Deadly Payoff

by Valerie Hansen

  Delia heard the man say, “Terrible shock, terrible shock, my boy. We’re so sorry. It must have been the worst day of your life.”

  True to her reputation as the most daring of the six, Delia rose from the table and started toward the door.

  “Who is it?” Juliet called after her.

  Delia peered around the corner into the entry hall, then looked back at the others and shrugged. “I don’t have a clue. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him before.”

  “Let me see.” Juliet joined her. She was scowling when she turned to Aunt Winnie and the others. “Hmm. I don’t know him, either.”

  “Then I guess we’ll all have to have a look,” Winnie said. Behind her, Portia and Rissa crowded closer to peek, too. Only Miranda held back.

  Crowded by her sisters, Delia was forced to either step around the corner into view or be squashed against the door frame. She made the most graceful entrance she could manage, under the circumstances, and arrived with a stutter step just as the older man at the door was quoting, “‘…such stuff as dreams are made on…,’ eh?”

  “The Tempest,” Delia said, smiling and advancing to allow her sisters and her aunt enough room to join her. “Act four, scene one.”

  The distinguished, elderly gentleman’s countenance immediately brightened. He looked past Ronald and smiled at Delia, his gray eyes misting behind his bifocals. “So, she knows her Shakespeare, just like her mother used to. Well done. And these lovely ladies must be her sisters.”

  “Yes,” Ronald said, looking less than thrilled to be a party to their meeting.

  “They mostly favor your coloring, with that dark hair and those big brown eyes, except—” the stranger cleared his throat as if he were fighting strong emotion “—that pretty blond one looks exactly like our Trudy did at that age.”

  The slim, silver-haired woman who stood beside him clutched his arm with a gloved hand, her lower lip quivering with emotion.

  He laid his hand over hers and gave it a pat before he announced, “I’m your grandfather, Stanley. And this is your grandmother, Eleanor. Your mother, Gertrude—Trudy—was our daughter.”

  Suddenly, Delia wished she were still seated because her knees were definitely wobbling the way they did after catching a particularly harrowing wave. Grandparents? All this time she’d assumed that Howard Blanchard was their only living grandparent and now…It was almost too much to fathom.

  Ronald found his voice, cleared his throat and began to make proper introductions. “Girls, I’d like you to meet Mr. and Mrs. Hall, your mother’s parents.”

  As Ronald had worked his way through all six of his daughters and Winnie, Eleanor had stepped forward to give each of them hugs. Delia had accepted the overture easily because of her years among the demonstrative Hawaiians but the others had remained rather stiff, especially Miranda.

  Knowing her eldest sister’s strong preference for solitude and private space, Delia had quickly intervened to spare Miranda from having to cope with too much overt affection, particularly from a stranger.

  “Let Father take your coats.” She passed Eleanor’s wool wrap to Ronald, then grasped the older woman’s thin arm and steered her toward the dining room as if she were the hostess rather than a fellow visitor.

  “We were just going through some of our mother’s things. Perhaps you’d like to join us,” Delia said.

  Eleanor agreed. “I do want to get to know you all better. Stanley and I would have dropped by sooner if we’d known.” Her voice broke. “We were out of the country when…when Trudy passed away. We came as quickly as we could.”

  “How did you hear? Who contacted you?”

  Eleanor sighed deeply. “No one. We read it in the newspaper. The story was apparently picked up by the wire services. If the Blanchard name wasn’t newsworthy we might not have found out at all. We could hardly believe it was true when we read the details.” Tears glistened in her green eyes.

  Delia was instantly empathetic. “My sisters and I are having trouble making sense of everything, ourselves. It’s like a bad dream. I keep thinking I’ll wake up any minute and find out it’s all a nightmare.”

  “I know,” Eleanor said softly. “When Trudy called…”

  Delia interrupted. “She what?”

  “She telephoned us,” Eleanor said. “We hadn’t heard from her in years, and then, out of the blue, she called. She sounded wonderful. Perhaps a bit harried but otherwise quite well.”

  “Did you see her?”

  “Unfortunately, no.” The older woman sniffled, then held her chin high as if exemplary posture, alone, would sustain her. “We were hoping to. She said she was calling from our winter home in Santa Barbara.”

  “California? Why would she go way out there?” Delia asked before realizing that the call must have occurred around the time when Trudy had visited her former lover, Arthur Sinclair—Juliet’s biological father—to ask him for financial assistance.

  “I don’t know,” Eleanor answered. “She didn’t say. By the time Stanley and I arrived there, Trudy was gone. When I think of how close we came to seeing her again, it breaks my heart.”

  Delia squeezed Eleanor’s hand, hoping to console her in her time of grief.

  “Both my poor girls were hopelessly lost to me,”

  Eleanor continued. “That’s another reason why I want so badly to get to know my granddaughters.”

  “Both your girls? Mother wasn’t an only child?” Delia was flabbergasted.

  “No. We have—we had two daughters. Your mother was the elder.”

  Delia stared at Ronald with condemnation. “I don’t understand why Father never told us anything about your side of the family.”

  “Don’t be too hard on him,” Eleanor said. “Stanley and I owe him a lot. When he was a young man he used his trust fund to save our literary press, you know, in spite of his father’s vehement disapproval of the whole affair.”

  “No, I didn’t know, but I can see we have a lot to talk about.”

  “That we do,” Stanley said, hanging back with Ronald. “We were devastated when Trudy dropped out of school to marry your father here, but you girls are the treasure that resulted. He must be very proud.”

  Proud of most of us, Delia thought. She was the black sheep of the family and always had been. Perhaps she also had more in common with her mother than she’d imagined.

  She guided Eleanor to the massive dining room table and seated her before taking her own chair once again. “There isn’t much left of mother’s jewelry or mementos but if there’s anything here that means a lot to you, my sisters and I want you to have it.” She refrained from adding that very little was special to them because of their long estrangement. Bianca had saved a few things and Juliet had unearthed some others in the attic, but most of the items arrayed on the table had come from Aunt Winnie.

  Eleanor laid her clutch on the table, removed her dove-gray kid gloves and placed them beside the bag. Her delicate fingers traced the outline of a gold chain that lay in front of her and she pushed aside a few small photographs. Then, she folded her hands in her lap and sighed. “I’m afraid I don’t see the locket.” Her eyes misted as she glanced back at her husband. “It’s not here, Stanley.”

  He nodded slowly. “That is a shame.”

  “What locket?” Delia asked.

  Eleanor sniffled demurely. “It was heart-shaped. My mother gave it to me on my sixteenth birthday and I passed it on to Trudy. She never took it off, at least not while she was young. She promised me she’d treasure it always.”

  A sharp intake of breath caused everyone to stare at Miranda. “That’s right! I remember how Mother always wore that locket. I used to love to read the inscription on the back when I was little.”

  “‘To thine own self be true,’” Eleanor quoted. “From Hamlet.”

  “Then it must be here,” Delia said, sifting through the small pile of belongings. “We added everything we got back from the coroner’s office, too, didn’t we?”

/>   “Except for the ruined silk scarf,” Winnie said pensively. “I certainly don’t recall seeing the locket, although I do remember Trudy wearing it long ago.”

  Delia got to her feet. “I’ll call the coroner’s office. Maybe it’s still there. It certainly can’t hurt to ask.”

  “I hate to have you go to all that trouble but I really would like to have it back—or at least know that one of you girls would treasure it as much as your mother once did,” Eleanor said.

  Delia excused herself, went into the den to make the call in private and returned quickly.

  All eyes were on her as she reentered the dining room. She shrugged sadly. “They say there was no jewelry on our mother when she was picked up.” She looked to her newfound grandmother. “I’m sorry, Eleanor. I guess your locket is lost.”

  The older woman blinked and stared, obviously engrossed in thought. The seconds ticked by slowly. Finally, she said, “Trudy would never have parted with that locket. It was a solemn pact between us. She wouldn’t have broken that trust. Not for anything.”

  “She was sick a long time,” Delia argued, trying to be sensible and gentle at the same time. “Maybe she changed. Anyone would have under such stressful circumstances.”

  Eleanor was adamant. “Trudy swore to me that she’d wear my locket to the grave. If she wasn’t buried wearing it, maybe she wasn’t buried at all.”

  In the background, Ronald inhaled sharply and sagged against the wall. Stanley half supported him as he frowned at his wife. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  Nodding, Eleanor looked around the table at the sisters until her gaze came to rest on Juliet. “Trudy resembled you, as we said, but so did her sister, Genie. My girls were often mistaken for twins, even though they were born at different times. The similarity was only skin deep, however. Genie’s personality was twisted. I hate to admit it but she wasn’t a very moral person. She gambled, used illegal drugs and who knows what else. And she was mercenary to the nth degree.”

  Eleanor turned to Ronald. “Is it possible that the woman who was identified as Trudy was actually Genie? It would explain why she didn’t have the locket.”

  “Wait a minute.” Delia was dumbfounded. The way Eleanor had been referring to her younger daughter, she’d assumed the woman had passed away long ago. Now, she realized otherwise. She looked from Eleanor to Ronald and began to frown. “What would this Genie person be doing in your house, Father? You never mentioned even knowing her.”

  She paused and studied his pained expression. He didn’t speak. When he looked away and refused to continue to make eye contact, Delia was taken aback. “You did know her, didn’t you?”

  Mind racing, she remembered a lock of pale hair bound in a faded pink ribbon. Trudy’s hair. It was lying on the table amid the other mementos. The answer to their riddle could be right there before them, thanks to recent developments in scientific testing methods.

  Delia’s trembling fingers reached for the lock of hair. She cradled it gently in her palm, displaying it for everyone to see. “All right. We can settle this once and for all with a DNA test on Mother’s hair. I don’t care what it costs or how long it takes. I’m going to find out precisely who we buried last month.”

  Winnie’s voice was uneven. “And if it wasn’t Trudy?”

  “If it wasn’t, then I’m going to dig until I learn what an imposter was doing in this house and what she was after.”

  “You’d better leave this to the authorities,” Winnie said firmly. “I don’t want you getting hurt.”

  Delia shook her head emphatically. “No way. I’ve lost my mother twice, already. If there’s even a slight chance she’s still alive, I’m going to be personally involved in the investigation. First thing tomorrow I’ll drive into town and get the process started.”

  “And then what?” Winnie asked.

  “Then, I’ll do what I do when I’m waiting for the perfect wave. I’ll mark time and paddle till it’s time to stand up and go with the flow.”

  “Even if there’s a chance it will be dangerous?” Juliet asked breathlessly.

  Delia knew exactly what Winnie and her baby sister were worried about. There had been far too many near-fatal accidents involving their immediate family in the past few months for it to have been coincidental. Still, she wasn’t going to let herself be deterred. “Yes. Absolutely. I’m not afraid.”

  From the doorway, Stanley’s voice boomed. “Brava! Trudy named you well. Cordelia means ‘the wise one,’ you know.”

  Delia stood tall and squared her shoulders. “Yes, I know. I also know what eventually happened to poor Cordelia in Shakespeare’s play, but nothing terrible is going to happen to me. Unlike the jealous, wicked daughters of King Lear, my sisters are smart, loving women. And they’re on my side, every one of them.”

  Letting her gaze travel around the table and rest for a moment on each of her siblings, Delia knew she spoke the absolute truth. The Blanchard sisters might not all display the same audacity she did but they were unified by their mutual love. If she needed support they would back her up. Period. Theirs was an alliance formed over the course of troubled childhood years and strengthened by their need to rely upon one another.

  In a perverse way, the negative actions and lies of their embittered, workaholic father had forged bonds between his daughters that were as strong as steel.

  Delia’s heart swelled with love as she considered her siblings. Never before had she been so proud to be one of the Blanchard sisters.

  TWO

  Shaun Murphy’s strong, calloused hands tightened on the steering wheel of the Murphy Woodworkers’ company pickup. Although he hadn’t been back in Stoneley for very long, he was ready to hit the road again at the first opportunity.

  He wouldn’t have returned at all if his ailing father hadn’t desperately needed his help in the woodworking shop. Business had fallen off to the point where the shop was barely solvent and Shaun couldn’t bring himself to turn down his dad’s plea for assistance, even though it meant he’d have to coexist with the one family he despised.

  To be more precise, it was Ronald Blanchard he hated. The others he could take or leave—preferably leave—with the exception of Delia. The last he’d heard, she was all the way over in Hawaii so at least he’d be spared the risk of accidentally running into her.

  His hands fisted on the wheel. He’d nearly choked when Miranda Blanchard had phoned and offered him a repair job at the estate. If there had been any way to turn her down without jeopardizing his father’s future livelihood he would have. In a heartbeat. But small, struggling businesses like Murphy Woodworkers didn’t buck the Blanchards. When one of them wanted something done, you didn’t question it—you simply obeyed. It was their textile mill that kept the local economy ticking like a fine watch and everybody knew it.

  Shaun stopped at the locked gate fronting the Blanchard estate and rolled down the truck’s window. Miranda hadn’t given him the admittance code but she had told him she could release the lock from the house when he announced his arrival. He leaned out and pressed the intercom button.

  “It’s Murphy Woodworkers,” he said loudly. “Ms. Blanchard is expecting me.”

  The lock clicked and the gate slowly swung open. Shaun rolled his window back up while he made a careful turn onto the serpentine drive leading to the huge stone mansion. The worst of the latest storm had passed in the night but the ground was still wet and a coastal fog bank made it hard to see clearly, even in the morning light. That was Maine for you. Then again, if a person wanted sun and dry warmth all the time they belonged in Southern Arizona, which was probably where he’d be right now if he hadn’t had to come home to help his dad.

  Rather than chance running off the paved roadway in the fog and damaging the elaborate gardens surrounding the mansion, Shaun kept to the center of the drive. Shafts of sunlight broke through here and there, making him squint.

  Suddenly, beams of blinding brightness arced across his path. He hit the b
rakes and started to skid.

  Just ahead, the beams swung to one side and Shaun caught a glimpse of the side of a red compact car as it careened off the road and plowed headlong into a substantial grouping of rhododendron bushes!

  To his relief, there was no tree trunk amid the vegetation to cause the driver harm. That feeling of gratitude was short-lived, however. This was Blanchard property. It didn’t matter who had run off the road or whose fault it was, he was liable to be blamed.

  He shut off the truck’s engine, climbed out and jogged to where the car had come to rest. It wasn’t one of those expensive luxury models the Blanchards usually drove so maybe he’d be lucky enough to escape with a handshake and a few pleasantries.

  “Hey, I’m really sorry!” he called. “Are you okay?” All Shaun could see was the left side of a beige, hooded jacket and a shoulder bumping repeatedly against the door.

  “Door’s stuck.” The driver’s voice was muted by the closed vehicle.

  “Hang on. I’ll have you out of there in a jiffy.” He gave the handle a jerk and it worked. “There you go.”

  Holding the door he stepped back. The driver swiveled in the seat, extended her shapely legs and looked up at him.

  He gaped. There, in all her glory, was the woman who had heartlessly abandoned him on their wedding night twelve years ago, without so much as a word—or even a goodbye note.

  Delia’s eyes widened. By the time she’d looked Shaun over from head to toe, it was an effort to muster enough breath to inquire, “What are you doing here?”

  “I could ask you the same thing,” Shaun replied tersely.

  She quickly regained her poise in the face of his challenging tone. “This is my family’s estate. I belong here, remember?”

  “And I don’t, is that your point? Well, it so happens your sister called and hired me to fix the library doors.”

  “Which sister?”

  “Miranda. Why?”

  “No reason.” Delia would have suspected matchmaking if Aunt Winnie or Juliet had been involved. Miranda, however, was anything but meddlesome, so meeting Shaun like this must have truly been an accident. In more ways than one.