The Arrangement

by Suzanne Forster

  “Excuse me? I can put a salad together.”

  “I’m not hungry,” Marnie said, but her rumbling stomach gave her away.

  “Of course you are,” Julia said. “Let me in. I need to talk with you about our conversation today. There may be a way we can work this out for everyone’s benefit.”

  Wary, Marnie stepped aside and let her in. Julia set the tray on the coffee table by the fireplace.

  “Help yourself,” she said, “please. I’d like you to. I can talk while you eat.”

  Marnie was still uneasy about any plan Julia might have to work things out, but her noisy stomach won. She sank onto the couch and bent over the tray, trying not to wolf her food. The crab was luscious, rich and moist, the asparagus crunchy and the dressing had a citrus tang. “This is wonderful.”

  “I’ll tell Rebecca,” Julia said with a shrug. “She made it.”

  “I thought so.” Marnie dug into the repast, eating with relish. The probability that she was being poisoned had just lessened.

  Julia wandered around the room, discreetly checking things out and apparently giving Marnie some time.

  Finally Marnie could stand it no longer. “What did you come to talk about?”

  Julia couldn’t quite manage a smile. She was clearly emotional as she spoke. “I’m sure Alison is dead, and I suspect Andrew did it. I’ve always believed it. He had the motive and the opportunity. But I’ve been thinking about that, and I realized something. Andrew may have taken one daughter, but he gave me another.”

  Marnie put her fork down. What in the hell was she talking about?

  “I want you to be my daughter. I want you to be Alison. You’ve already transformed your entire life for just that purpose. There’s no reason you shouldn’t continue. It would be such a good life—and one you deserve, after everything you’ve been through.”

  “Continue being Alison?”

  “And my daughter.”

  “What about Andrew? How does he fit in?”

  “You’ll have to make that decision. To be blunt, I’d like you to consider leaving him. I don’t think you’re safe with him, even here. A man who would replace his missing wife with another woman would do anything. But that’s up to you. I’ll go along with whatever you decide.”

  “And what would I have to do?” She hesitated, then echoed Julia’s own words. “You’re here. I’m sure there’s something you want.”

  “I want you to go through with the trial, let James Brainard defend you. There isn’t a chance in the world he won’t get you off. He doesn’t believe they’ll pursue the second charge. There’s no evidence, and he’s sure he can beat the first one.”

  “And if he does win, and I’m exonerated?”

  “The trust is yours. More than fifty million dollars, all of it yours, with no one the wiser. I ask only that you never reveal your real identity to anyone, but especially not to Bret. I have my own reasons for asking that. And, of course, I want us to have an ongoing relationship. There’s so much I can offer you, so much I can teach, and I’d consider it my chance to make up for…everything.”

  Marnie barely had to think about it. Andrew was gone, and she’d decided before they came to Mirage Bay that the money would complicate her life more than anything else. If the Fairmonts were any example, that was painfully true.

  “I wish I could do it, but I can’t,” she said. “I know it would make everything so much simpler.”

  Julia stiffened. Obviously she wasn’t used to be rejected. “Why can’t you do it?”

  Marnie was actually surprised that Julia didn’t understand. “I don’t want to live my life as someone else, having to lie and pretend and struggle to remember my lines. No amount of money will ever make that okay. No matter what I’m going to be faced with, I’d rather confront it head-on. I know who I am, and maybe it isn’t much by your standards, but at least I can trust it, and by my standards, that’s everything.”

  Without a shred of animosity, Marnie added, “No offense, Julia, but I don’t know who the hell your daughter Alison is.”

  Julia heaved a breath. “Take some time to think about it, please.”

  “I don’t need to think about it.”

  “Fine, then prepare yourself to deal with this head-on. I’m firing your attorney and revoking the bail money. Good luck, Marnie.”

  She barely skipped a beat before dropping the next grenade. “Oh, and by the way, James called this afternoon. He tells me the gun they found in your drawer is definitely the murder weapon—and the crime lab was able to match a button found at the crime scene to a navy-blue cardigan sweater—yours—that was stuffed in the trash behind the house.” She smiled. “He says the prosecutor is talking about the death penalty. Of course, they’re bluffing, but then again…you never know.”

  Marnie’s stomach turned over with violent force, threatening to expel the crab salad. She sat back on the couch, breathing, praying she wouldn’t puke. Julia played a ruthless game, but Marnie shouldn’t have been surprised at that, or at anything she would do. The woman had a lot to lose.

  Julia started for the door, hesitating when she saw the bags Marnie had hauled out of the closet. “Suitcases?”

  “I’ll be out soon,” Marnie assured her. “Give me an hour, no more.”

  “The press is still outside. They’ll see you leaving with your bags, and it will cause an uproar. I’m not just thinking of me, really. I’m considering you, too. They’ll stalk you and make your life miserable.”

  She had a point, especially considering what had happened when Marnie drove in. “What are you suggesting?”

  “Stay here until things calm down. And don’t tell any of those vultures who you really are. If you won’t keep our secret for yourself, then do it for me.”

  “Why,” Marnie asked, “would I do anything for you?”

  “Because I’m your mother.”

  “You never were and never will be my mother. I owe you nothing.”

  Hurt shadowed Julia’s expression for just a fleeting moment before her angular face turned hard. “As you wish,” she said, and left.

  31

  Tony surveyed the contents of the vending machine with a jaundiced eye. If he was looking for flavor he might as well go with bottled water. He fished some quarters from his pocket, fed them into the slot, and moments later he was sitting in Vince Connelly’s office, nursing his bottled water and waiting for Connelly to get his wide-load ass off his land-line phone. He hadn’t even acknowledged Tony with a nod and that was just plain rude.

  At last the detective hung up the receiver. “An interesting turn of events in the LaDonna Jeffries case,” he said, looking like the cat that had the canary by its tail feathers. He was practically licking his chops. “That was the prosecutor. James Brainard is no longer Alison Villard’s attorney.”

  “Who’s replacing him?”

  “No one. Ms. Villard will have to hire her own attorney or use a public defender. It seems mother and daughter had a spat and mother has withdrawn her financial support, including a request to revoke the bail bond. But that’s not the best part.”

  Connelly sipped carefully from a steaming mug of what looked like real coffee. Apparently there was an employee lounge somewhere around, and no one had bothered to tell Tony.

  “The prosecutor’s office thinks they have another reason to revoke bail.”

  Tony set the water down. “Really?”

  “The morning after the murder, she was in her car heading south on the San Diego Freeway when her brother caught up with her and convinced her to turn herself in. It may have been a flight attempt. Plus, now there’s news footage of her trying to run down a reporter.”

  “I guess that leaves you no choice,” Tony said.

  Connelly grinned, obviously thinking this was the case that would get him the media attention—and the promotion—he so richly deserved. “I guess it doesn’t.”

  He muffled what sounded like a giggle, and Tony felt queasy hearing it. Men who carri
ed guns should never be allowed to giggle. It was unseemly.

  Tony hated the guy, and it would give him great pleasure to be the monkey wrench in Vince Connelly’s machinery. But Tony also hated Alison. Seemed it came down to a question of which one he hated more. Not as easy a decision as the bottled water.

  Marnie groped for the remote while she was still lying in bed, half-asleep. She’d heard TV news could be addicting, but that was a gross understatement when your own life was flashing before your eyes. It had to be like shooting heroin. She had the television on before she lifted her head off the pillow.

  Last night’s local news had shown video of her trying to drive around the reporters at the gate, and it had made her look reckless and crazy, despite the crowd surging at her. After watching it, she’d gotten hooked trying to find other stations with a more balanced version. She’d listened carefully to each word of commentary, hoping to hear something condemning the paparazzi-type onslaught, but it was the same footage on every station and the same raised eyebrows by the news anchors.

  Now she was a double murderer and a bad driver.

  She propped herself up with pillows, wincing at the brightness slicing through the glass doors. The sound that groaned out of her was closer to despair than laughter. Yesterday’s clouds seemed to have passed. Too bad, actually. They suited her mood better than blinding sunlight.

  She could hear activity downstairs, which was probably Rebecca in the kitchen. Marnie wasn’t going to subject herself to Bret and Julia this morning. Maybe Rebecca would take pity and bring a cup of coffee up to her.

  All Marnie could find were the usual morning talk formats and game shows as she clicked through the stations, which was probably a good thing. Maybe her fifteen minutes of infamy had passed with the weather. She had spent the night trying to figure out how to prove her identity without involving Julia or Andrew, but it didn’t seem possible. Without Julia’s cooperation, Gramma Jo might be her only choice, but Marnie hated the idea of putting her through that, and as her grandmother had pointed out, there was no guarantee anyone would believe her.

  Marnie’s greatest concern was Gramma Jo’s health. Julia might have been paying the bills, but she didn’t give a damn about Josephine Hazelton. Marnie wanted her grandmother safely back in her cottage, where she’d lived her whole life. But sadly, Marnie couldn’t even help herself, much less Gramma Jo.

  Every fiber seemed to ache as she sat up and swung her legs out of bed. But at least her body brought a comforting sense of familiarity. She didn’t always recognize her reflection, and it was bizarre to be trapped in someone else’s life, in their identity. Possibly she should just turn herself in. They must have figured out the prints didn’t match by now. That would prove who she wasn’t, but she still couldn’t prove who she was, and she had no way to explain taking Alison’s identity without involving Andrew…although protecting him should be her last concern right now.

  Her feet touched the icy marble floor, and for an instant she wasn’t aware of anything except the almost painful cold. She crossed the room, intending to open the balcony doors, but a sparkle of light from the liquor cart caught her attention.

  She’d left the earrings there.

  Those are the Villard diamonds. They’re cursed, you know.

  Marnie wondered how anything so beautiful could be evil, but the gems’ lavish perfection was slightly sinister. They gave off a blushing light of their own, and the yellow diamond border had an aura-like glitter. Nearly constant movement in their depths made them seem alive.

  She had to put them away, but she wasn’t exactly anxious to pick them up. Curses were nothing but superstition, she told herself as she scooped them up, quickly returned them to their black-velvet box and tucked the box in a drawer of Andrew’s jewelry case. They were his now, for better or worse.

  That accomplished, she crossed the room with a sense of relief and threw open the balcony doors, enjoying the warmth that flooded in and the quiet outside. There were no reporters stationed at the gate. Maybe the furor was over.

  As she entered the bathroom and turned on the faucet, she heard an announcement of breaking news. Half listening, she splashed some cool water on her face and grabbed the hand towel. The only thing she caught was a reference to a body washing up on shore. She couldn’t hear what shore or any of the other details. Curious, she walked back into the bedroom, drying her face with the towel.

  On the screen was a helicopter shot of a deserted beach. The headline running across the bottom said that the remains of a body had been found on a deserted beach in the Baja Peninsula. The next shot showed a crew of investigators going over the scene and the insert was a photo of what might have been the remains.

  The female commentator said the body was a woman’s and blond hair and black fibers had been found, but no identification had been made.

  Blond hair and black fibers.

  Marnie thought immediately of the photo journal she’d found on the boat, and all those snapshots of Alison, the ones Andrew said he was comparing. She’d been wearing a black bathing suit. Of course, millions of women had blond hair and wore black bathing suits, but how many of them were lost at sea?

  Marnie stared at the screen long after the special report was over. Her head was still buzzing, and she hadn’t heard why the discovery was receiving national attention, but she couldn’t talk herself out of the possibility that this was about Alison. Marnie needed to talk to Andrew, but he still hadn’t called or returned any of her messages. She had also never heard from the P.I. he’d supposedly hired.

  Outside, the entry gates creaked and clanked. It sounded as if they were opening and a car was driving into the compound. She could hear the engine noise. Her heart began to race, and she ran for the balcony doors with the unreasonable hope that it was Andrew coming back.

  What she saw as she burst out onto the balcony was two patrol cars and an unmarked sedan driving through the gates. Marnie’s heart froze. No one had to tell her why they were here or who they’d come for.

  From the window of her third floor bedroom at Sea Clouds, Rebecca watched the deputy sheriffs take Alison away in handcuffs. Apparently the county felt that six men, four in uniform and two wearing suits, were required to apprehend one slender, dazed woman.

  Rebecca assumed the men in suits were detectives assigned to investigate the case, and she actually felt a stirring of sympathy for the woman being led away like a sacrificial lamb. Nothing that would change Rebecca’s mind about what she herself had done, but still, she was human. Alison wasn’t any worse than the other two, just convenient. If Rebecca had had her choice, the deputies would be taking all of them away.

  Bret was a practicing sociopath, and Julia hadn’t even come out of her room when the law arrived. Rebecca had let the men in and shown them to Alison’s room, and then she’d gone to Julia’s door and knocked. Julia had shouted at her to go away, said she wasn’t well. Rebecca had figured she was drunk, and left her alone. She hadn’t bothered going to Bret’s room. She was fairly certain he hadn’t come back the night before. He probably had some new girlfriend to torture.

  The deputies had let Alison get dressed, but she looked like a gypsy in the black prairie dress she wore. Her hair was flying loose and uncombed, and her feet were bare. Rebecca wondered if it was shock or defiance that had made her dress like that. She also found herself wondering what Alison had been like before the surgery. It seemed to have changed everything but her looks.

  At least the media was nowhere around. There would be no witnesses to this part of the slaughter, except Rebecca herself, and her guilt was already subsiding. She had convinced herself that what she was doing was necessary for survival. She was taking advantages of the opportunities that came her way, and she’d been taught by the best—the Fairmonts themselves.

  The prints were a perfect match.

  Marnie sat on a concrete slab in a holding cell, wearing a jumpsuit the color of neon-orange roadwork signs, and waiting for the public def
ender the court had appointed to represent her. She’d been locked up all morning, and all anyone would tell her was that his name was Paul Esposito, and he would show up when he showed up. It was a little different than the last time she’d been booked.

  James Brainard had already withdrawn from the case, claiming Alison herself had fired him. That was bullshit, but Marnie couldn’t very well argue the point. Nor could she tell the female officer who’d fingerprinted her for the second time that the prints couldn’t possibly match.

  They did match, both times. A mix-up once, perhaps. Not twice.

  The prints on record for Alison Fairmont matched Marnie’s—and it only got worse from there. The CSI team had found Marnie’s sweater, missing a button, in the garbage at Sea Clouds, and the crime lab had matched the sweater’s cotton thread with the residue on the button and with the fiber they’d found under LaDonna’s fingernails. LaDonna had apparently pulled the button off while she was struggling with her killer.

  And now Marnie was being framed for her murder. But that wasn’t why the court had revoked her bail and ordered that she be incarcerated. Someone had convinced them she was a flight risk. Probably the same person who was trying to frame her: Tony Bogart.

  Marnie was convinced of it. How difficult would it be for a law enforcement officer to set someone up? Tony knew exactly what he was doing, and he wouldn’t rest until he’d avenged himself on Alison. Either whatever Alison had done to him had turned him into a monster, or he’d been one all along. It ran in his family. Butch had been crazy-mean, and Marnie had heard the rumors about Butch and Tony’s mother, how she’d tried to kill herself with them in the car.

  Marnie rose from the slab and roamed the small cell like a zombie. Nothing felt real, least of all her. None of the Fairmont family had been there when the police handcuffed her and took her away. The house was still, and she hadn’t seen any sign of Julia, Bret, or even Rebecca. It was as if they didn’t exist.

  Marnie touched her throat. It was a reflex, but it always felt as if she’d been caught in a net when she realized nothing was there. It was a hot, suffocating feeling. Her best hope now was that the body found in Mexico would be identified as Alison’s. If she could endure this cement cage and stay quiet a little longer, perhaps she wouldn’t have to prove anything. It would be done for her.