“Well, yes. I agree with him, too.”
“Y-you what?”
“I mean…” Valentina hesitated. “I think you’re misunderstanding him and me. When your father says marriage is just another contract, he means both parties have to put in work. Both parties have to decide what they want out of it. That’s what he always told me when I complained about Denise and Leon and their bomb of a marriage.”
“He did?”
“He pointed out that if Denise and Leon were happy — or even simply content — with their marriage, it was not my business to interfere with their contract. As for when he and I got married, Ryan made it clear that all he wanted from me was love, respect and loyalty. And he’d give me twice as much of the same in return.”
“Oh...” Rachel’s voice lowered. “I guess I did misunderstand my dad. I thought he was bitter. I mean… after he and mom divorced, he was bitter for a long time.”
Valentina looked uncomfortable. “I think that’s something you should discuss with your father when the time is right. From what he told me, he’s changed now.”
Rachel bit her lip, wondering if he had. “If he’d changed, why did he react so strongly that night when he saw my mother with Leon? I’m sorry, Valentina, but I’m starting to really like you, and if my father isn’t over my mother yet, you should really reconsider...”
Valentina shook her head and laughed. “Rachel, your father loves me. I have no doubt about it. I know our relationship is new and feels unusual to you right now but, trust me, we’re both adults and we know what we’re getting into.”
Rachel looked doubtful still.
Valentina sighed. “Ok, I wouldn’t normally tell you this. But I guess I’ll make an exception in this case. When your father saw Leon and Lily together that night, he messaged me. He was absolutely furious.”
“Jealous?” Rachel asked.
“No. Furious,” Valentina said. “There’s a difference.”
“Ah.”’
“He knew what Leon was trying to do — stir up drama. He lost his temper. Another time, he might have gone to confront Leon. Instead, he messaged me, asked me to help calm him down.”
“But he wasn’t in his cottage when you went there?”
Valentina looked confused for a second, then nodded. “Right. Because he went out for a jog. Jogging always helps him release stress. The point is, your father communicated with me. He didn’t go off into a jealous spiral or do something stupid. He still loves Lily, the way there are some exes you just always love. But he’s not in love with her anymore. He’s in love with me. You see?”
“Wait…hang on.” Rachel suddenly slapped her forehead. “Valentina! Do you know what color my dad’s sneakers are?”
“Green, why?”
“Because there’s his alibi!” Rachel exclaimed excitedly. “I think Abuelita saw my dad jogging past her cottage a little before the murder happened and that cottage is on the opposite side of the island from Leon’s!”
“Really!?”
“Really! Also, Abuelita said she heard the screaming start not five minutes after that. Which means… dad didn’t kill Leon! He couldn’t have!”
Valentina leapt up. “This is amazing!” Then, a little disappointed, she sat down again. “It’s amazing but I’m not sure it’ll hold up in court. My Abuelita can’t see anything beyond a blur without her glasses on.”
“But at least we know, right?” Rachel said. “I don’t know how, but I know this will help.”
“Only time can tell.” Valentina sighed.
Rachel’s eyes widened. “What?”
“I mean, the police are building a pretty solid—”
“Valentina, stop. Hang on.” Rachel took a deep breath. “I think you’ve done it. I think you’ve just solved the whole case.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, but I do,” Rachel said. “Come on! Actually, wait. Put the remaining cake back in the fridge first. We might just need it to celebrate with later on.”
*****
Chapter 22
Wake Up
Rachel knocked on the door of Leon’s cottage, feeling strangely nervous. The door opened up and a figure filled the doorway.
“Can we talk?” Rachel asked.
This was a gamble. One of the biggest gambles she’d ever taken in her life. She knew she was likely to fail and yet she hoped she wouldn’t. The truth was, for once in her life, Rachel was dealing with a killer who was either too smart — or too lucky — to get caught. If she could catch the killer off-guard, if she could make the killer believe her, all would be well.
If not, well, the case against her father was too solid to be broken. He’d probably go to jail for a crime he hadn’t committed. Rachel’s back straightened. She wouldn’t let that happen. She couldn’t.
“What do you want?” Denise asked from the doorway. She was dressed in black from head to toe, her hair done up neatly in a bun. Her eyes still looked shadowed — genuine grief. Rachel had to keep her smile forcibly pasted on her face, preventing it from turning into a scowl.
“It’s Dr. Gomez!” Rachel said, excited. “He’s waking up. He’s coming out of the coma! Scott was visiting the hospital when it happened.”
“Oh...” Denise’s face looked suddenly tense. “Y-you’re sure?”
“Sure! Scott says he’s confused, though. Dr. Gomez’s eyes are still closed but he keeps saying your name.”
“My...” Denise moved aside. “You better come inside.”
“I’m not that stupid, am I?” Rachel smiled. “I came to warn you. You’d better make a run for it. The police will have his statement soon, and then your game is up.”
Denise’s eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about?”
“It’s over, Denise. I know everything. I should have figured it out when I talked to you earlier. But I was a little too upset over my father getting arrested to put it together. You killed Leon. You attacked Dr. Gomez. It was you all along.”
Denise recoiled as though she’d been slapped. “Are you joking?”
Rachel shook her head. Behind her, hidden in the bushes, she knew that Valentina was capturing this all on video. All she had to do was make Denise confess… or otherwise prove that she was the killer.
Rachel’s stomach was a ball of dread. “Come on. You can stop pretending now. It’s best if you confess to the police, you know. They hand out lighter sentences to those who do.”
“I’m not confessing anything!” Denise snapped. “Dr. Gomez has been hit on the head. He’s delirious. I didn’t do it!”
“No?” Rachel smiled. “Then how did you know it was a clock?”
“What?”
“When we were talking earlier, you told me that Dr. Gomez had been hit by a clock,” Rachel said. “The thing is, nobody else knew that, at that point. Scott ran in on an unconscious Dr. Gomez. My father was standing next to Dr. Gomez with a shattered vase around them. Naturally, Scott assumed that the vase was the weapon. Only it wasn’t. It wasn’t until the police examined the scene and the wound on Dr. Gomez’s head that they figured out the injury had been caused by an iron clock.”
“Oh…I…”
“Scott thought it was a vase, I thought it was a vase, the police even thought it was a vase, at first. But you knew it was a clock. Because you were the one who used it. Right?”
Denise’s eyes narrowed. “I’m calling my lawyer.”
“Go ahead.” Rachel smiled. “See what good it does you.”
Denise hesitated, “Why are you here? Why come tell me this? It doesn’t make sense.”
“For the money,” Rachel said. “You still have a chance to leave the country and run away somewhere you can’t be extradited from. The police will be here in half an hour and I can help you come up with a plan that gives you a little more time than that. But only if you pay me well.” It was a total lie, of course, but Rachel was running out of options. Denise was a hard nut to crack — she hadn’t said a s
ingle thing yet that could indict her.
Denise’s fists balled up and her face contorted. She shook her head. “No.”
“Yes.” Rachel smiled. “You know. None of it made sense to me, at first. I knew my mom hadn’t killed Leon. I knew my dad wasn’t the type to. So that left you, Tony and Mason. I cut you off my suspect list when Tony told me about your prenuptial agreement. If you weren’t getting money from Leon’s death, you had no possible motive to kill him. Or so I thought.”
Denise still didn’t say a word.
“Then, I realized, this wasn’t a premeditated murder. This wasn’t about the money. It never was. This was about love. This was about a man who flagrantly disrespected you.”
Denise’s lips began to tremble.
“I’m right, aren’t I? Valentina and my Dad never understood your marriage. My father saw your marriage from Leon’s point of view and so he assumed you were just another trophy wife with no love for Leon. But that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Valentina was more confused — she could never understand why you stayed with Leon despite how he treated you. You couldn’t bear to admit that it humiliated you when Leon stepped out. So you pretended not to care. You pretended that all you cared about was the lifestyle. Isn’t that right?”
“I was so young when I married him, you know,” Denise said. “I was young and in love, just a fool. I really thought he’d change for me. I really thought I’d be the one to finally make him see sense.”
“He told you,” Rachel said. “Even before you married him, he told you that he wouldn’t change. That he’d continue philandering as he always had. But you didn’t believe him.”
Denise sighed. “I was blind. I believed in the power of love. I tried so hard, Rachel. I tried so hard to make him see I deserved him. I did everything. I devoted myself to him. But Leon…I was just a thing to him. Never a person. Each time he’d go out with another woman, my heart would break, and I’d plead with him to change. He just laughed at me. Finally, I thought maybe if I began having affairs, he’d see how much it hurt. Does that make sense to you? I wanted to hurt him the way he hurt me.”
Rachel nodded.
“You know what happened?” Denise laughed and shook her head. “He was glad. Now that I’d had an affair, too, he said he wouldn’t have to pay me. He was casting me off, Rachel. Like a used sock. I knew it wouldn’t be long. I knew that he was just holding on until Valentina and Ryan got married.”
“But you didn’t snap,” Rachel said. “Not until you saw that text my father sent Valentina, about Leon being with Lily. You were with Valentina when she received it, weren’t you?”
Denise nodded. “I was right there. I don’t know what happened, exactly. From the moment I saw that text, I wasn’t myself. I was walking around with fire in my veins and a blaze in my head. I had to kill him. I simply had to. There wasn’t an option anymore.”
“So?”
“So I did.” Denise said. “I knew I had about ten minutes. I ran to the big house, I knew where the guns were stored. I didn’t think too much about it. I had my gloves on and, when he opened the door, I shot him.”
Rachel flinched.
“I would have shot your mother, too. But, lucky for her, she wasn’t there. I watched him die, you know. The love of my life. My soulmate. We should have been together forever. Yet I watched the life bleed out of him.”
“You murdered him.”
“He didn’t leave me any choice,” Denise said. “What would you have done? What could anyone have done? Years and years of humiliation. He made me do it, Rachel. My finger pulled the trigger but his actions caused it.”
“And Dr. Gomez?” Rachel asked. “He didn’t deserve what happened to him.”
Denise shrugged. “He threatened me. Three hours. I panicked. I didn’t know what he’d found out and I wasn’t waiting. Leon had switched cottages so Dr. Gomez could have the big one. I still had the spare key. So I waited near the backdoor. I could hear your father arguing with Dr. Gomez. I knew I didn’t have much time. I slipped in when the coast was clear and slipped right back out in less than a minute. Dr. Gomez didn’t even see me—” Denise’s eyes widened. “Dr. Gomez had his back turned. He didn’t even see me.” Realization dawned upon her. “Which means you were bluffing. You were bluffing to get me to confess. He hasn’t woken up. Even if he did, he couldn’t have testified against me.”
Rachel took a step back, unable to help the flash of triumph that descended upon her face.
“You don’t care about the money. You don’t care about helping me escape.” Denise’s face was becoming red with fury. “This is all just about trapping me.”
“Forgive me if I don’t feel guilty for lying to a murderer.” Rachel said. “You’re going away for a long time, Denise.”
“If I am, I’m taking you with me!” Denise exclaimed. Her hands shot out, trying to latch onto Rachel’s neck. Rachel swerved, avoiding her. Since she’d come up with this plan, Rachel had felt fear. But her fear had mostly been that she might fail to get a confession. Somehow, even knowing what Denise had done, Rachel had been confident that no harm would come to her. Surely not.
Only now, she remembered what Scott had said about desperation — the more desperate a killer got, the more ingenious they became.
“Denise, stop.” Rachel said, trying to sound calm even though her heart was thumping. “Valentina is in those bushes. She’s recording this. If you attack me, it’ll be all the worse for you.”
“Liar!” Denise growled. “You fooled me once with your bluffs. You won’t do it again.” She advanced, her teeth bared and her hands shaped like claws. Rachel backed away, nervous and unsure. Whatever sanity Denise had once possessed, she’d well and truly snapped now. Maybe Rachel’s best option was to run as far away as possible.
There was another thing — even if Denise didn’t believe her, Rachel had made a mistake by exposing Valentina. At any moment, Denise might turn her attention towards the video camera and begin attacking Valentina instead.
There was only one thing to do — draw Denise away from Valentina quickly.
Turning, Rachel began racing to the big house, hoping that someone else would be there. Her breath set fire to her lungs as she ran, faster than she ever had before. Even so, she was slower than Denise, whose regiment of spin classes and aerobics had given her an extremely fit body.
Denise reached out, clawing for Rachel’s hair, and Rachel felt her head jerked back. She lost her balance and fell, hitting her head. In a second, Denise was on top of her, hands around her neck. Black spots were floating in front of Rachel’s eyes, and pain enveloped her. Weakly, she tried to fight back, knowing it was no use.
“Now you die!” Denise snarled. “Die!”
There was a shout, and then a blur of motion. Rachel wasn’t sure what had happened, but she rolled over onto her knees and gasped for breath, her body shaking as it took in life-giving air. A soft hand patted her back, and smoothed away hair from her face.
“Are you alright?”
Rachel looked up, blinking away tears. “A-Abuelita?” Her eyes widened. The last person she’d expected to see. Turning back, Rachel saw that Denise was lying motionless on the ground, a heavy cane beside her.
“I was searching for dinner in the big house when I realized someone had eaten my cake,” Abuelita said. “I knew it had to be you and Valentina, so I was heading over to scold you when suddenly, well, I saw Denise trying to strangle you. I did what I had to — I whacked her over the head with my cane.”
A laugh found it’s way up Rachel’s throat, then another. “You were coming to scold us about the cake?”
“It needs three to five days!” Abuelita exclaimed. “I can’t believe that grandchild of mine!”
Rachel couldn’t help it. She burst out laughing, tears streaming down her face. Her life had just been saved — all thanks to a cake.
*****
Chapter 23
Release
Rachel gave her father
a big bear hug as he stepped out of the police station. He hugged her back equally tightly. His face looked years older with its black and white stubble, but his eyes were bright and merry. With Denise’s confession and her attack on Rachel all caught on tape, the police had no problems arresting her and letting Ryan go free. It had taken a day to sort everything out, but he was out of jail for good, with all charges dropped.
“You did it,” Ryan said, kissing her on one cheek then another. “My little girl saved my life!”
Rachel laughed. “Not just me. Valentina and Abuelita. One taped it all, the other saved my life.”
Valentina, who was standing shyly next to Rachel, opened up her arms, and Ryan swept her up in a hug, followed by a passionate kiss.
“You believed in me,” Ryan said. “Really believed, no questions asked. I can’t thank you enough.”
“Since when do you have to thank me?” Valentina’s voice was a little hoarse and she kissed him carefully, almost as though she were afraid to hurt him. “Oh Ryan, I was so worried. My world was crashing down around me. The two men I loved the most — one in the hospital, the other in jail.”
“How is your father?” Ryan asked, his face sombre.
“He’s recovering,” Valentina said. “He woke up for a little while today. The doctors say if we’re lucky, he might even be ready to leave the hospital a week or two from now.”
“That’s good news.” Ryan hugged her tight. He nodded to Scott, who stood a little distance from this family reunion.
Scott gave a wan smile, then turned away. Ryan frowned.
“We’re not going back to that horrible island,” Valentina said. “Abuelita and I have booked suites for us all at a nice resort right here in Key West. But if you want to go back to New York, I understand.”
Ryan shook his head. “Tony and Mason have been absolutely superb,” he said. “They’re taking care of everything over at the firm so I can have some time off. I really need it, too.”
Rachel bit her lip. “Speaking of Tony and Mason, did they ever tell you about their meeting, Dad? The one the PI found out about?”
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