She’d shut that topic down in a hurry, I thought. On the other hand, if I was a suspect in a murder case, maybe I’d feel the same way.
“There are a couple of other people I’d like to see,” I told her. “Maybe you know how to contact them?”
“Who?” Emily asked.
“Vanessa Morris—”
“You don’t need to talk to her,” she interrupted. “She has nothing pertinent to say.”
“Maybe not,” I allowed. “But I won’t know that until I try. Do you know how I can reach her?”
“No, I don’t. Like I told you the other day, Vanessa’s old news. I have no idea where she is.”
“Okay.” I let her think I was capitulating. “I’d also like to talk to whichever of Malcolm Hancock’s heirs you’ve been dealing with.”
“Why?” Once again, Emily didn’t sound happy.
“Because if anyone has a vested interest in making trouble for you—trouble that could lead to your closing the school and leaving the property—it’s the Hancock family.”
“No,” she said firmly. “I refuse to believe that. Peyton’s a respected businessman. He wouldn’t do anything underhanded.”
I scribbled the name Peyton Hancock on my pad. “How can you be so sure?”
“For one thing, his family has plenty of money. This property is merely a minor asset of theirs. I doubt the Hancocks are even aware of my problems. And I have every intention of keeping it that way.”
“But—”
“Listen to me, Melanie. The Hancocks didn’t have anything to do with Will’s murder. They’re important people, and I don’t want you bothering them.”
I ended the connection and stared at my phone thoughtfully. Was it my imagination or was Emily trying to limit, perhaps even control, the scope of my inquiries? I’d assumed that she and I were both searching for the truth. So why was she trying to get in my way?
* * *
Some days, it seemed as though Google was my best friend. Before the afternoon was over, I knew how to get in touch with both Peyton Hancock and Vanessa Morris. Peyton was easy to find. When I put his name into the search engine, several dozen references immediately popped up. I could read about everything from his finance company, to his charitable causes, to his social life.
Vanessa Morris took longer to locate. Not because I couldn’t find anyone by that name, but because the opposite was true. The name was common enough to be shared by multiple women. It wasn’t until it occurred to me to take a shot in the dark and type in the name “Vanessa Morris Grace” that I was finally able to narrow down my search.
Emily had told me that Vanessa and Will hadn’t stayed together. She’d certainly never mentioned anything about a marriage. I wondered if she’d been misinformed. Or was that another attempt at misdirection on her part?
That question immediately shot Vanessa to the top of the list of people I was anxious to meet. My luck continued to hold. When I called ahead, Vanessa agreed to see me.
Sunday morning, Sam proposed another outing to the beach. I thought that sounded like a wonderful idea—as long as I didn’t have to go.
“You have other plans?” Sam cocked a brow in my direction. That was no mean feat since he was shaving at the time.
“Umm . . . yes. ” I caught his eye in the mirror that spanned the double sinks in our bathroom.
“Does this have anything to do with Emily Grace?”
“Maybe.”
Sam didn’t look surprised. We’d been down this road so many times before that now all he did was shrug. “Will you be home in time for dinner?”
“Of course,” I replied brightly. I’d gotten in touch with Vanessa, and she’d agreed to meet with me. But that wouldn’t take all day. “I’ll even cook dinner.”
“I’m holding you to that,” Sam said. “And it better be something good. No hot dogs.”
I gave him a snappy salute to seal the deal.
It took me longer than that to take my leave from Faith. The big Poodle had been left behind a lot lately. This morning, she was convinced that wherever I was going, she should be coming along.
I stooped down in front of her and cupped her muzzle in my palms. We looked into each other’s eyes. Faith’s tail wagged slowly back and forth. She liked this part of the conversation. We both did.
“I’m sorry,” I told her. “But I’ve never met this woman, and I don’t know anything about her. I’d have to leave you in the car, and it’s too hot for that.”
I’ll lie down and wait for you.
“I can’t let you do that. It wouldn’t be safe.”
Faith sighed unhappily. Her tail drooped downward. She stepped back to disengage from my hands.
“I’ll make it up to you later,” I said.
She looked up. Promise?
“I promise,” I told her.
Vows made to dogs and children were inviolable. Now I’d have to figure out how to make that happen.
Vanessa Grace lived in Ridgefield, twenty miles from North Stamford. Her address led me to a town house community so new that the signage on the road still announced its grand opening. The rows of attached homes were classic in style, with peaked roofs, matching front doors, and plenty of windows. I parked against the curb out front.
When I pressed the doorbell, the chimes that rang out were loud enough to be heard two houses away. Several seconds later, the door drew open. If I had that level of noise alerting me to visitors, I’d be quick to respond too.
Vanessa Grace was younger than I’d expected, probably in her early thirties. Dark auburn hair curled halfway down her back, and there was a sprinkling of freckles across her nose. She was dressed in bright pink cropped pants and a T-shirt tight enough to advertise a voluptuous figure. The nails on her fingers and toes were painted in a matching shade of electric blue.
For a moment, I simply stood and stared. Nothing about Vanessa—or her pristine home—was what I’d imagined. Perhaps because of the dismissive way Emily had spoken about the woman who’d run off with her husband, I’d pictured Vanessa as a tawdry, middle-aged gold digger.
Not that Will had had much gold to dig. But still.
Looking at the attractive young woman in front of me, I realized I couldn’t have been more wrong.
“You must be Melanie,” Vanessa said with a smile. She pulled the door open wide. “Please come in. I have the air-conditioning on full blast. I’ll get you a sweater if you’re too cold.”
“Thanks, but I’m sure that won’t be a problem.” I stepped inside and was met by a blast of frigid air. “You have a lovely home.”
From the entryway, I could see through to a bright living room that was furnished in pastel colors. A couch and two chairs were grouped around a glass coffee table with stainless steel legs. Several large pieces of modern art hung on the walls.
“I’m glad you like it,” Vanessa replied cheerfully. “I haven’t been here long. The place is still a work in progress, but it’s beginning to feel like home.”
She waved toward the couch. “Have a seat. Can I get you something to drink? I just made a pitcher of iced tea.”
“That sounds great.” I watched over the wide counter that separated the kitchen from the living room as she filled two tall glasses with ice cubes, then poured the tea over them. Vanessa then added a plate of sugar cookies to a small tray and came back to join me.
“This should hold us for a while,” she said, sinking down into a chair opposite the couch. “Now, what can I do for you?”
Over the years, I’d found myself interviewing numerous people I didn’t know. Some had been helpful, others were recalcitrant. But I’d never run across someone like Vanessa, who seemed genuinely delighted to see me.
“Thank you for agreeing to meet with me.” I paused for a sip of tea. It was cold and tart, and tasted delicious. “But if you don’t mind my asking, why did you?”
Vanessa’s eyes twinkled. “When you called, you said you wanted to talk about romance gone wrong. Th
at’s right up my alley. I figured it couldn’t hurt to talk. And who knows? Maybe I’ll get lucky and you’ll give me something I can use in my next book.”
Chapter 18
“Your next book?” I sputtered.
“Yes.” Vanessa was amused by my response. “I write romance novels. Mostly contemporaries, but the occasional historical romance too.”
My jaw dropped. How had my internet search missed that?
“Really?”
She nodded.
“I’m impressed. I’ve never met an author before.”
Vanessa shrugged. “Mostly we’re not that interesting.”
“That’s not true.” I found her chosen career fascinating. “Are you successful at it?”
She glanced around the beautifully appointed room. “I make a living.”
I took that to mean yes. It seemed a shame I had to change the subject.
“I wanted to ask you about Will Grace,” I said.
“Go ahead,” Vanessa replied. “I’ve already spoken to the police, and I’ll tell you the same things I told them. Unless you manage to come up with better questions than they did—which you might, considering you told me over the phone that you’re a friend of Emily’s. How’s she doing, by the way? Please don’t tell me she’s playing the role of the grieving widow.”
“No, she’s very clear about the status of their relationship,” I said, surprised Vanessa would care enough to ask about her predecessor. “Although Will’s death has been problematic for her.”
“I’m guessing Emily portrayed me as the Jezebel that stole her husband?”
“Actually, she referred to you as old news.”
That made Vanessa laugh. “Well, I guess that puts me in my place. Sugar cookie?” She lifted the plate and offered them to me. “They’re homemade.”
“Thank you.” I slid a cookie off the plate and popped it into my mouth. “Are you the Jezebel who stole Emily’s husband?”
“No way. My going to Las Vegas with Will was all his idea. And let me be perfectly clear—at the time, I had no idea he was married.”
That was a point in Vanessa’s favor.
“You must have been quite young then,” I said. “How did you and Will meet?”
“In a bar, how else?” She stopped just short of rolling her eyes. “I’d just graduated from college with no idea about what I wanted to do with my life. So yes, I was young and probably stupid. When I met Will, he seemed like a sophisticated older man. Someone who knew things I didn’t. Will bought me a drink, and things developed from there.”
She frowned, thinking back. “Three months later, Will asked me to elope with him. It all sounded incredibly romantic and exciting—until we arrived in Las Vegas and I found out that he had to get a divorce first.”
“Once you found out about Emily, why didn’t you leave?”
“I thought about it. But I’d given up the room I was renting and spent all the money I had on my plane ticket. So where would I have gone? Besides, at that point, Will still seemed like a decent guy. I decided to stay and see things through—like maybe I’d turn out to be the only person in the world for whom two wrongs would turn out to make a right.”
Vanessa paused to chuckle at the naïveté of her younger self. That made me smile too. Before meeting her, I’d been prepared to disparage the woman and her actions. Now I was seeing both in a new light. But as I helped myself to another sugar cookie, a sobering thought crossed my mind. Vanessa wouldn’t be the first murder suspect whose company I’d enjoyed. And several of those suspects had turned out to be murderers.
“So I guess you did end up marrying Will,” I said. “Emily wasn’t sure about that.”
“Oh, we got married all right. And Emily knew all about it. She’s probably just in denial,” Vanessa scoffed. “Will always said Emily buried her head in the sand whenever something happened that she didn’t want to think about.”
“Are you still married?” I asked. “I found you by Googling your married name.”
“No, divorced the guy, kept the name. Vanessa Grace sounds pretty. And it looks just right on the cover of a romance novel. His name is about the only useful thing Will ever gave me.”
“Was there something in particular that led to your divorce?” I asked.
Vanessa thought a moment before replying. “Short answer, I grew up. But you probably want to hear more than that?”
I nodded.
“Like I said earlier, when I met Will I didn’t know what I wanted out of life. But after he and I had been married a year, I knew exactly what I didn’t want. And that was to be saddled with a hustler like him. I knew I had to move on . . . before somebody got hurt.”
I’d been reaching for another cookie. Now my hand stilled. “You were afraid Will might hurt you?”
“No, but some of the people Will associated with weren’t very nice. He lived to gamble. Cards, dice, whatever anyone was playing, Will wanted in. He always thought he couldn’t lose.”
I guessed that explained Will’s fondness for Las Vegas.
“There were other things too—stuff he didn’t want to talk about. After a while, I stopped asking questions. I figured I was better off not knowing. Life with Will was like a roller coaster. It didn’t take me long to realize that I couldn’t live like that.”
“It sounds as though you and Will have been divorced for a while,” I said. “Did you stay in touch with him afterward?”
“Yes, but not by choice.” Vanessa frowned. “Whenever Will needed money, he looked me up. He even tried to convince me that I owed it to him. He said it was his influence that made me the success I’ve become.”
Vanessa and I both shook our heads. Men.
“That’s just stupid,” I said. “Not to mention offensive.”
“I know. Right? One time he even tried to dump some puppies on me. Three of them, if you can believe that. He’d picked them up somewhere and needed a place for them to stay.”
“Puppies?” I sat up in my seat. “Dalmatian puppies?”
“Yeah, I guess. Anyway, they had spots. I was getting ready to move in here at the time. I told him to take a look around. Where in this town house did he see enough room for me to manage three growing puppies?”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “Will only wanted you to keep the puppies for him? He didn’t offer them to you as a gift?”
“A gift? No way.” Vanessa snorted. “What kind of stupid gift is that?”
Point taken.
“Did he tell you where the puppies came from?” I asked.
“Don’t know. Didn’t care,” she replied. “Like I said, sometimes it was better not to ask too many questions. I figured they were probably part of some crazy scheme. Which meant I didn’t want anything to do with them.”
“Now your ex-husband is dead,” I said. “Does that worry you?”
“What? Like someone might come after me too?” Vanessa considered the question. “No, not at all. It would worry me a lot more if I was Emily.”
‘Why is that?”
“Because it happened at her school. I’m betting she was right there at the time. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me to find out that she’s the one who pulled the trigger.”
“Emily?” My voice squeaked. “Why?”
Vanessa shrugged. “After what Will did to her, she hated him. Isn’t that reason enough?”
* * *
Vanessa was a writer, I reminded myself on the way home. By definition, that meant she had a flair for the dramatic. I wondered if she was right about Emily’s feelings toward Will. If she was, then Emily had been lying to me. Or maybe Vanessa had been lying to me. Or maybe Will had lied to Vanessa about Emily’s feelings for him.
This whole thing felt like a hopeless muddle. Maybe I’d have been better off opting for a day at the beach.
Faith was waiting for me when I opened the door to the house. That was no surprise. We both knew it was time for me to make good on my promise. I handed out dog biscuits all around
, then put the rest of the pack out in the backyard. While they amused themselves, I took Faith for a long walk—just the two of us. No interruptions, no distractions. It was perfect.
After that, I spent the rest of the afternoon making myself useful. I clipped, bathed, and blow-dried Tar. When my family arrived home after a long day at Tod’s Point—sunburned, sticky, and covered with sand—I was the one who was cool and calm for a change. I’d even started preparing the lemon chicken I was making for dinner.
“You look like you had a good day,” said Sam.
I stood up on my toes and gave him a kiss. “I did. I had the kind of day that reminds me how lucky I am.”
“You’re not lucky,” Kevin informed me. He’d dragged his beach towel into the house. Now Bud was hanging on the other end and being pulled across the floor. “You even lose at checkers.”
“That’s a matter of skill, not luck,” Davey said. “Mom’s just not good at playing games.”
“Oh yeah?” I propped my hands on my hips. “Says who?”
My whole family stared at me. Even the Poodles.
“Pretty much everybody,” Sam told me gently.
“Maybe I’m letting you guys win. Has that ever occurred to you?”
“Good one, Mom.” Davey laughed.
“Yeah,” said Kevin. “Good one!”
He tried to high-five his brother, but their hands missed. Instead Kevin smacked Augie on the head. The Poodle yowled in protest, which made Kevin drop his end of the towel.
Immediately, Bud took off with it. Tar went flying after him. A few seconds later, we heard something crash in the living room.
Sam and I exchanged glances. Neither one of us moved.
Davey sighed. “I’ll get it.”
Sam and I watched him go. Kevin went running after his big brother. Hopefully the dogs hadn’t broken something useful. Like the television.
“Tar looks great,” Sam mentioned. “Good work.”
“Thank you.” I wrapped my arms around his waist.
Sam’s blond hair was crusted with salt and sticking straight up in spots. He smelled like fresh air and the ocean, and when he gazed down at me and smiled, there was nowhere else in the world I wanted to be. We shared another kiss before the boys could come back and stop us.
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