by Woods, Karen
Thea stood there sobbing, babbling. Dani was too focused on Gil to give any heed to her aunt’s rambling words. But those were both heard by others and recorded.
After a few minutes, Jase and Dani traded places. He gave Gil chest compressions. She gave the breaths. “Don’t die,” Dani ordered in what became almost a litany. “You have to stand trial. You have to clear my mother. Don’t die.”
But her pleas didn’t help. Gil didn’t come back.
When the paramedics couldn’t revive him, Thea excused herself from the room, with the statement she needed to lie down for a few minutes.
Dani could understand that. She had a massive headache herself. The shock of the events of the day was almost too much for all of them. Yet they had to make statements to the police. That took a little time.
Thea hadn’t returned to the room, fifteen minutes later, a police officer and Sissy went upstairs to find her.
“Dani, I’m so sorry about this,” Harry said.
“We can’t change the past, Dad.”
“I love you, Daughter,” Harry said, as he fought back tears.
“I love you, Dad,” Dani practically whispered as she wrapped her arm around him.
Harry stepped back from her a few moments later and smiled at her. “This has been difficult for you. I’m so sorry about this.”
“Dad,” Dani began when a visibly shaken Sissy came into the room.
Dani went to her. “What is it, Sissy?”
“Thea’s d…d…dead,” Sissy whispered. “She had her inhaler in her hand. Looks like an asthma attack.”
Jase came over to stand behind her. He put his hand on her shoulder. She leaned back into him, drawing on his strength, as she felt the tears well up.
Harry came over. “What is it?”
She looked at her dad. “Thea’s dead.”
“God, she killed herself,” he said, his voice flat.
“We don’t know that,” Jase replied.
“Did she leave a suicide note?” Harry demanded.
“It’s a coroner’s case, in any event,” Bob Hunter said.
She watched as her father closed his eyes and sighed.
“Come on, Bob. Can’t you let it go, and just report it as a death by natural causes?” Harry asked. “Do we have to make this so terribly public? She wasn’t murdered.”
The police chief sighed. “Is that what you want? Just to let it go? Forget all they’ve done?”
“Will it really make any difference to anyone in a hundred years?” Harry replied.
Bob Hunter looked at her. “Mary Danielle, this is your momma’s reputation on the line. This would clear every cloud of doubt from around her. Do you want me to let this go?”
“Mother wouldn’t have wanted to buy the clearing of her name by causing my father more pain. She wouldn’t have seen that as a loving act, and she did love him, more than life,” Dani said. “What good could possibly be served by making all of this public now? Everyone involved in Peter Filson’s death and the lies surrounding that are now dead. Gossip doesn’t bother me. Besides, God is the only one with enough wisdom and charity to judge any of this or the people involved.”
Bob Hunter shook his head, “Thea’s body has to go to the medical examiner to determine cause of death, Harry. I can’t really do anything else. This is legally required. But, nothing about the circumstances of tonight has to be said publicly to anyone.”
“Thank you, Bob,” Harry said. “I just don’t know what to do about any of this.”
“Dad, all we can do is pray for their souls.”
“After everything they did, you want to pray for them?” Harry asked, his voice full of disbelief, looking at her.
“It’s the only thing we can do,” Dani replied. “Will you pray with me for both of their souls?”
“They hired that man who killed your mother, and you still want to pray for them?” Harry asked.
Dani closed her eyes against the wave of pain that crossed over her. Was that what Thea had been babbling about? She sighed heavily. “All the more reason to pray for them.”
“I’m going to bed,” Harry said. “I’d suggest you both do likewise. Tomorrow...” He corrected ruefully as he looked up at the kitchen clock, “today, is going to be a very difficult day.”
* * *
They sat out on the patio before breakfast, a week later, Harry, Jase, and Dani. The discussion surrounded the money Harry had recovered from the off-shore accounts.
“I just don’t believe it, Dad. Mom never had that kind of money. If she had, we would have lived much better than we did,” Dani stated. “None of this makes any sense to me.”
Harry only shook his head, wishing he didn’t have to believe Nancy had blackmailed Gil and Thea. “I’ve accounted for everything except the four hundred thousand dollars Thea said they paid in blackmail. Of course, with Thea’s shrewd investing, the growth of the money has been substantial, more than covering the blackmail money.”
“I’m telling you, Dad, Mother never had more than four thousand dollars in her bank accounts at any one time. She did have money in her 403b. But those funds came directly from her paycheck. She never even saw any of that.”
“What did you do with the 403b?” Jase asked.
“Rolled it into my own Roth IRA,” Dani dismissed.
“Wise,” Harry observed.
He watched Dani shake her head. “I’m telling you, Mother didn’t blackmail Gil and Thea. For years, you thought she’d been unfaithful to you. She hadn’t. For years, you thought she’d been involved in Peter’s murder. Now, you know that’s not true. I’m telling you that you’re just as wrong now thinking she blackmailed them.”
Harry sighed and shook his head. He wanted to believe her, but he’d seen the evidence of the extortion. “I’ve seen the blackmail letters, Dani. Thea kept a file of them.”
“Were they signed? Were they in Mother’s hand?” Dani demanded.
“No. They were typed, and each one was accompanied by a copy of the photo,” Harry told her.
“How could that be? The negatives were upstairs with the pictures,” Dani countered.
“Their hired thug probably retrieved the photos and negatives from Nancy before he killed her. Then Thea hid them upstairs, thinking no one would ever find them there,” Harry dismissed. “We don’t know how the photos ended up in the attic. Does it matter?”
Again, he watched his daughter shake her head, before she spoke passionately in defense of her mother, “That doesn’t make any sense at all. If Thea and Gil were willing to kill to get them back, don’t you think they would have burned the photos and the negatives, not just hidden them? Where is the advantage of keeping the evidence? Besides, I scanned all the photos, all the negatives, we had and stored them on a remote server. Mother had no photos older than her pregnancy with me, except for the wedding photo of the two of you. I went through every photo in the house and in the safe deposit box at the bank.”
Harry just looked at her for a long moment. He sighed. “You’re right, my dear. It doesn’t make sense. Thea would have burned those so they couldn’t be used against her again. If she didn’t, Gil would have. I can’t see either of them keeping anything around that could have been used against them. So, your question is very good. How did they end up in the house?”
“Aunt Thea couldn’t have taken the pictures. She was in them,” Dani said. “And Gil couldn’t have taken them. Mom wouldn’t have taken them without taking them to the police at the time. She certainly wouldn’t have endured the suspicion she had killed Peter, if she had the evidence to the contrary. This death happened very early morning. She usually was out painting landscapes at that time of the morning. You were on reserve training during the week of Peter’s murder. Who else does that leave?”
Sissy brought out a heavily laden tray with their breakfast.
Harry looked at the housekeeper. She met his eyes, then dropped the tray to the table with a thud. Food flew everywhere.
&nb
sp; “I’m sorry. I’ll clean that up and get you more food,” Sissy said, clearly flustered.
“Where’s the money you extorted from Thea and Gil, Sissy?” Harry demanded.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the house-keeper stuttered out.
“Cecilia Anne, you’re a liar, a thief, an extortionist, and an accomplice to murder,” Harry charged, his voice cold.
The housekeeper shook her head. “I don’t have to stand here and take this abuse!”
Harry nodded, feeling his anger rise. He took a couple of deep breaths to try to calm himself. “No. You don’t. Clear out your things and leave here within the hour. You won’t have a reference from me. Your pension is forfeit, as you’ve already taken far more than your lump sum in the money you blackmailed out of Thea and Gil. I’m really tempted to turn you over to the authorities. Extortion carries serious prison time.”
Sissy blanched. Then she put her hands on her hips and said, with great bravado, “You’d never do that, Harry. You’d have to expose Thea. You’d never do that to your sister, even posthumously, regardless of how much you find her actions, or mine, reprehensible. You wouldn’t expose her as being involved in Peter’s murder as an accessory after the fact. You didn’t publicly expose her in trying to kill you and Nan by the tampering with Nan’s car, in forcing Nan to flee from the area, in any of the other horrible things Thea did, including having John Hardin killed while trying to kill Beth and Jaime, in having Nan beaten and killed, that murder covered up with arson, and everything else that she did, probably the least of which was stealing from your corporation. You would rather die than bring public shame on your family by making any of this public. And you would pay anything to keep this private.”
Harry frowned. She knew him too well. But he didn’t want to be blackmailed.
* * *
“Dad might not want to. I have no hesitation at all about turning you in,” Dani replied as she took her cell phone from her pocket. “You knew all along about their trying to kill Beth and Jase, and about their stealing from Dad, and about their kidnapping attempt on Jaime, and you did nothing to stop them. What kind of a monster are you, Sissy?”
“Dani,” her father begged. “Don’t. Let’s work this out.”
“Sissy made them think it was Mother who was blackmailing them,” Dani charged, angry almost beyond words, pushing back her chair, putting down her cell phone, and standing. She stepped toward Sissy. “You pushed them to desperation, so they felt they had no other choice than to have my mother murdered! You don’t deserve to live!”
Dani saw Sissy swallow hard before tears welled up in the housekeeper’s eyes as the housekeeper shrank back from Dani. But Dani kept on coming, closing the distance between them.
“I’m not responsible for their actions,” Sissy denied in a less than strong voice, stepping back.
“Aren’t you?” Dani demanded, bringing up her hand to strike Sissy.
Jase caught her hand and put himself between her and the housekeeper.
“Let go of me and get out of my way, Jase! I don’t want to hurt you.”
“No. I won’t let you do this. Dani, hurting her won’t solve anything,” he warned, his voice both gentle and firm. “I know you’re beyond angry, baby. But, please, take a deep breath and let’s deal with this, rationally.”
“They killed my mother because they thought she was the one blackmailing them,” Dani stated. Looking around Jase to glare at Sissy, she added, “And they thought that because you set it up that way, Sissy. You’re ultimately responsible for my mother’s murder. They never would have gone after her without your having made them believe Mother was blackmailing them!”
Sissy’s face crumpled. “I didn’t intend to do anything to hurt Nancy. They’d never found where she was. I didn’t think they ever would find her, after so long. Blaming this on her seemed the safest thing.”
“Yeah, it was safe, for you! They never even contem-plated you could have been behind this. You created such a plausible villainess in my mother for them.”
She attempted to sidestep Jase, but he refused to let her get around him.
“Get out of my way.”
“No. You’ll have to get through me to hurt her.”
Dani glared at Jase, demanding. “Why are you taking her side?”
“I’m always on your side, Dani. Now and forever. I love you. Come on, you really don’t want to hit her. As angry as you are, you’d kill her if you started beating on her. Would Nancy want this from you?”
Dani sighed. She breathed raggedly and, in vain, attempted to blink back her angry tears. “No, Mother would have forgiven her. But Mother was a better Christian than I am.”
Jase pulled her close to him and held her tightly. “It’s over, Sweetheart. Let it end.”
EPILOGUE
The wedding breakfast was in full swing. Dani smiled at her husband as they danced to the regal strains of a Strauss waltz played by the chamber group.
“Well, Mrs. Wilton, are you happy?”
“Very... Did you see your sister and Rafe?”
“Beth and Rafe?” Jase echoed.
“I think your best friend and your sister are going to be an item. Although, I wouldn’t rule out David, quite yet. He’s been giving them both glances that tell me he’s anything but happy about how close that pair seem.”
“Beth is walking a dangerous line. Someone ought to talk to her.”
Dani smiled. “That broad streak of defensiveness was the first thing I noticed about you. I remember thinking how nice it would be to have someone care for me the way you cared for your family.”
Jase lightly kissed his bride. “You are my family.”
THE END