by Nancy Bush
“Hi . . . Dallas . . .” she returned. The smile she was forcing was definitely strained. She focused on Layla. “How did it go? You look so businesslike. I’m sorry I didn’t get here sooner.”
“You wouldn’t have been able to come into the interview room,” said Dallas.
“I know. I didn’t expect to. I just wanted to be here,” Lucy answered, her gaze locked with Layla’s as if she were afraid to look at him.
“Thought I’d try to look more ... in control,” Layla said of her clothes, her words ending on a slight hiccup, belying the effort. “The interview was okay, I guess. . . .” She turned to Dallas for corroboration.
“You did fine,” he assured her as a couple of uniformed cops walked past.
There was an awkward pause, then Lucy asked Dallas diffidently, “How’s the investigation going?”
Dallas thought about September’s text the night before, and her follow-up phone call this morning. Brianne Kilgore was fighting for her life, and it likely had to do with John Linfield’s death. He needed to tell her about it. “Do you have some time to talk?” he asked Lucy. “I have some things to go over.”
Her brows lifted, but she said, “Um . . . yes. Evie’s . . . with our babysitter.”
“Bella?” Layla asked. She was looking from Dallas to Lucy and back again. Lucy had clearly informed her that she’d revealed Evie’s parentage to him.
Lucy turned to Layla as if she were a lifeline. “You know what Bella told me? She’s dating a guy on the school golf team. The golf team! I don’t think you can be a Goth, or whatever she is, and date someone on the golf team.”
Layla managed a smile. “You never know. Look, I’ll take Uber back and let you two ... talk. I’ve got an appointment at that house I’m staging in a few hours, and I think I’ll just decompress first.”
“The one in the West Hills?” Lucy asked.
“Yeah, on Cherry. The buyer wants my painting of the Columbia River, the one Jerome Wolfe gave me back.”
“Well, good ... right?” Lucy asked hopefully.
“We’ll see,” said Layla.
She gave Lucy a last hug and then took off. Alone with Lucy, Dallas wasn’t sure quite where to pick up. Without Layla as a buffer, she appeared as uncomfortable as he was; then they both tried to talk at once.
“Is Layla really okay?” she asked.
“Do you want to go to my office?” he questioned, and he realized he was jangling his keys in his pocket. Nerves. He stopped.
“Sure,” she answered.
“The worst of those reports came from Courtney Mayfield,” Dallas said. “The police are going through the bank records. If they really were looking at Layla, we’d have gotten some sense of that today. I’d say their focus is elsewhere, but I don’t know for sure.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll meet you at my office, then,” he said as they walked through the door to the parking area dappled with late-morning sunshine.
“Okay,” she said again, and he could tell she was struggling to get something out.
“What?” he asked.
She blurted, “I didn’t mean to drop it on you like that. I just ... you needed to know. But Evie’s my whole life. Whatever you decide, fine. You do it. But I’m not ever going to let you hurt her.”
“Hurt her?” He was flabbergasted.
“Yes, hurt her,” she declared, squinting up at him. “You’re her father and you have the power to really do some damage. She’s always wanted to know who her dad is, so just consider this fair warning. That’s all I’m saying. If you don’t want to be a part of her life, that’s cool. You just needed to know.”
“I just found out about her!” he reminded in a tense whisper.
“I know. I know. I’m sorry,” Lucy whispered tensely right back. “I didn’t know if I would ever tell you, but I did, and here we are. I’m just asking you to be careful with my daughter. Because as soon as she knows, she’s going to want to meet you. Don’t hurt her. That’s all I’m saying.”
“Let’s talk about this at my office,” he said, glancing at the pedestrians bustling along the busy sidewalk.
“Sure. Fine.” She cleared her throat. “I’ll see you in a few.”
* * *
September finally gave up her vigil when Brianne was settled into ICU. She was stable. That was all the hospital staff would say.
Once at home, September fell into bed, caught about three hours of sleep, then dragged herself out to get ready for her first day of work. She was feeling a little bleary-eyed when she showed up at the station, but it felt good to be there, to have purpose. Calvetti called her into her office and asked to hear the blow-by-blow of what had transpired the night before. September, fortified on break-room coffee—always marginal at best, though today she drank in the faintly burned scent—reported everything she knew, to which Calvetti bestowed the Linfield case on September.
“Solve it,” she said.
September was surprised but happy to comply. “The Linfield case may tie in to the Grassley homicide,” she told the captain. “Grassley’s tox screen found traces of Amanita ocreata poisoning, the angel of death mushroom, but that information hasn’t gotten out yet. He also suffered a blow to the head. We’re waiting on cause of death until the full autopsy report comes through. But the press is already calling the Crissman sisters ‘black widows.’ If and when the mushroom poisoning gets out, the Crissmans will be run over by the press.”
“And you don’t think they’re guilty.”
“That’s what I want to prove,” September admitted.
“No preconceived ideas. Do it,” was all Calvetti said, and September took her leave.
Gretchen was at her desk, apparently waiting for September to be through with Calvetti, because as soon as September was outside the captain’s office, Gretchen came over and dropped the Linfield file that Wes had started on her desk.
“Are you okay with me taking this?” September asked, riffling the pages of the file.
“It’s been passed around, but you’re the one who knows the most. I’ll send you the digital file, too.”
“Okay.” She’d noticed that neither Wes nor George were at their desks. When September asked, Gretchen explained that Wes was basically gone and “Skinny” was taking a sick day. “He’s been sick a lot since the breakup,” Gretchen said.
“Maybe that’s what the weight loss is all about,” said September.
Gretchen snorted. “Yeah. Right.”
As soon as Gretchen went back to her own work, September called St. Anne’s for an update on Brianne’s condition—she was stable—then sat back and really turned over in her mind what she knew about the Linfield case. Brianne Kilgore had given the mushrooms, or shown them to, someone associated with her. If she’d shown them to someone, then that person might be known to Mona Kilgore as well. Possibly.
Jerome Wolfe? She couldn’t quite see where he fit in, other than what she knew about him: that he wanted the Crissman and Kilgore properties for some future endeavor and that he had a real problem with the Crissmans. The Crissmans, however, didn’t seem to have the same animus toward him, and Abbott Crissman had signed, or was signing, the deal that would turn Stonehenge over to Wolfe.
Who else? She needed a list of Brianne’s friends and co-workers. That was something else she could ask Mona Kilgore about.
And then there was the possible connection to Neil Grassley. The only link she had was Courtney Mayfield. Courtney was deeply involved with Grassley, but the Mayfield woman’s only tie to Brianne Kilgore was the fact that she’d grown up in the same general area. Did they know each other? Maybe gone to school together ... ? September wasn’t sure Brianne had even attended public school, but maybe. She made a note.
“I think I’m going to head to Wharton County one more time,” September told Gretchen a few minutes later.
“I’d come with you, but . . .” She spread her hands, indicating the file that was open on her computer screen.
“I’ve got this. I’m practically a commuter to Wharton County these days.” September would have liked to partner with Gretchen again, but because today it was just the two of them in the station, the partnership would have to wait.
She took a call from Deputy Morant as she was heading out. They’d formed a bond over Brianne Kilgore. “Jerome Wolfe owns a nine-millimeter Glock,” he said tautly. “The sheriff’s not fooling around on this. He’s picking up Wolfe and bringing him in for questioning.”
“I’m heading your way,” September said, her pulse beginning to race. Maybe there was more to the Wolfe story than she knew. She could see him thinking Brianne was expendable. He was already using her as a pawn in his real estate transaction.
“If he killed Brianne, I’m going to make sure he pays,” said Morant.
Though she felt the same sentiment, September heard the barely leashed fury behind the deputy’s words and said, “Keep that thought, but we gotta stay legal.”
“Oh, I’m not going to do anything to jeopardize the case. I want to see the prick behind bars for the better part of his life.”
* * *
Lucy sat down in one of the client chairs in front of Dallas’s desk, while Dallas stood by the window, apparently lost in thought. He’d closed the door to his office, telling his receptionist to hold his calls.
She waited for him to say something, anything, and was kind of embarrassed about just blurting out what she felt. Not that she didn’t feel that way.
Dallas finally looked up, and Lucy braced herself, but what he said took her by complete surprise. “Someone shot Brianne Kilgore last night. She’s in intensive care.”
“Shot? Shot? Oh my God . . . ! How? Why?”
“We think she knows who poisoned your husband. . . .” And then he went on to explain how September had discovered Brianne shortly after she’d been shot and had arranged for her to be taken to St. Anne’s Hospital. Dallas then reiterated the steps of September’s investigation, resulting in her finding the mushrooms on the Kilgore property that were believed to be the source of the poison, and September’s fear that Brianne was covering for someone else, a lot of which Lucy had already heard, but now it hit home harder.
“Does Layla know?”
“I wasn’t going to tell her if she hadn’t seen it on the news because I wanted her to stay focused this morning. She should be informed now, though,” he agreed, stepping toward his desk phone.
“I’ll call her ... and Lyle . . .” Lucy said, though she didn’t feel quite the same urgency about informing her brother.
“Go ahead,” Dallas said, and she got the feeling he was somewhat relieved to have a shift of focus.
As it turned out, Layla didn’t pick up and Lyle told her rather abruptly that he’d seen on the news that Brianne had been attacked. Lucy was annoyed that he seemed so unaffected, but then she realized he was shaken up and just didn’t want to talk. That was Lyle’s way of dealing with any emotional trauma.
“I’m on the way to get Dad,” he said, just before hanging up.
“I’m in a meeting,” she answered, to which he gave a small bark of laughter, which basically meant “I knew it.”
When she was off the phone, Dallas picked up where he’d left off. “Brianne hinted that your husband might not have been the target.”
Lucy had heard that before. “Well, then, who?” she asked. “There were tons of people at the benefit. The food, and the drinks, were being passed out to everyone . . . although we were the only ones there earlier, and the caterers and some of the waitstaff . . . ?”
Dallas thought about that a moment, then said, “I know we went over this before, but can you remember what food was around earlier in the day, for lunch?”
“I didn’t eat anything. I told you that, I know. Maybe Lyle went to Glenn River for sandwiches around lunchtime? There was talk about it. Lyle probably knows.”
“I’ll check with him. Can you remember if John had anything earlier in the day?”
“Not that I saw, but I wasn’t really paying attention.”
He nodded. “There’s a window of time where the poisoning could have happened at the benefit. You’ve already said you and John ate the same food the night before and the morning of, so it looks like it happened at the benefit. But it would have been earlier, not long after you arrived.”
“About lunchtime,” she agreed. “I wish I’d paid more attention.”
“Was John the kind of guy who would skip lunch?”
“No.” She was definite on that.
“So, he likely had something between breakfast and dinner.”
“Well, yes . . .”
Lucy had been so sure he was going to talk about Evie that she was having a bit of a delayed reaction when it came to his questions about John. And she was also struggling to process the fact that Brianne had been shot, shot, and that the shooting might be connected to John’s death; at least that appeared to be the theory Dallas was working on.
“John would have eaten something, if something was around, and he would have complained if there wasn’t something. I didn’t hear him complain,” she realized.
Lucy cast her mind back. She and John had arrived at the benefit and he’d gone his way and she’d gone hers. Though her father had requested, demanded, they all come early, there really hadn’t been that much for them to do.
“Mostly, I remember John at the benefit,” she said. “He could hardly let a tray of hors d’oeuvres go by without sampling something. We were grabbing what we could from the trays, except maybe Layla. I was having a hard time getting anything. The waiters were kind of sweeping through, then sweeping back out. But that was later. Earlier . . . ? I don’t know, but it seems like I saw him eat something . . . maybe ... ?”
“I know I’ve gone over this before. I don’t want to put ideas in your head,” Dallas said. “I’m just looking for something.”
Lucy searched her memory, screwing up her forehead with the effort. The whole event had been kind of a blur, mixed in with all the eating and drinking during the evening hours, but she would swear she’d seen John earlier, maybe in the main foyer, holding something . . . ?
“A sandwich,” she said suddenly. “He was eating a sandwich! I saw him for lunch. I’m pretty sure.”
“You are?”
“Yeah . . . yeah . . . because it was a full-fledged sandwich, not a slider or an hors d’oeuvre of any kind.”
“Do you recall where it came from? Your brother?” Dallas asked carefully. She could tell he didn’t want to interrupt her memory.
“Maybe Lyle brought it from Glenn River. John was coming from the back of the main room when I saw him, from under the gallery by Layla’s painting.” She struggled hard to remember. “I think there was a tray of sandwiches back there ... ?”
“Left out for anyone to take?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.” She inclined her head and said, “You’re thinking, why didn’t anyone else get sick, then, if the sandwiches were tampered with and available. I know. I’m sorry. I want to help, but I don’t want to make up something either. I could be wrong about this.”
He nodded. “I’ll ask Lyle.”
“You know, I think Layla was standing there, not far from the tray, close to her painting,” Lucy mused. She could see her sister in her denim jumpsuit with that big sunset of color from her painting behind her.
“Layla?”
Lucy heard herself and instantly wanted to take the words back. “Well, she wasn’t involved, of course. It’s just an impression ... I could be wrong. Layla wouldn’t hurt a fly. She’s just not made that way,” Lucy hurried to say.
“Okay.”
“Just, okay?”
“I’m on her side, Lucy. I don’t think she’s a killer. I just want to know who was targeted at that benefit and why, and also why Brianne is now in ICU, fighting for her life. And if it has anything to do with Neil Grassley’s death.”
“I want to know that, too,” she said in a sm
aller voice.
Dallas nodded and finally took the chair behind his desk. He rested his elbows on the desktop and looked at her. “And I want to talk about Evie. I would never hurt her. She seems ... like a wonderful girl. You’ve clearly done a great job raising her. I’m still getting used to the idea that I’m a father, but I’m not sorry about it. I want to know her, and I want to thank you for taking such good care of her.”
Lucy’s eyes bloomed with tears.
For all the mistakes she’d made, she’d inadvertently picked the right man to father her child.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Kate stood beside Lyle as they both watched Abbott being helped into a wheelchair. She and Lyle had stopped by his house to pick him up some clean clothes, but even so he looked disheveled and angry.
Ainsley was nowhere in sight, so Kate asked about her. His answer was a glare and a muttered, “She had things to do.”
Yeah, like look for some other potential sugar daddy.
Lyle was particularly quiet on the drive back to his father’s, while Abbott bitched and moaned and said he wasn’t going to take the goddamn medication they were foisting on him.
They settled him into his house, but he was bound and determined not to go into his bedroom and relax. Kate found some cans of Campbell’s Soup and offered to make him something to eat, but he flapped a hand at her as he was trying to call or text someone on his phone. Probably Ainsley.
As she and Lyle were getting ready to leave, Lyle suddenly jerked, as if someone had pinched him. “I know!” he said, as if he were having a eureka moment.
“What?”
But almost as soon as he uttered those words, he retreated into himself. “Nothing.”
“What?” Kate repeated as they headed outside to his car.
“The girl at the bank . . .”
“Oh God,” Kate said wearily.
“She looks like . . .” He shook his head. “I need to talk to Lucy.”
“Oh, great. Go ahead. Talk to your sister.” She flung her arms in the air and stomped to the car. “Don’t talk to your wife. Don’t ever, ever, ever talk to the wife who’s been by your side through everything. Who’s championed you. Who’s done everything she can to make sure you get what’s rightfully yours! Don’t do that, God forbid!”