Stranger in My House (A Murder In Texas)

by Mari Manning

  The muffled sounds of Miss Bea begging and Mr. Shaw answering drifted into the corridor. Another voice, a woman’s, entwined with Mr. Shaw’s until Miss Bea fell silent.

  Mr. Shaw opened the door wide. “Come in, my dear, and meet the one and only Miss Susannah Bently.”

  Grandy had loved the old slasher movies, and Susannah Bently had starred in a slew of them.

  Best screamer in Hollywood.

  “The movie star?” Kirby said, half in jest. The famous Susannah Bently couldn’t be living in this house. Not without someone on the ranch alerting the Hollywood gossip websites.

  “One and the same.”

  A slew of questions hit her at once. Why here? How long? Who knows? Kirby barely knew where to start as she followed Mr. Shaw.

  The room was wide and deep and filled with sunlight. Lemony walls glowed brightly, and blue carpet stretched across the room like a peaceful lake. Two loungers circled a TV. Two ladder-back chairs ringed a dining table. A wheelchair waited near the window. At the end of the room, Susannah Bently was propped against a wall of pillows in a freshly made hospital bed.

  She was so thin, the tendons in her neck stood out. Her short, gray hair framed a network of fine wrinkles. But the bones beneath her ravaged skin were delicate and pleasing. Her pale lips curved into a cupid’s bow. Her eyes were huge and green and fringed with dark lashes. She was still a beauty.

  “So we finally meet. I’ve been pestering Eenie for the past year to bring you to me,” Susannah said.

  Kirby held out her hand. “It’s a pleasure.”

  Susannah smiled but didn’t move. The hands resting on her lap were twisted into claws. Kirby hastily put her hands behind her back, but not before Miss Bea’s jaw dropped.

  “Is everything a joke to you?”

  Mr. Shaw patted Kirby’s arm. “As you know, Susannah has been paralyzed for twenty years.”

  “Eenie has been so kind. Bea, too. They’ve taken good care of me.”

  Mr. Shaw pushed a chair toward Kirby. “Have a seat.” She needed one. If she’d tried to come up with an explanation for the mysterious Susannah, she’d never have figured out the truth. Not if she lived to be one hundred. Susannah Bently, paralyzed and living on Shaw Valley Ranch. She’d been so wrong about Mr. Shaw and Miss Bea. It wasn’t the money they worried about—it was Susannah’s care.

  Miss Bea clucked at Kirby.

  “What is it, Bea? Is something wrong?” Susannah asked.

  “Yes. Something is very wrong. This woman is pure evil. She’s been blackmailing Eenie since she got here, and now she’s trying to get me sent to prison for—”

  “That’s enough,” Mr. Shaw snapped.

  “Is it? Why are you suddenly so trusting?”

  Susannah’s head swung from Mr. Shaw to Miss Bea. “Will someone tell me what’s going on?”

  Miss Bea’s eyes narrowed into Eenie’s. “If you won’t tell her, I will.”

  “Bea, please.” Eenie shook his head.

  “I am tired to the bottom of my soul.”

  Susannah’s soft voice broke into their squabble. “I am not a child, Eenie. Let her tell me.”

  Miss Bea pointed a finger at Kirby. “She’s blackmailing Eenie.”

  Kirby’s heart jumped into her throat. Mr. Shaw had talked about a letter Frankie took. But blackmail? What had happened to Susannah? “Whatever for?”

  “When Bobby’s family returned the letters Eenie sent, she stole the package from the hall table. She still has the one where Eenie wrote about giving you the drugs that caused your stroke. She’s using it to extort money.”

  “It happened twenty years ago. Besides, I took the drugs. If anyone goes to jail it should be me.”

  “I don’t think anyone’s going to jail,” Mr. Shaw said. He pressed a kiss to the top of Susannah’s head. “I didn’t want you to be exposed, Suze. The world’s gone crazy for gossip. You’d become a curiosity if the media found out about you. It’s bad enough my weakness put you in this bed. I don’t want to be responsible for hurting you more than I already have.”

  “Who’d remember me,” scoffed Susannah. “I was a B actress in a bunch of cheap slasher films.”

  “People haven’t forgotten,” Mr. Shaw said. “I’ve had calls from people who remember we dated. They want to know where to find you.”

  “So he’s been paying this…this offspring of Beelzebub to keep quiet. The ranch is falling apart, and there’s no money left,” Miss Bea said.

  Susannah’s forehead creased. “Is this true?” she asked Kirby.

  Kirby opened her mouth, but her voice had fled. She wanted to defend Frankie, but after what Seth told her just a few hours earlier—the fancy clothes, the furniture, and the Mercedes—it made sense. She’d known Frankie could be greedy. Hadn’t their falling-out been over Grandy’s will? But blackmail? Mr. Shaw came to her rescue. “Frances has agreed to drop her demands, and Mr. Maguire has promised excellent fruit and lavender harvests.”

  Seth’s promised nothing of the sort, and the apricots are a disaster.

  “I’m glad it’s settled,” Susannah said brightly. Her eyelids fluttered. “All this excitement has worn me out.”

  The glare in Miss Bea’s eyes faded. She leaned over and smoothed Susannah’s hair back from her face. “You need to rest. Later I’ll bring up a bowl of French lentil soup. I made it just for you.”

  “Thank you, Bea.” Susannah blinked and her eyes opened again. “Come back to visit, Frances. Bea, Eenie, and I get lonely.”

  “S-sure.”

  Mr. Shaw tapped her shoulder. “We better go.” Kirby followed him into the corridor. “You look confused,” he said.

  “Were you a drug dealer?” She liked Mr. Shaw. It hurt to think he could be responsible for so much evil.

  He shook his head. “I was many things, but not that.”

  She was relieved. “I’m glad. How did it happen? Susannah’s disability, I mean.”

  His eyes lost their focus. “Are you sure you want to hear an old man’s sad tale?”

  Her heart ached for him. “I’m sure it’s not all sad.”

  They walked slowly down the corridor while Mr. Shaw spoke.

  “I grew up in Texas in the fifties and sixties. I was twenty-two the year they shot Kennedy up in Dallas. After the assassination I had to get out of Shaw Valley. Out of Texas, too. Fortunately my father was making money like it grew on trees, running fifteen thousand head of cattle, working the limestone quarry, investing in various business interests. One was a movie production company in L.A. There was a raven-haired starlet at the center of that decision, but my father never lost money, and he managed to spin gold from the worst B movies imaginable.”

  Seth’s voice sifted through the screen and floated out the study door. “Has anyone seen Frankie?” He sounded upset.

  “I better go.”

  “Your Mr. Maguire needs to learn patience.” He patted Kirby’s shoulder. “Let me finish.”

  She stayed put.

  “In 1964, I left for L.A. with a well-paying job doing nothing. Susannah came with me. She wanted to be a movie star. L.A. has been the downfall of many rich, idle young men”—his gaze brushed Susannah’s door—“and beautiful women, and this was the sixties. We drank and did drugs, hung out with celebrities, smashed up houses and cars…you name it. But gradually the life wore thin, and we sobered up. Most of us.

  “Bobby and Sarah were the first. They saw what we were doing to ourselves. They embraced Buddhism and started a home to get kids off the street. It was a form of purification. A good Christian might call it penance. Over time the rest of us followed them.” Mr. Shaw looked away.

  “But not Susannah?”

  Mr. Shaw shook his head.

  “You loved her.”

  “Not well enough. She’d kick her habit for a while, but then she’d get turned down for a role and the drugs would hook her again. On October 11, 1994, she called me from a motel near Malibu. She begged me to get her a fix. She was si
ck and scared and shaking. I did, but it turned out to be bad shit. She had a stroke that paralyzed her.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “Me, too. I brought her home to Texas. Bea and I have been caring for her ever since. Before Bobby’s death, I wrote to him about her progress and my deep feelings of responsibility for her condition.” He broke off. “Of course you know all this, since you read my letters.”

  “I’m not sure what to say.” If Frankie was extorting money from her cousin, she needed to stop immediately. But there was still a kidnapper and killer on the loose, maybe across the hall, and Frankie’s sin seemed small in comparison. After all, the money would be Frankie’s one day. Not that it made what she did right.

  “I blame myself for everything,” Mr. Shaw said.

  She touched his arm. “You’ve accepted your responsibilities. Grandy said it’s what the Cherokees pray for. To face the storm like a man…or woman.”

  “Thank you, my dear.” He studied her face. “Are you beginning to see the truth?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  He was talking in riddles again, and she wondered if she could trust him. He said—and Miss Bea said—Frankie was blackmailing them. But where was the proof besides Frankie’s nice things? Now Mr. Shaw talked as if everything was decided, as if the crimes plaguing this ranch were solved and as if Miss Bea was innocent. It sounded to Kirby like a whole bucketful of wishful thinking with nothing to back it up.

  “Tomorrow when Mr. Cargill comes, you will understand everything.”

  She had to say something. Defend Frankie until Frankie could defend herself or accept responsibility in her own way. “I hope you’re right, Cousin Eenie. Because right now all I understand is that you’ve accused me of a crime and exonerated Miss Bea from a murder that has her fingerprints all over the murder weapon.”

  They’d reached the end of the corridor. Below them Sarah Slade was still squawking about poison. Mr. Shaw studied her.

  “You will understand tomorrow. In the meantime, grow eyes in the back of your head, Frances. For all our sakes.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “Have you seen Miss Frances?”

  “There she is, boss.”

  Kirby bounded out of the house like an eager puppy. A soft breeze caught the ends of her hair and lifted them. She sailed over the back lawn and across the barnyard, the sunlight glowing against her skin like honey, and he almost forgot to be angry. Almost.

  “Where the hell have you been?”

  She tilted her head. Her eyebrows knitted. “With Mr. Shaw. Is something wrong?”

  “What were you doing with Shaw?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “My job.”

  “That’s not an answer.”

  “Our conversation was private.”

  “Talking about me again?” He couldn’t wipe the sneer from his face.

  “Why don’t you just tell me what you’re all worked up about?” Alarm crossed her face. Satisfaction filled him then fell away, replaced by self-loathing.

  Manny and Brittany emerged from the barn. Manny toted a bale of hay on his shoulder. Brittany giggled. Their steps slowed, and their expressions sobered. They studied him and Kirby.

  He lowered his voice. “Garage. Now.” He brushed past Kirby and strode away.

  “Fine.” She followed him, the light crunch of her boots against the gravel a caress, the scent of her skin a kiss.

  How could he have been reduced to a mass of messy emotions and allowed a woman to get her claws into him so damn fast he hadn’t even noticed? How could he—he, Seth Maguire—have fallen so damn hard and so damn fast he never wanted to get up?

  The garage was cool and dim and reeked of gasoline. He should take her up to his apartment, but he wasn’t feeling gentlemanly. “Tell me what you and Shaw talked about.”

  “You’re acting like an immature idiot.”

  “That’s rich. I’m immature? You are calling me immature? The biggest blabbermouth in Texas.”

  Her lips tightened. “Maybe your other girlfriends liked being hollered at, but I don’t.”

  He’d pissed her off. Well, good. Now she knew how he felt. “For Shaw you keep secrets. Mine get spilled to the whole fucking world.”

  “What secrets? What are you talking about?”

  “You told Shaw about my sister and what we discussed last week.”

  “Is that what this is about? I was trying to help you.”

  “I’ll bet you didn’t waste a minute, did you? Did you tell him the night you dragged it out of me? Were you and Shaw shaking your heads over what a loser I was? That’s why you didn’t go straight to your room, wasn’t it? You just couldn’t wait to tell Shaw about me.”

  Her expression softened. “That’s not what happened. I asked for his help because I want you to be happy. You’re getting worked up over nothing.”

  “Nothing? My family’s complete destruction is nothing? Giving Miss Bea the ammo to screw me whenever she wants is nothing?”

  “You were a kid. None of it was your fault.”

  “You should have asked me first!” The words blasted from his mouth and rattled the keys hanging by the steps.

  She drew back from him.

  His anger roared through him like a wildfire. “You had no right to go running off your mouth to Shaw. He’s turned me into a freak show. Me and Hannah are officially in his gallery of losers.”

  The color drained from her face. “How dare you call the people he helps freaks and losers. And how dare you make me the bad guy.”

  “I didn’t ask for your help. You think that just because you always do what’s right, you can fix everyone else. Well, you can’t. You can’t fix me.”

  “I—I just wanted you to be happy.” Hurt glittered in her eyes.

  He looked at his feet because he couldn’t bear to see her pain. “Happy? Who the hell is happy? Look around. See any happy people? There’s no such thing. Life sucks.”

  “You know what I think? I think you’re scared.”

  He tried to snicker. “Really.”

  “Yeah, really. You butt heads with everyone, bark orders, take charge of everything because you’re afraid that if you don’t, someone will figure out that inside, you’re just like everyone else.”

  “Well, don’t stop there. Enlighten me. What do everyone else’s insides look like?”

  Her eyes narrowed to slits. “With pleasure. You are a flawed human being subject to insecurities just like the rest of us and just as vulnerable as the rest of us and just as needy for love and understanding as anyone else.”

  He tried to pull the dagger out of his back before he started bleeding. “I’ve gotten along just fine in my life without being analyzed, and I don’t need to start now. And since I’m sure you can do much better than a flawed human being like me, I’ll leave you to it.”

  She leaned into him, the scent of her hair filling his senses. “Don’t be like this. I love you.”

  Love. She’d said the word. Shock bolted through him. Then came the self-loathing. So strong it nearly rocked him off his feet.

  “I thought you didn’t care for me. Being as I’m flawed and all.” He was roaring at her, but the pain inside him was too raw, too insistent. He couldn’t contain it.

  To her credit, she didn’t back down. But he hadn’t expected her to. Not his Kirby. “I said you had issues just like everyone else in the world.”

  “And you’re perfect, I suppose.”

  “Of course not. Grow up, Seth. Love doesn’t keep score. It’s about acceptance.”

  He wanted her. He hated her. And he was jealous of that old man who’d created all that beauty inside her. “Is that another Grandy platitude?” he spat.

  Her jaw dropped. “It’s from the Bible, if you must know.”

  “Then it’s a damn platitude.”

  “You are unbelievable. Lord Almighty, I just put my heart out there, and you call it a platitude.” Pain leached the color from her skin and sharpened the delic
ate bones of her face. Why wouldn’t she just go? Write him off as damaged goods and go.

  “You love me even though I’m not worthy. That’s not love. That’s charity. Go love someone who is grateful.” He stomped out of the garage before he did something stupid like drop to his knees and beg her forgiveness.

  “Wait, Seth. I didn’t mean it that way.”

  “Stay the hell away from me.”

  Brittany and Manny were outside. Two mouths gaped and four round eyes nearly bulged from their sockets. They’d heard the whole argument—or least the meatiest parts. He shot Manny his wild-dog glare.

  “Get back to work.”

  They jumped and scurried to the barn. Brittany turned in midtrot. The shock had faded from her face. She smiled at him. “She’s a bitch.”

  Manny grabbed her arm and yanked her into the barn. “What’s wrong with you?”

  Brittany came right back at him. “Well, she is, and I’m glad Mr. Maguire figured it out.”

  Pivoting, Seth strode across the drive and into the grove beside the house. Shaw was right. It was the only place on the damn ranch where a man could be alone with his thoughts. His blood pounded in his ears like a son of a bitch, sweat oozed from every pore in his freaking body, his fists were so tight his palms were bleeding. He wanted to kill someone. Not someone—the memory of someone. Kirby. But he didn’t think he could. Ever.

  Above him, birds chirped a requiem to his dying anger. His flawed insides filled with regret. He pinched the bridge of his nose to stem the emotions swelling behind his eyes.

  What the fuck was wrong with him? But he knew. No one could ever really love him. Not if they knew him for the nobody he was. The nobody who’d never done anything that mattered. The nobody whose love would become a curse if he gave it.

  Just ask Hannah.

  He couldn’t bear to hurt Kirby like he’d hurt Hannah. Kirby was better off with someone steady. A man who wouldn’t abandon her when things got tough. So would Hannah…except it was already too late for her.

  Kirby dragged her feet and the remaining scraps of her heart upstairs. Preachy, interfering know-it-all. That’s what she was. That’s how she’d treated Seth. His eyes—defensive, outraged…relieved—followed her like a storm cloud.