“Yes, twenty million to be exact,” Larry said.
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?” she cried.
“Because it doesn’t matter,” Larry said. “Liza would never—”
“Come on, mate, out with the rest of it,” Robbie said.
Lindsey looked at him, and he said, “I didn’t even need the whiskey.”
“What?” Emma glanced between them.
“Nothing,” Lindsey said. “Really, it’s nothing.”
“What else do you have to tell me?” Emma asked.
“I did fake Sarah’s disappearance,” Larry said. He ran his hands through his hair, as if he’d rather rip it out by the roots than admit what he’d done.
He was becoming overwrought, and Lindsey wished she could offer him some comfort. Emma stepped up, however, and led him to a plush wing chair in one of the many reading nooks in the library. Emma took the chair near his while Lindsey and Robbie sat on a low table facing them.
“I did it to keep Liza safe. I never meant for it to come back and bite me like this,” he said.
“Lies have a way of doing that,” Emma said. She sounded weary.
“Liza’s mother, Sarah, is unwell,” Larry said. “I didn’t know when I married her or before she had Liza. It came on after Liza was born. The doctor told me she suffered from a postnatal psychosis. They medicated her, but she refused to take her meds and then she started to harm herself, which was horrifying, but then I caught her—” He closed his mouth, as if he couldn’t bear to say it. “Certain circumstances led me to believe that she would harm Liza, so one day, when I couldn’t figure out any other way to deal with the situation, I had her committed to Serenity Springs, a mental health facility in Virginia, and she’s been there ever since.”
He bowed his head, as if his past had finally defeated him.
“Why the lies?” Emma asked.
“I didn’t want Liza to grow up knowing that her mother had tried to harm her,” he said. “She held a knife to Liza’s throat and threatened to slit it if I didn’t let her leave and take Liza with her. I had no choice but to commit her. But how was Liza supposed to live with that? She was so young. I hoped she’d forget. Besides, I was afraid if it got out, people would always look at Liza like they suspected she was nuts, too.”
“Did you ever tell Liza the truth about her mother’s whereabouts?” Emma asked.
“No, I told her that her mother was missing and that I assumed she’d died in a boat accident,” he said.
“Which is what you set it up to look like,” Emma said. “Do you have any idea the man power that was poured into trying to find your wife? I’ve read the reports. It was a massive effort.”
“Yes, I know. Because there was no body found, I’ve had to live with the taint of having a missing wife for the past fifteen years,” he said. “People treat you differently when your wife goes missing. No one says to your face that they think you killed her, but it’s always there, always in the background like lousy elevator music, until Theresa. She was the first person who never looked at me that way. She believed from the first that my wife had gone missing, and she never made me feel like a bad guy. I love her so much. I’d do anything to keep her safe.”
Emma drew in a deep breath. “Then you have to accept the fact that it is most likely Liza who tried to have her killed.”
“What? No! Liza loves Theresa as much as if she was her own mother,” Larry argued.
“Does she?” Emma asked. “Larry, you have to look at the evidence. Who had Toby’s library card? Liza. Who checked out the materials that were found in the car with Chad Bauman? Liza. Larry, it’s highly likely that she and Bauman have a connection and that she hired him to kill Theresa, knowing that she’d inherit millions when Theresa died.”
“You’re wrong, and I can prove it,” he argued. “Liza has no idea that she’s the beneficiary if Theresa dies. We never told her. And you can’t prove that she used Toby’s card. That could have been anyone.”
“It wasn’t,” Lindsey said. “I saw her with it. I was there when she checked out the materials on his card.”
“That doesn’t mean she was the one who checked out the CDs for the dead guy,” Larry said. “It could have been someone else.”
They all stared at him until finally Robbie shook his head and said, “It wasn’t someone else, mate.”
“You don’t know that,” he said. “I believe in my daughter, and I will continue to do so until I draw my last breath.”
“Fine, we won’t argue about it,” Emma said. “Supposing you’re right, we still need to find her. If the attempts on Theresa’s life have been done by someone else, we need to find Liza to keep her safe. So help us. Where would Liza go?”
Larry looked up at them, and his expression was bleak. “I don’t know.”
* * *
• • •
Lindsey watched from her office as Emma left with Larry. Robbie followed behind them as a sort of moral support, but Lindsey wasn’t sure which one of them he was supporting. She felt for Larry, she did. It had to have been difficult to have his wife institutionalized, but at the same time, she felt like he could have avoided so much of this if he had just told the truth about her and her condition.
Sometimes the reality of things wasn’t pretty or even vaguely attractive. Sometimes it was downright ugly and awful, but there was no hiding from it. Having been deceived before, Lindsey always preferred the truth, even if it wasn’t flattering or kind, because one lie spawned so many more that it soon spread out of control until everyone within reach was caught in its sticky web and no one knew what was right and what was wrong anymore.
She shook off the macabre thought and finished out her day. She kept one ear glued to her phone on the chance that Emma called her with the news that they’d found Liza. No call came. Lindsey hated to think that Liza was the one behind the attacks on Theresa, but unless they could come up with some other reason why Chad Bauman, who had no known connection to Briar Creek or Theresa, had wanted to kill the tennis coach, then it seemed Liza hiring him to do her dirty work was the only answer.
No connection to Briar Creek. Lindsey couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that Bauman was a stranger in town. Liza lived a quiet life here. If Bauman wasn’t from here, how did she meet him? On a hunch, Lindsey went onto the internet and looked up Serenity Springs, the mental health facility that Larry had put Sarah in. If Lindsey hadn’t been hallucinating the face in the window, if Sarah had somehow come here, could she have been the one who hired Bauman? And if she did, where did she find him? It would have to be the place she’d been for the past fifteen years. At the very least, it was worth a look.
The Serenity Springs website was very detailed, in peaceful pastels and a flowing font. The pictures showed a beautiful property in the rolling hills of Virginia. It looked more like a plush resort than a mental health facility. Lindsey looked over the staff pages, clicking through the doctors and counselors. When she got to the list of intake specialists, she paused.
The third name on the list was Chad Bauman. She’d never gotten a good look at the driver of Kayla’s stolen car, but the picture of the man smiling from her computer monitor was one of a twenty-something man with a toothy grin and kind eyes. The coincidence was too great. She reached for her cell phone, snapped a picture of the screen, and sent it to Emma’s phone with a text explaining her search.
Emma had seen Bauman’s body; she’d be able to confirm whether this was him or not.
Lindsey clocked out at the end of the day, knowing that Sully had an evening boat tour and wouldn’t be home until later. That meant that she was solo that evening, so she hurried home to give Heathcliff his walk and supper.
The April air was chilly, and she bundled up while striding along the beach with Heathcliff. He chased seagulls, and Lindsey laughed. Every single day, the boy hit the beach a
t top speed, believing that if he ran fast enough, he would achieve liftoff and catch one. And every day, Lindsey laughed at his boundless optimism.
When he trotted back to her and leaned against her side with his tongue hanging out and his furry chest heaving, she reached down and rubbed his fluffy head.
“You’ll get ’em next time, buddy,” she said.
As the wind whipped at her hair, Lindsey tried to push all thought of the Milsteins out of her head. There was nothing she could do now. It was up to the police to find Liza. Only she could explain the library-card mix-up and her possible relationship to the deceased Chad Bauman and the second man who had recently tried to shoot Theresa.
Lindsey had a hard time accepting that the personable young woman she had come to like was actually coldhearted enough to have plotted the murder of her future stepmother. A shiver rippled through her, and it wasn’t from the cold wind whipping in from the water.
She had seen many despicable things over the past few years. She’d been witness to the horrible lengths people would go to keep a secret, seek revenge on a lover, or steal someone else’s fortune. Truly, it had left her with a jaded view of her fellow man.
But then there were the people in her community who showed up every day, trying to make it a better place. Like Violet, who shared her love of the stage with the local community-theater troupe, and Milton, who taught yoga and ran the local chess club, and Nancy, who baked cookies for everyone for every occasion, brightening all of their days. Those were the people who kept her from giving up on humanity. When Lindsey looked around her, she knew which team she wanted to be on. The helpers.
Once the sun set, twilight came on quickly. Lindsey didn’t want to linger out in the darkness, because that was usually when Heathcliff accidentally trotted off into the water and then required a bath. She was not up for that tonight. Heathcliff seemed eager to head home, too, as Lindsey broke into a jog and he was right beside her.
They were walking through the tall grass when Lindsey got the hinky feeling that someone was watching her. Thinking it was just the stress of the day, she moved a bit faster and could have sworn that whoever was tailing her did, too. She stopped abruptly in the middle of the path and glanced around at the tall marsh grass surrounding her. The shadows had gone deep, and there was an eerie stillness to the air, which had just held a strong breeze.
“Who’s there?” she called.
No one answered. There was no sound, no movement, nothing but silence. She felt her skin prickle, and she turned and hurried back to the house with Heathcliff at her side.
They bounded up the steps and into the house. Lindsey closed and locked the sliding glass doors behind them. Heathcliff hadn’t barked, so there couldn’t have been anyone out there. He was so protective; he would have leaped at anyone who surprised him. Clearly, she was just being oversensitive because it had been a heck of a day.
Still, as soon as she began to draw the curtain, she felt a huge surge of relief. She pulled the heavy drape across the glass just as Heathcliff rose up on his hind legs. He barked and pawed at the glass. This was not his I’m happy to see you bark but rather his Get off my lawn cranky-old-man growl. It was fully dark outside now, and Lindsey couldn’t see past her reflection in the glass.
She reached for the light switch to the left of the door and snapped it on. Standing in the beam of the spotlight on the steps to the back deck was Liza Milstein, and she had a gun. Her face was pale, and she was shivering. Lindsey was sure she saw a tear course down her cheek. She was about to call out to her when Liza raised the gun.
Lindsey jumped. She grabbed Heathcliff by the collar and snapped off the lights on the inside of the house, not wanting to make them easy targets for Liza. Heathcliff struggled, fully intending to attack the stranger on his turf, and Lindsey had to snatch him up into her arms as she hurtled them both behind the kitchen counter, hoping the quartz counter and thick wooden cupboards could stop a bullet if need be.
Thud!
The sound of a gunshot never came. Lindsey held on to Heathcliff’s collar with one hand while trying to peer around the counter. The sounds of a scuffle were distinct, and when she glanced outside, she saw Sully sitting on top of Liza.
“Let me go!”
Lindsey released Heathcliff and dashed for the door. The Norrgard twins pounded up the steps, with one of them holding a length of rope in his hands. Liza was bucking and fighting, trying to knock Sully off her, but he held on to her gun hand, not letting go. Lindsey swooped in and pried Liza’s fingers off the gun. Sully flipped the young woman onto her front, drawing her arms up behind her back.
“Let me go!” she cried. “Do you know who I am? My father will destroy you if he finds out what you’ve done to me.”
“I sincerely doubt that,” Stieg said. He grasped her arms so that Stefan could tie them with the rope.
“Yeah, you tried to have the woman he loves killed. No dad is ever okay with that,” Stefan said.
Once her arms were tied, Sully got off her and grabbed Lindsey. He hugged her close, as if to reassure himself that she was okay.
“I’m all right,” she said. But even she could hear that her voice sounded shaky.
“I was so worried we wouldn’t get here in time,” he said.
Stieg hauled Liza up to her feet. “Chief Plewicki should be here any minute. Shall we go wait out front?”
“Wait!” Lindsey said. She stepped out of Sully’s arms and moved in front of Liza. “Why me? Why would you try to shoot me?”
“You’re the only one who could prove that I had Toby’s library card. If I got rid of you, there was no evidence. Duh,” Liza said.
She tilted her chin up in defiance, but it was all for show. Lindsey had seen her shaking and crying. She didn’t want to shoot Lindsey. In fact, Lindsey would bet big money she didn’t want to be here, doing this, at all.
“Get her out of here,” Sully said.
“Hang on!” Lindsey cried. She faced Liza, staring into her eyes. The young woman looked scared and not because she’d been caught. “It’s her, isn’t it? You’re doing this for her.”
An expression of surprise flashed over Liza’s face, and then she scowled. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Your mother is alive, and she’s here, isn’t she?”
Liza’s eyes moved from side to side. She looked terrified. “I want a lawyer.”
“Liza—” Lindsey began, but Liza cut her off.
“Leave me alone!” Liza cried.
There was nothing more to say. Stieg and Stefan escorted her off the deck and around the house, with Heathcliff barking at Liza all the way.
Lindsey leaned against Sully. “How did you know she’d come after me?”
“I didn’t,” he said. “I was getting ready to take out the dinner cruise, and I just got the feeling that something wasn’t right. I knew I had to get to you as fast as I could. On my way, I ran into Stieg and Stefan, and they told me Liza had gone missing.”
“And you just assumed she’d come after me?” Lindsey asked.
“You do have a magnetic field for trouble that is unequaled,” he said. “That being said, I don’t think she would have shot you.”
“Intuition?” she asked.
“More like she tossed the gun down before I tackled her,” he said. He looked rueful when he added, “She grabbed it again when I knocked her to the ground. Can’t say I blame her, as I likely scared the snot out of her.”
The sound of a siren wailing interrupted them.
“That’ll be Emma,” she said.
Heathcliff’s howl answered the siren, and Sully smiled and kissed the top of her head. “Your guard dog wasn’t about to let anything happen to you. I’m going to give that boy the biggest chew toy he’s ever seen.”
Lindsey laughed. She knew it was mostly relief but also the realizati
on that she could have lost all of this—her life with Sully and Heathcliff, in their home. In the blink of an eye or, more accurately, the squeeze of a trigger, Liza could have made all of it go away permanently.
She slipped her hand into Sully’s as they walked around the corner of the house to meet Emma.
She squeezed his fingers, silently telling him she loved him. His hand tightened around hers, returning the sentiment.
17
“Liza!” Larry Milstein climbed out of Emma’s squad car and ran toward his daughter. “Are you all right?”
Liza whipped her head in her father’s direction and snapped, “What do you care?”
Larry stumbled to a halt just a few feet from her. “What? I care—of course I care. I’ve always cared.”
“Really?” she asked. “You cared so much that you lied to me my entire life about my mother being dead.”
“Listen, it was for your—”
“Own good. Yeah, yeah, I’m sure,” she said. “Too bad it’s a lie. It wasn’t for my own good. It was so that you could get rid of a wife you didn’t want anymore.”
“That’s not true!” Larry insisted. “She was a danger to herself, and she was a danger to you.”
“Liar! She said you would say that. She said you would make up horrible lies to keep me from her,” Liza cried. Tears were coursing down her cheeks. “She’s my mother. You had no right to take her away from me.”
Larry’s brow wrinkled with distress, but then the pragmatic businessman emerged to take charge of the situation. “I had every right. You are my daughter.”
“Please,” Liza scoffed. “Daughter? I am no more important to you than a piece of furniture.”
“Where is this coming from?” Larry asked. “I don’t understand. I’ve given you everything.”
“Except my mother!” Liza screeched.
Emma stepped forward, obviously sensing that this was going from bad to worse.
“I was giving you a mother. I picked Theresa for you,” he said.
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