The Pretender

by HelenKay Dimon

  “Not at first.” Craig exhaled. “She was sweet and I thought she might be lonely. She talked about the crime stuff, so I made up a username and went online to talk to her. Then I realized everyone on there knew her. She was not a woman hiding on an island in those rooms. She was knowledgeable, the person others went to to discuss ideas and theories. She’d created this world and was a huge star in it, not this lonely person who needed company.”

  “She was never that,” Gabby yelled at him.

  “But she was lonely, Gabby. She didn’t hide in a closet, but she had learned to use the island as a shield. If she stayed here, she didn’t have to face anything. She could keep living like she had with your parents—protected.” He sat down on the bench near Damon.

  “Keep going,” Harris said.

  “I liked talking with her and thought she’d be more comfortable confiding in a stranger, if she needed that, than someone she didn’t have to see all the time.”

  “And then you fell for her?” The disbelief was obvious in Damon’s voice.

  For a second the pain cleared from Craig’s eyes. “She was so enthusiastic and dedicated. In person, so beautiful and a bit mysterious. Young in some ways, but like this bright beam of sunlight. The more I talked with her, the deeper I got sucked in.” Craig hesitated as he leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. “I fell for her.”

  “Why use the chat room? Why not come clean and tell her?” Harris asked, but he was pretty sure he knew the answer.

  “How she was in the chat room was different from how she was in person.” His words tripped over each other. “That’s not what I mean. It’s that she was more—”

  “Approachable.” Harris filled in the blank. “You could pull her out of her shell in the chat room.”

  It all made sense to Harris. In her element, talking about a subject that meant so much to her, Tabitha could be the person she might have been if the kidnapping fiasco hadn’t happened.

  Something that looked like hope sparked in Craig’s eyes. “Exactly. I thought if I could get her to like me in there, then I could tell her the truth. We talked every single day. For hours each night. Just the two of us. She was the one who suggested the private chat, and in there our conversations went beyond criminal cases.”

  “Or, to put it another way, one without the pretty spin. You weaseled your way into her life, and when you finally told her the truth she got pissed and you panicked.” Damon’s summation made it all sound so simple. “Stabbed her.”

  “God, no.” Craig’s hands shook. “Don’t you get it? I would never have hurt her.” He looked at Gabby. “You have to believe me. I loved her. I’ve been grieving her in silence for more than a year because I couldn’t tell anyone.”

  “Why not?” Gabby asked.

  “Because of this. Exactly what’s happening now.” Craig stood up then sat down again. He was a ball of nervous energy, constantly shifting and moving. Looking ready to pop. “If I mentioned I was talking with her, deceiving her, the police would have blamed me for her murder.”

  Gabby sighed. “Instead, they blamed me.”

  “You’re not the only one on the radar. I’ve been questioned numerous times. Who did I bring to the island? Why did I hate the Wright family? Was this about jealousy?”

  Harris believed him. He hated that he did because tagging Craig now would end all of this. Gabby would finally have that closure and her uncle would have to back off. The entire case tied up in a neat bow, which was exactly the problem. Harris couldn’t see Craig throwing Gabby against a wall or burning down the main house. Loving Tabitha wouldn’t cause him to do any of that to Gabby.

  Harris reached over and took the hat out of Gabby’s hands and held it up to Craig again. “Where did this come from?”

  “I have no idea. It wasn’t on the boat last night.” Craig stood up again and paced in the small amount of open space. “I clean it after every use and at the end of every workday.”

  “You stayed here last night, on the island.” It was the first thing Damon had said that wasn’t an accusation.

  Craig nodded. “Kramer invited me when he saw the storm coming in. I figured it was safer.”

  Damon had mentally cleared Craig. Harris didn’t have to ask for confirmation of that because he could hear it in the change in Damon’s voice. Whatever Craig said must have matched with the documents in Damon’s pocket.

  Sure, this could be an unrequited love thing but Harris didn’t see it. Nothing about Craig’s demeanor said “killer.” Some hid it well. Harris had known more than one sociopath. The art world was filled with them. But they had certain personality traits. A brutal ego and need to hear praise. As far as Harris could see, Craig was hardworking, dedicated and apparently mourning in silence.

  This time when Gabby made a move toward Craig, Harris didn’t hold her back or worry for her safety. She no longer vibrated with unspent anger or looked ready to throw Craig overboard.

  “Did you ever tell her you loved her?” she asked Craig in a soft voice.

  Craig’s face crumpled then. The panic gave way to pain. It was written in the series of expressions that crossed his face—from wariness to anguish—and in his body language.

  “I planned to when you left after that last visit. I’d practiced what I was going to say. I . . .” Craig stared at a random spot on the Bay. “Honestly, I knew she’d be pissed that I lied to her, so I put off telling her the truth for longer than I should have. There is no good time to go back and clean up that kind of mess.”

  Harris hoped like hell Craig was wrong on that point.

  “Then she never knew you and crimesleuthing guy were the same?” Damon asked.

  “No. She thought she was talking with a stranger.” Craig was barely holding it together.

  He looked on the verge of tears and Harris wanted to spare him that but he wasn’t sure how. “Someone could have planted the hat,” Harris said, thinking out loud.

  It made sense. Why would Craig hide incriminating evidence in the open? There was a vast amount of water right there. He could have thrown it in there or burned it in the fire pit, especially after Damon scheduled time for them all on the boat. No, it looked deliberate. Like someone intended to set Craig up.

  “Who was with you last night?” Harris asked, hoping to narrow down the suspect pool even more. It sounded like they’d removed one person but that left too many more.

  “After my daily runs I stayed with Kramer and Ted. The plan was to ride out the storm then head back this morning, which I would have done if Damon hadn’t called about a quick pleasure ride.”

  Damon finally put his gun away. “Were you together with those two all the time?”

  “Not really. Most of it, I guess.” Craig looked at Gabby. “Your uncle was there for part of the evening. But I didn’t specifically see anyone go out, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Did anyone say anything?” Damon asked.

  Craig frowned. “You mean did they mention hurting Gabby? Of course not.”

  That would have been too easy. Harris tried another tact. “Have you ever heard any theories on Tabitha’s death?”

  The skin on Craig’s face pulled taut around his mouth. “Rumors and a bunch of garbage about Gabby, none of which I think is true. Honestly, if I knew who killed Tabitha I would kill them myself.”

  Admirable, understandable even. But the kid had his whole life ahead of him and Harris thought he deserved to at least live that. “Don’t.”

  Gabby took Craig’s hand. She didn’t say anything. Just stood there, watching him. “I think she would have forgiven you.”

  “I never got a chance to tell her what I did or how much I loved her.” Craig’s voice sounded raspy and uneven. “But, God. Gabby, I never would have hurt her. Never.”

  “I believe you.” Gabby hugged him then. Wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him close.

  For a second, Craig didn’t do anything. He stood stiff with his arms to his sides then his hands came up
and he hugged her. His fingers spread over her back and he buried his face in her neck.

  Harris could see Craig’s shoulders shake. Hear the sounds he made. He was crying, gulping in deep breaths of air.

  The sight had Harris reeling. He felt as if he’d been punched in the gut. He’d spent his entire life vowing not to care for a woman—for anyone—as much as Craig cared for Tabitha. That way led to madness and a clawing sense of disappointment. Looking at Gabby now as she forgave and consoled Craig on her sister’s behalf, Harris doubted he could hold on to his personal promise of detachment. He’d already broken it.

  When they finally got the boat back to the dock, Harris pulled Damon aside. “Tell me about those transcripts.”

  “It all fits. There is a note of puppy love in them, though watching Craig out there I’d say it ran deeper than that.” Damon shook his head. “But nothing weird or of concern on Craig’s part. No trying to ply information out of her. Certainly no fighting. If anything, at the end she was pursuing him as hard as he was pursuing her. He just can’t see that right now.”

  That sense of loss left Harris feeling raw and hollowed out. Here Craig was, driven and smart, and he couldn’t reach out to a woman who meant something to him. Not in a way where she could reciprocate. Now she was dead and he’d always wonder what he could have done differently. He’d heal but he’d always carry that what-if guilt.

  Craig had lied and no one could predict how much leeway Tabitha would have given for that. Harris wished he knew because he might be able to convince Gabby to listen to him when the time came to tell the truth. And it was coming.

  “You think we can eliminate Craig from the list?” Harris asked.

  “Yeah.” Damon watched Craig and Gabby talk at the other end of the small dock. “The hat being there was a tip-off. It’s too clean.”

  “So, we’re back to the same place.” Harris almost groaned at the thought.

  “Actually, no.” Damon held up four fingers. “One down. Three to go.”

  Chapter 23

  Gabby no longer drank, which was probably a good thing. Today if she started she might not stop until she downed an entire liquor cabinet. The good news was the days of relying on wine and vodka to numb her frazzled nerve endings and quiet her brain were long gone.

  She stood on the guesthouse patio and paged through the chat room transcripts Damon had found. Every word leapt off the page. The affection between Craig and Tabitha struck her. Gabby didn’t have to dig through innuendos and subtext to find it. They shared ideas and talked about their struggles. But it was the flirting that made her smile. Craig’s gentle coaxing to bring Tabitha out of her shell.

  Over time, the tone between them changed from serious crime discussions to something deeper. She could pinpoint the exact week where Craig stopped using a persona and his own voice came through. Gabby had no idea how Tabitha didn’t make the connection. Craig all but spelled it out for her. He stopped at using his name, but the information was right there.

  They’d been off Craig’s boat for over an hour and Damon was back at the main house making phone calls and tracking the movements of all the players still on the island during the months since Tabitha’s murder. The police had done that already, but Damon was convinced they’d missed something and vowed to retrace each step.

  That left Gabby and Harris alone to work through what they’d learned. She didn’t know where to begin. She struggled to take it all in. Her sister had spent time with a man who really cared about her. Gabby never thought something like that would be possible, never imagined Tabitha could experience that sort of happiness. The fact someone stole it away made Gabby violent. She wanted to kick and scream and fight back.

  Her stomach flipped over at the thought of how much Tabitha had lost. The cost, the toll, was so much higher than Gabby originally thought. She put a hand over her heart on instinct.

  Harris had been sitting in the chair the whole time, watching her with a gaze that skimmed over her like a caress. It grounded her despite the flurry of emotions battling inside her. He didn’t say much, which she appreciated. She craved the comfort of silence right now, and he provided that.

  A quiet strength radiated off him. Behind the hypnotic deep voice and stunning face lay a man who was much deeper than he pretended. He joked, he deflected when it came to his work to the point that she was convinced he worked undercover for the police, but he’d shared the personal pain about his mother. Gabby sensed his mother’s life and her choices went to the very heart of who he was. The son of a woman confined in prison.

  In his mind, he may have resolved his feelings about that, but the scars remained. His past made him real and genuine and vulnerable. She guessed he hated all of that, but she didn’t. That mix of control and humanity compelled her, reeled her in. Had her wanting more from him—with him.

  She, the woman who ran from ties and feared losing one more person, had opened the door. Just a crack, but it was open. In such a short time she had come to think of him as hers. That they were bound together in some way.

  She hadn’t fallen for someone in such a long time but she remembered this sensation. The free-fall, no net, going-to-crash flailing panic. She wanted to refuse to care about him, to block her heart and abolish the word love from her head, but she couldn’t do it. Her defenses were down and no matter how hard she tried to lift them again, they would not click into place. Not with him.

  She hoped Tabitha had felt a portion of this. That she’d gotten a taste of how exciting, and, yes, scary, it was to fall for someone. To love without a safety net or parents watching over her and guiding her every move.

  The man without real emotions—his proclamation, not hers—frowned at her in what looked like genuine concern. “You okay?”

  “I will be.” For the first time in a long time Gabby believed that. The killer was still out there and someone had attacked her and tried to frame Craig, but life moved forward. She no longer sat and churned and wondered every second what could have been if she hadn’t been robbed of her family.

  The confusion and pain still lingered. It always would, but it didn’t have to define her. She got that now.

  “With Craig eliminated, the pool of potential suspects is even smaller.” Harris stretched his long legs out in front of him. “Your uncle, Kramer and Ted.”

  Back to business. It was the right answer, but a part of Gabby wanted to wallow in the happy feeling for a few seconds. “None of them fit.”

  “One of them has to.” Harris leaned his head against the back of the chair and stared up at her. “Look, a stranger didn’t sneak onto the island at the start of a storm just to manhandle you. Something else is happening here.”

  God, she wanted him to be wrong. Life would be so much easier if they were dealing with some unknown person with no connections to the family. Someone who’d wandered in and they could find and then forget. But she no longer believed in that less likely theory of the case.

  She sat down on the table next to him, close enough that her legs rested against the armrest of his chair. “Like what?”

  “These things generally break down into pretty simple categories. People kill for money, for revenge, to hide something or because they just like the destruction.”

  She could eliminate one even though a part of her, that vengeful angry part, wanted to blame him. “My uncle has enough money.”

  “He’s on the verge of divorce.”

  She swallowed a sigh. “He’s a multimillionaire.”

  When Harris glared at her, she glared back. This was not just a family thing. There was no way to make the leap in her head. She refused to believe Uncle Stephen would hurt Tabitha. He hadn’t overindulged her like their parents, but he had talked about the need to keep her safe.

  “Fine. I’ll give you that one,” Harris said, finally conceding.

  “I’d think.” Right or wrong, she knew her uncle. The man today might be moved to violence. He’d been pushed so far to the edge that it was no lo
nger impossible. Gabby knew if Uncle Stephen had a target, it would be her.

  “Maybe Kramer is tired of being the employee.”

  That didn’t work for her either. Then again, neither did Ted because of all of them he spent the least amount of time on the island. As a kid and a teenager, sure. Not as an adult. He only came now to help Kramer.

  “Have you seen one bit of evidence to back that up?” she asked because she didn’t know of any.

  “No, which means this is about something, some piece of information or evidence, Tabitha found. That’s why we had the attacks on the library. The person behind all of this thought whatever he needed to find and destroy was in there. The fire, the break-in. It all makes sense.”

  “It also fits with Tabitha’s stolen laptop. It should have been with her or near her when she died, but the police never found it.” They rarely included that fact in their decision-making, but Gabby knew it mattered.

  Harris broke eye contact to stare into the distance. “Yeah, that.”

  “And the missing map and kidnapping documents.” She hated to add those in but she couldn’t avoid them. They were the pieces that didn’t fit with anything else, but the ones that wouldn’t leave her mind. “That’s ancient history but the hiding place being discovered makes it all relevant.”

  Harris sat up higher in the chair. “If you were Tabitha, where would you hide something on the island?”

  “Like what?”

  “The map and whatever else you two buried in that wall.”

  The direction of the conversation made her uneasy, but she answered. “The library.”

  “No, we’re not giving your sister enough credit. She was in the library all the time. If it was something she wanted away from her, to make it hard to find, where would she put it?”

  The logic made sense. Gabby couldn’t really argue with it. “The hiding place could be anywhere. I don’t know.”

  That was the problem with being detached. She’d kept in touch with her sister over the years, through it all, but she didn’t know her. That was evident from reading the chat room transcripts.