isn’t it?” Pat asked.
The footsteps stopped for a moment, and Robin said, “Yes. I started collecting it as a child. I just love the way the light shines through it, don’t you?”
“It’s remarkable,” he said.
It wasn’t much, but it gave me just enough time to close Robin’s purse and bolt for my former seat before they came back in.
“Sorry to keep you waiting,” Robin said, blushing slightly as she looked at my brother.
“No worries,” I said. “I was just catching up on my texts.”
“So, how goes the investigation?” she asked as she sat beside her purse.
“These things always take a lot longer than people think,” Pat said.
“So, you’re no closer than you were before figuring out who did it?” she asked us.
I shrugged. “If anything, we’re making even less progress than that. Poor Timothy. I had no idea how many people wished him ill.”
“I know. It’s staggering to think that such a fine man could attract such questionable clients and acquaintances.” Robin quickly added, “Present company excluded, of course.”
“Of course,” I said as nicely as I could manage despite the dig. “Have you decided what you’re going to do with your newfound wealth? Are you still planning on leaving town?”
“Now more than ever,” Robin said. “Timothy, through his generosity, has made it possible for me to see the world, and I’m not going to take that gift lightly.”
“Of course, the estate can’t be settled until his killer his found,” Pat said casually.
Robin frowned at him for a moment. “Why on earth not?”
“Until they’re certain how he died, and who killed him, they’ll hold on to his assets,” Pat explained. “After all, they can’t have Timothy’s estate going to anyone who might have had something to do with his demise.”
“Patrick Marsh, are you accusing me of murder?” Robin’s face had suddenly gone white.
“No. Of course not. You’re not the only one who is set to inherit something. Annie has to be cleared as well before she gets that land. I was speaking in generalities.”
“I understand that,” Robin said, nodding. “Frankly, I don’t care who gets it, as long as it’s not Mick. He did it; I know it with all of my heart, even if I can’t prove it.”
“Normally I would tend to agree with you, but it turns out that he has an alibi,” Pat told her.
Robin looked stunned to hear the news. “You don’t say. Is it foolproof?”
“I don’t know about that, but someone admitted to us that she was with him the night Timothy died, and she seemed pretty adamant about it. Is that something you’d lie about?”
The look of distaste on her face was clear. “Not in a thousand years. Well, you never know, do you? I was certain it was Mick, and I was hoping he’d get what was coming to him.”
“Well, at least he won’t get any money,” I said.
“You mean from Timothy’s estate? No, I suppose not, but he’s still going to inherit from their father’s will,” Robin said.
“As a matter of fact, he’s not. There’s a clause that disallows his inheritance, so their father’s assets will be rolled over into Timothy’s estate. It appears that you’re going to have even more money than you thought.”
“Funny, but I never expected any of this,” Robin said. “I had no idea my boss would take such good care of me. Still, I’d rather have him here right now than all the money in the world.”
“I don’t doubt that for one second,” Pat said as my cell phone rang.
“Excuse me,” I said as I checked to see who was calling me.
It was my brother.
When I glanced over at him, he winked at me. “Yes. Yes. Of course,” I said to dead air, since he’d already hung up. How had he managed to do that without either one of us noticing? “I’m sorry, but we need to go.”
“Is it about the case?”
“No, it’s our family. We’ll have to take a rain check on the tea, if you don’t mind.”
“The invitation is open as long as I’m still in town,” Robin said.
Outside, I asked my brother, “How did you do that?”
“I set it up to call you when Robin was showing me her Depression glass. I judged it to be the right moment to get us out of there, so I took a chance. That was quick of you
to pick up on it.”
“Your wink helped,” I admitted. “Let’s get to that office and back before she notices that I grabbed the key.”
“Good. I wasn’t sure you got it,” Pat said.
I held it up in the air for him to see as we started to get into my car. “It’s right here.”
“What exactly are we looking for?” I asked softly once we let ourselves into the office and locked the door behind us. We skipped Robin’s spot out front, and we’d gone straight back to Timothy’s inner sanctum.
“Why are you whispering?” Pat asked me with a grin.
“I don’t know,” I said in my normal voice. “I know this search is for something he had of Jenna’s, but I’m not entirely certain what it could be.”
“There’s only one way to find out,” Pat said. “Should we check that filing cabinet again?”
“You start there, and I’ll go back out front. We’ll have a better chance of finding what we’re looking for if we split up.”
“Okay. Yell if you find anything.”
“How about if I just come get you?” I asked him with a grin. “After all, we don’t want to call any attention to the fact that we’re here, uninvited.”
Pat shrugged. “I’ll take my chances.”
He disappeared into Timothy’s space while I looked around up front. There wasn’t anything obvious, and I almost joined my brother when I decided to have a peek in the closet where Robin had hung her coat up when we’d been there with her before. At first all I saw was stacks and stacks of boxes. Surely nothing of importance could be hidden in there, left so unprotected and out in the open like that. I was about to step out and shut the door when I could swear I saw a sliver of light coming from behind one of the stacks. What could that possibly be? I pulled out several boxes, digging deeper and deeper, until I found the source of the light.
It was coming from the other room, Timothy’s private—or not so private—office.
I knelt down and looked through the small opening in the paneling and was surprised to find myself watching my brother dig through a filing cabinet!
It was a peephole into Timothy’s space, and from it, someone could watch everything the man had been up to! So, that was why Robin had been so overprotective about the closet. I started to call out to Pat when my foot hit one of the nearby boxes I hadn’t moved out of the way yet. The lid flipped off, and as I was putting it back in place, I noticed what was inside.
What I found there nearly made me scream.
My brother had to see this.
Chapter 19: Pat
Annie came into Timothy’s office with a grim look on her face as she carried a storage box in her arms. “What’s going on, sis?” I asked her.
Instead of answering, she placed the box on Timothy’s desk and flipped the lid over.
I looked inside and was startled to find image after image of Timothy, both from the office and at his cabin. It was clear by the composition of the shots that he’d had no idea he’d been under surveillance.
“How did she manage to take these?” I asked Annie incredulously.
“There’s a peephole in the closet, and I can only assume she had some kind of camera rigged up at the cabin, too.”
“I can’t believe this,” I said.
“See for yourself. It’s easy to spot after I moved the boxes out of the way.”
“I’m not calling you a liar, but this I need to see with my own two eyes.” I walked up front, made my way through the maze of boxes stacked randomly outside the closet door, and walked inside. The hole was easy enough to spot. I knelt down and peered inside.
Annie waved. “Peekaboo,” she said.
“Unbelievable,” I replied. “I’ll be right there.”
That’s when I felt the cold steel from a gun barrel poke me in the neck.
“Take it nice and easy, Pat,” the familiar voice said. “Let’s go out and join your sister.”
Chapter 20: Annie
I started to say something as Pat came into the office, but the words died in my throat when I saw Robin Jenkins standing behind him, a gun pointed at my brother’s head.
“You two think you’re so cute,” she said. “Did you honestly think I wouldn’t notice that the key was gone as soon as you left? It was the first thing I checked. Lucky for me, I had Timothy’s key, too. I was going to use it to incriminate someone else, but I wasn’t sure who to pick once Mick disqualified himself. I’m glad I waited now.”
“We can explain,” Pat started to say, and then Robin jammed the barrel into his neck a little harder.
“Save it,” she answered. “Get over there with your sister.”
Pat did as he was told, and as he approached me, he said softly, “I’m so sorry.”
“You couldn’t help it any more than I could,” I said, doing my best to console him. We might be about to die, but I wasn’t going to let it happen with any hard feelings between us.
“You two need to shut up right now,” Robin said angrily, “while I figure out what to do with you. You’ve messed up my plans, so I need to come up with a new scenario.”
“You could always just let us go,” I suggested.
“That’s not likely to happen, Annie. What tipped you off, anyway? I thought I was careful covering my tracks.”
I wasn’t about to tell her that we’d come in search of Jenna’s secret, not hers. Why give her the satisfaction? “Finding all of that key evidence in one file drawer was awfully convenient,” I said, realizing that it was true. The moment I knew that Robin had killed Timothy, things began to fall into place. “The typed list of suspects and motives was almost too good to believe. Then waiting to point out the will that left it all to you was another nice touch, but I think the thing I liked the most was that note from Timothy to you. You faked that as well, didn’t you?”
“Why would you say that?” she asked me with a frown. “He admired me.”
“Good try, but Timothy’s portion was typed, while yours was written in your own handwriting,” I explained.
“Plus, Timothy’s notes were all typed as well,” Pat added. “You went to that well one too many times. Did you forge his signature on the will? Why not copy the rest of his handwriting?”
“I’d practiced his signature enough, but there was no way I could fake an entire document.”
“It was a nice touch leaving me his property,” I said.
“The truth of the matter is that part was real enough. The land and the secondary bequest were both legitimate.”
“Why don’t I believe you?” I asked.
“If I were stupid enough to let you go, you could always see for yourself. The real will is in my desk in the Shred folder.”
“Just out of curiosity, who was the real beneficiary?”
“Jenna,” she said, as though it were a curse. “He never changed his will, but after I take care of the two of you, no one will ever know. At first, I tried to pin it on Mick, and if that didn’t work, Viv and Gordon were likely candidates as well. Jenna was my last resort, besides you two, that is.”
“Why the fire?” Pat asked her.
“I thought it would get rid of my fingerprints. It worked, too. I’m curious about something myself. I know that fire at the Iron was burning this morning when I left. What happened?”
“I spotted it and put it out,” Pat admitted.
She wasn’t happy about that at all. “Okay, not everything worked out the way I planned it to.”
“Robin, all of your carefully laid plans were foiled. Since we’re not going to get out of this alive, tell me one last thing,” I asked her.
“What’s that? Make it quick. I won’t be put off from getting rid of both of you.”
“Why did you kill Timothy in the first place?” I asked her, sincerel
y wanting to know the truth before my brother and I died.
“He rejected me one too many times,” she said bitterly. “I knew he and Jenna were breaking up, and I didn’t want to waste any time. I had a suspicion that he’d go crawling back to you if I didn’t do something, so I drove out to his cabin and declared my love for him.”
“How did he react to that?” Pat asked.
“He laughed at me! I couldn’t believe it! I told him I was leaving, and he went to get my coat from the closet. It didn’t take much to close the door, lock it, and jam a chair under the knob for good measure. He thought I was kidding! You should have heard him pounding on that door trying to get out. I decided that I wasn’t going to take his humiliating treatment for another moment, so I splashed some gasoline around and lit it! You need to be careful, Annie. It’s amazing how quickly wooden cabins catch on fire.”
I could almost see the flames dancing in her eyes as she described the scene. Poor Timothy. Nobody deserved to die trapped like a cornered rat as the flames and smoke got closer and closer. “How are you going to explain us?” I asked her.
“What do you mean?”
“You can’t make it look as though it were simply another accident, and you’ve set entirely too many fires for that to work again.”
“Maybe I can manage something a little less elegant,” she said with a wicked grin. “How about this? You two broke into the place, the real killer caught you, and then shot you both. I think you’re wrong about having another fire. It seems to match the pattern, doesn’t it? The killer will burn this place down, too. Fire is such a cleansing thing, isn’t it?” There was true madness in her now.
Robin might be able to shoot one of us, but I doubted she’d be able to get both of us before we acted.
We had no choice in the matter. One of us had to make a move.
Hopefully, I could draw her fire long enough for Pat to jump her and disarm her. No matter what happened to me, I needed my brother to survive the encounter. Robin couldn’t get away with killing so many people without being punished for any of it.