Murder Borrowed, Murder Blue

by Stephanie Blackmoore

“I’m just excited to have done something on my own.” She broke out into a smile, her dark lipstick in bold contrast to her bright white teeth. “Ellie was always going to be an actress, and my mother just pushed her at first, not me.” She frowned and picked a piece of lint from her Dunlap issue sweater. “But this achievement is all mine.”

  I nodded in agreement, thinking of how hard it was to be a sibling sometimes. Rachel and I were very different. When we were growing up, it felt like we were headed in different directions. It was amazing we’d ended up working together on our joint business venture. I was happy it had turned out that way and wouldn’t change it for the world, but I understood Leah’s excitement and relief in stepping out from Ellie’s shadow.

  The reception went on for another hour, the young women and teachers of Dunlap Academy celebrating the life of their former headmistress with laughter and tears. But word of Beau’s arrest made its way around the room like a dark undercurrent, somewhat sullying the celebration of Ginger. It was ironic that today was to be Dakota and Beau’s wedding day, but instead, Beau was languishing in jail, and the woman he’d killed was being memorialized.

  “Mallory.” A cool hand gripped my arm and I jumped as far as I could in my weakened state. I peered up at Becca Cunningham.

  “What in the heck are you doing here? You’re supposed to be in St. Kitts.” I stared at Becca as if she were an apparition.

  She winced, her princess-cut engagement ring twinkling in the lights, sans wedding ring.

  “Our flight was cancelled due to the blizzard,” she moaned. “Helene caught us at the airport and exacted a promise.”

  I closed my eyes and shook my head. I was no fan of the woman who’d been involved with my once fiancé, but I’d worked hard on Becca and Keith’s elopement and I was invested in Becca getting one over on Helene.

  “What kind of promise?” My voice was small, from tiredness over my near poisoning, or because I could see where this was headed.

  “She said she’ll disinherit Keith if we don’t hold a big wedding, here in Port Quincy.” Becca’s distraught eyes pleaded with mine.

  Oh, heck no.

  “And-I-was-wondering-if-we-could-have-it-at-Thistle-Park,” Becca went on in a rush, the tic having returned to her left eye. “You’re one of the few people on the planet willing to stand up to Helene.”

  I closed my eyes and tried to wish Becca away. But when I dragged my eyelids up, she was still there.

  “You’re my only hope.”

  I thought back to Helene running roughshod over my wedding to Keith and vowed to help Becca. It would be an unlikely partnership.

  “I’ll do it.”

  Please don’t let me regret this.

  I spent the rest of the event sitting off on the sidelines, recuperating from my near-deadly cup of tea. I was grateful when the reception wound down. I was ready to put this whole sordid affair in the rearview mirror.

  * * *

  Rachel and I filed out of the reception room. We wended our way through the hallways of Dunlap, lost in a sea of students and parents and teachers. The sun was finally setting outside the floor-to-ceiling windows. It was going to be a frigid night, with temperatures in the single digits. I shivered and pulled my cardigan closer around my shoulders, though it was warm and toasty in the school.

  “I wanted to thank you for figuring out Xavier murdered Caitlin all those years ago.” Dakota sidled up to me as we moved through the hall and gave my arm a squeeze. “I’ve learned a lot this week about the people I thought I knew and loved.” Her pretty face twisted in a stony frown.

  And she doesn’t even know the half of it.

  “Dakota, when we get back to the B and B, we need to talk.” I would need to reveal to her that her own mother had been embezzling funds from her, but now was not the time nor the place.

  But Dakota thought otherwise.

  “Tell me what’s going on, Mallory.” Her violet gaze was intense as she pulled me into a side vestibule. I barely had time to tell Rachel I’d meet her at the car before Dakota shut the door.

  Okay, here goes nothing.

  “I think Roxanne is doing hinky things with your money. That’s why she’s so hot and bothered for you to take every gig and do everything you’re offered.” I told her about the issues with the bank I’d overheard on the porch and how Roxanne hadn’t denied it when I’d confronted her last night.

  Dakota stood as if she’d just been slapped. She slowly nodded, the pieces fitting together. “I feel like an idiot.” Her hand floated up to touch the side of her face. “Beau’s cheating was in plain sight, and I was going to settle for him just to improve my brand. I was going to marry him because Roxanne wanted me to. And all this time she’s been stealing from me?”

  The door to the little room we were in flew open, and Leah tumbled in, another student hot on her heels.

  “You promised me a realistic paper, but you wrote an A. I never get As. I paid you a lot of money to make it look like—”

  “Stop.” Leah whirled the girl around to face us. Her classmate went silent, a crimson flush blooming on her face. “Forget it,” she muttered and exited the room.

  What was that all about?

  “I hear you got into Harvard.” Dakota offered Leah a rather distant smile and the three of us left the room.

  I walked with Ellie and Dakota as they accompanied Leah back to her dorm.

  “I’d better get going—Rachel’s waiting. Congrats again.”

  Leah sent me a smile as Ellie and Dakota and I left her room. On a whim, I stayed behind to ask her about what I’d heard.

  “Leah? What were you talking to that student about?”

  Leah’s eyes strayed to the open door and she got up to shut it with a soft snick.

  “I’m not sure,” she stammered. “I think she was confused.”

  It dawned on me. “You’re writing papers for other students, aren’t you?”

  Leah opened her mouth, then closed it, then gave up the ruse. “Yes,” she said simply. “What of it?”

  I let out a sigh of relief. It wasn’t as if she was dealing drugs like her classmate Nora had.

  “I remember your mom said she was sure you had a good shot of getting into Harvard, but that she wasn’t sure how you’d pay for it.”

  Leah nodded, a bit of relief flooding her eyes. She pushed back a lock of purple hair behind her glasses frames and sat on her bed.

  “That’s highly creative,” I mused aloud. “Unethical, but creative.”

  “And not illegal,” Leah added. Her face glowed with pride. “I write for more than the students here. I have my own online business. I take orders from all over the world.”

  “That’s quite entrepreneurial,” I said. A thought skittered through my head. “This is why Owen said your work was slipping at the foundation. You’ve been too busy keeping up your own grades and writing papers for your paper mill to volunteer.”

  Leah shrugged again. “I do what I have to do.”

  I turned to go. Leah’s room was the mirror image of Nora’s, with the same thick, luxurious carpet, dark wood furniture, and sweeping views of the arctic landscape outside. My mind did a quick replay of the day Ellie and I had found Nora, complete with Ginger’s tablet taped to the underside of her bed. I suddenly felt infinitely tired. Maybe coming to Ginger’s memorial was a bad idea.

  My eyes swept the room as I headed for the door.

  Oh my God.

  A shiny strip of gold gleamed on Leah’s bookshelf. The book was hard to miss. It was taller and wider than the textbooks it was nestled next to. Leah had turned it with the spine toward the back of the shelf so no one could read the title, but I was betting on knowing that book. It was the plant encyclopedia my contractor had given me. The one in which I had turned down the pages for the entries on belladonna and bleeding hearts.

  I gulped and tried to suppress my galloping heart rate.

  “Congrats again, Leah.”

  I hustled into the hall of t
he dormitory, relieved to see groups of girls standing there. I slipped my cell phone out of my purse to text Truman.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  I’d figured it out too late. I hurried from the Dunlap dormitory, shutting the door behind me. The night was cold and clear, with a waxing moon high and luminescent in the sky like an ivory coin. I took in a steadying breath, the air so cold it seared my lungs. Rachel must be wondering by now what was keeping me. I held up my phone to continue my text to alert Truman.

  “Don’t breathe a word.” Leah pressed a gun into my spine. I felt the butt of the weapon push through my coat. “Keep walking.” She gave me a harsh push, and I stumbled off the cobbled walkway. She grabbed my wrist and gave it a painful twist, leaving me gasping. “You won’t be needing this.” She tossed my cell phone into the bushes by the dormitory door. It sank into a mini snowdrift, out of sight.

  Crap, crap, crap!

  We trudged around the side of the dormitory and headed for the ice-skating pond. My little flat velvet shoes were no match for the crusty snow. Ice bit into exposed flesh on my feet and ankles. It seared and burned, feeling more akin to fire than snow.

  I stumbled over a lump of snow and landed on my face in the white stuff.

  “Get up!” Leah demanded. She roughly hoisted me to my feet and we began our brutal march, the pond spread before us.

  Ellie wasn’t the only one in the Barnes family with acting chops. Leah had fooled us all.

  “You seemed so devastated when your mentor Ginger was found dead at my desk,” I breathed out, my voice sounding labored. “Who would have ever thought you’d killed her?”

  Leah snorted and dug the weapon harder into my back. “Ginger found out about my paper-writing business and was going to expel me. I told her I could provide her with the name of a student who was dealing drugs in exchange for a chance to remain at school.”

  “Nora.” We had finally reached the pond. I desperately wanted to turn around to see if anyone had realized where we were. But the gun nestled in my ribs through my pea coat prevented that.

  “Ginger said she didn’t operate like that, and besides, she already knew about Nora. She was planning on expelling both of us at the same time—can you believe it?” Leah gave a bitter laugh. “I convinced Ginger to let me attend the Winter Ball before she went through with it, and she granted me that wish.” Leah offered me a crazily triumphant smile. “Ginger made a mistake. She should have just expelled me. I filled a Winter Ball flower arrangement with bleach and ammonia from Thistle Park. It wasn’t hard to do—you have a cleaning supply closet by your office.”

  I nodded for her to go on, hoping to buy myself some time. My teeth began to chatter, as much from fear as from the frigid conditions.

  “I took her tablet and her phone and locked her in your office. No one heard her banging to get out with the loud DJ.”

  I was sickened by the matter-of-fact way Leah described how she’d murdered her mentor and headmistress.

  “I stole the tiara to make it look like a reason for Ginger’s death. I mailed a piece of the crown to Dakota just to mix things up and to make Dakota think this had something to do with Caitlin’s death so many years ago.” Leah paused and let out a low laugh. “And then I buried the tiara in your greenhouse to make you look suspicious.”

  “What about Xavier?” His was the only unsolved attempted murder, but I had a hunch the perpetrator was standing behind me.

  “I tried to blackmail him for what he did to Caitlin,” Leah explained, her hand with the gun never wavering from my back. “I had a hunch he was responsible, and I turned out to be right. I don’t really remember what happened with Caitlin when I was five, other than everyone telling me I was the one to find her. But he didn’t know that.”

  “So what happened?”

  Rachel must be worried sick by now.

  “He threatened to tell Ellie and the school that I’d blackmailed him. So he had to go.”

  A clammy chill spread between my shoulder blades. Leah had callously killed one person and attempted another murder. Who knew what other mayhem had been at her hands? She wouldn’t stop to spare me.

  “You hurt Nora,” I whispered.

  I could feel her nodding. She gave a rueful laugh. “Yes. Other things happened that helped get me off the hook. Nora was the perfect fall girl for Ginger’s murder, for example.”

  “You drugged her.”

  “Oh, she drugged herself. I just waited to give her a little more.”

  I felt like my limbs were going to fall off and my fingers were a lost cause to frostbite. I didn’t have the strength to run away and Leah knew it. I feared I would crumple to the icy ground soon, but I had to know the whole story, no matter what happened.

  “And you ended up poisoning me instead of Owen,” I whispered. “He was on to you, wasn’t he?” It made sense. He’d mentioned Leah’s volunteer work was slipping at the foundation.

  “That punk!” Leah’s voice was a little too loud. It ricocheted across the icy pond. “He doesn’t know I was writing papers for money, but he was going to withdraw my recommendation letter. I missed too many volunteer sessions at the last minute. So he had to go.” She shrugged, the gun riding up and down my back. “And you are always poking around into everyone’s business. Can’t you leave well enough alone? I wasn’t too upset when you drank Owen’s tea.”

  It wasn’t the first time my nosiness had gotten me into hot water. But I realized, with a gulp of subzero air, that it might be my last.

  “And now I finish things.”

  Leah pushed me onto the ice. I hoped it would hold, but it must not have been cold enough to freeze beyond a few inches deep since the mini heat wave before the blizzard. I crouched on my belly, trying to distribute my weight, as Leah pushed me farther out onto the ice. I had nowhere else to go.

  The surface cracked.

  Oh no.

  It sounded like a shot from a gun and I dimly wondered if she’d pulled the trigger on me as well. The crack spread and I went in, the water shocking me as much as a live electrical current. Each nerve in my body screamed as the frigid water attacked my senses. I opened my eyes and saw black, black, black. I kicked in the brackish water and breathed in a lungful of the cold stuff. Each nerve ending in my body seared with icy, chilly pain. I bobbed up one last time.

  Figures struggled on the shore. Someone hit Leah, and she tumbled to the ground. More ice cracked, and people swore. Strong hands lifted me up and pulled me out.

  “Mallory, stay with us.”

  Epilogue

  I didn’t object this time when I landed back in the hospital. I stayed for three full days, recovering from frostbite and hypothermia and the lingering effects of the belladonna. Truman was torn. He was happy I’d figured out Leah was responsible for murdering Ginger and the attempted murders of Xavier, Owen, and yours truly. But he wasn’t okay with how it had all gone down.

  Garrett had stayed by my bedside, tenderly taking care of me and, more importantly, making sure I stayed put. But he needn’t have worried. I promised him my sleuthing days were over.

  It turned out Leah hadn’t even had a gun. She’d pressed a flashlight into my back, but I couldn’t have known. She’d planned on letting me drown in the icy water, and with my shock, it wouldn’t have taken long. Leah’s own sister, Ellie, had clobbered her on the shore of the skating pond and Dakota had fished me out.

  Adrienne Larson paid a visit to me the last day of my stay in the hospital. Her impressive ring was gone, as was her prissy stance. She’d lost her fiancé to what I hoped would be a life sentence back in Los Angeles. She’d also possibly lost her job hosting I Do, since we’d probably just filmed the last episode.

  I’d heard from Truman that they’d finished processing Adrienne’s release and dropped the charges against her for Xavier’s attempted murder just as they led Xavier into jail. The scene hadn’t been pretty, with Adrienne mourning the loss of her relationship, but also berating her new fiancé for killin
g Caitlin Quinn.

  “I wanted to thank you.” Adrienne spoke the words in a low tone. “For figuring out Xavier’s role in Caitlin’s death.” She shivered. “I’d rather know the truth than be married to a killer.”

  She’d spent the rest of her time in Port Quincy bonding with Summer before she left for Los Angeles. She’d lost her fiancé, but she had gained a new relationship with her daughter.

  * * *

  Three months later, I had a new wedding to prepare for. The days had turned balmier, matching the artificial humidity and warmth of the Thistle Park greenhouse back in February. Our winter of discontent had melted into mellow spring.

  Leah and Xavier were languishing in jail, she in Port Quincy, and he extradited back to Los Angeles. Beau was free and working on a new album. Dakota and Owen were to be married under the stars in Thistle Park’s garden.

  Their three-month engagement had been fast, but I had a feeling this marriage would last. Roxanne was grudging but accepting. Dakota had forgiven her mother for funneling away her millions and refused to press charges. She’d installed a new, professional money manager, and Roxanne was left to dote on Pixie, no longer in charge of mismanaging Dakota’s earnings or pushing her to take every gig. Dakota joined the board of Dunlap Academy and cast the tiebreaker vote in favor of merging the girls’ boarding school with the boys’ private school. She also purchased the Winter Ball tiara and donated it to the Carnegie Museum, commissioning a replica to be made for subsequent balls. She’d fulfilled Ginger’s wishes and ticked Helene off to boot.

  Night fell on a warm day in May. Twenty guests gathered in the backyard, seated before an arched trellis wreathed in pink roses and silhouetted by the setting sun. Roxanne and Pixie the Shih Tzu walked Dakota down the aisle. Dakota wore a long, pink, gauzy strapless gown. Pixie wore a matching pink tutu, and Owen had consented to wear a suit jacket over his skinny jeans and suspenders.

  Ellie was the only bridesmaid, and there was no host, no cameras, no fanfare. Guests held sparklers and fireflies buzzed in delight.

  “Now this is a wedding I can get behind.” Rachel beamed as we surveyed the guests noshing on the gourmet comfort food menu we’d selected so many months ago. Dakota and Owen cut into their peanut butter cake, and soon were dancing the night away beneath the stars.