“So, hit and run? Did anyone get the plate of the person who did it?”
“I doubt it, but to be honest, I don’t really remember. I remember hitting my head and then waking up in the ambulance. The paramedic was hot, and exceptionally happy to see me wake up, so that’s good news. It’s nice to have a silver lining when you don’t have anyone to sue.”
“But you’ve got insurance, right?”
“Had I only gotten around to getting some of that.”
“Phoebe, you’re kidding, right?”
“I wish. I have some emails about it. I know I had to pay the fine last year, but I just haven’t had a chance to get it done yet.”
“So all of this?” Jane waved her hand at the IV drip thing next to Phoebe’s bed. It wasn’t plugged in to her arm, but it looked expensive.
“I hope they take Visa.”
Jane closed her eyes. She wanted to believe Phoebe one hundred percent about the story, that it was not even remotely her fault, that she had been taking all of her medicine, that she wasn’t acting erratic, that she hadn’t jumped in front of a car in a suicide attempt. And she kind of did. Maybe. But the insurance…how had she not gotten her insurance sorted out?
“I’m sure they’ll set up payments…make some kind of deal. You won’t have to pay it all…”
“I’m a Crawford, Jane. An heiress, in fact, who came into some good money a couple of years ago. Exactly what kind of hardship can I claim?”
Jane looked away.
“Ah. Well. I don’t take disability insurance for my issues, I take meds. And I don’t ask for handouts. I’ll work something out.” Tears stood at the edges of Phoebes eyes.
“When will they let you out?”
“They’re waiting a little longer because of the head thing. A couple of days, maybe.”
“Then you need some kind of distraction.”
“Hmmm, like maybe you’ll tell me how irresponsible I’ve been by not getting insurance and I’ll explain to you how even though I can’t access most of the money that is in trust for me, I still probably have enough to pay my bills, if, you know, I just work hard enough and stop going to the mall?”
Jane laughed, and Phoebe’s hard face softened a little. “Maybe I can tell you about the murder I’m working. That could be fun.”
“Sure, murder is always fun.” There was a hint in Phoebe’s voice that murder wasn’t always fun. And considering how her mom and dad had died, Jane couldn’t blame her. But she went into the story and all of its details anyway, since that was all she had to talk about.
“It was the groom,” Phoebe said. “Totally the groom.”
“You think?”
“Yes. He killed his best friend—and not because of the review he had written. He killed him because the guy had broken his sister’s heart. Then he ran. I’d put money on it.”
“How much?”
“My medical bills.”
Jane laughed again. She was pretty sure the medical bills would be more than she could earn in a decade cleaning houses.
“You know Jake is going to want to pay them for me. If I’m right—which I will be—he gets to pay them. If I’m wrong—which I won’t be—I will be a good girl and pay them myself.”
“Hmmm…”
“It’s a good bargain for you.”
“Yeah, just my honeymoon fund.”
Phoebe smirked. “You probably think Mom and Dad split the family money evenly between us, don’t you?”
Jane frowned.
“I should be the one frowning. My bum of a brother, who only made it through his stupid MBA because he’s super smart, not because he ever worked hard even a day in his life, got like, all of it. He doesn’t want you to know that. I’ve got a trust, a bit of income, but he’s in charge of that income, and my inheritance was thirty percent. His was seventy. Basically, my life of ease comes at his pleasure.”
“I didn’t know. I’m sorry.” Jane was embarrassed. She took so many things for granted—one of those, in a way, was Jake’s family life. She didn’t take from him—not for any of her needs. And she didn’t ask questions. It wasn’t her business, yet.
“Meh.” Phoebe shrugged. “At least I don’t have to scrub other people’s toilets for a living.” She pressed her hand to her forehead and yawned.
Jane got the hint. She stood up. “I’ll check in on you again tomorrow.”
“Text first, yes? I might be having a hot date or something.”
Jane rolled her eyes but didn’t laugh. She didn’t have it in her.
Jake was very worried about what would happen to Jane if he were to die in a plane crash on the way to Thailand. But what would happen to Phoebe? Again, Jane felt a strong pull to not rush into marriage. She knew for a fact she could take care of herself. But with Phoebe, it was fifty/fifty. And being able to inherit Jake’s portion of the family fortune would go a long way toward keeping her safe for the rest of her life.
Jane couldn’t put off the wedding date conversation any longer, even though she really didn’t have time for it. And that was the only good thing about Jake being out of town for the rest of the week.
On the long drive home in the dark of night, Jane tried to ignore the last question she wanted to answer…if marrying Jake now was wrong for Phoebe’s sake, would marrying him ever be right?
Thirteen
Maggie was waiting in the front room of her house for Jane at ten o’ clock on the dot, with her sister and her mother.
Jane had had just enough time to clean a house, check in with Phoebe via text, run to the SCoRI office to report to Flora, and come home to shower and change before the appointed time.
She was glad to note that Flora had been more concerned about Phoebe’s health than about the talk with Ayla. It sent a warm, family feeling all through Jane that made her optimistic about the meeting with Maggie and Brenna.
“Can I get you a cup of tea?” Margot sat on the edge of her sofa, thin hands moving restlessly on her knees. Her eyes were shadowed like she hadn’t managed to sleep in weeks. Her hair was smooth and her clothes were pressed, but her face was ragged and she looked like she was barely holding it together.
Maggie looked tired as well. And angry.
Brenna’s eyes darted from side to side. She wore a dark hoodie, her dark glasses, and a deep look of mistrust.
“Yes, thank you,” Jane said.
Margot jumped up and hurried into the kitchen.
“Thank you both for making time to talk to me.”
Maggie pressed her lips together.
Brenna looked over her glasses at Jane. “I’m not sure why my sister let you come back.”
“I just want to help, and I recently learned that you two could be able help me help you.”
“Oh?” Maggie frowned. “This isn’t some kind of trap, is it? Because we don’t know anything at all, and have talked to the police so many times already. They already know everything.” Her mouth clamped shut, lips just thin lines. “And you aren’t even police.”
Jane opened her laptop. “May I log into your Wi-Fi?”
Maggie glanced at Brenna, who shook her head no.
“Yes, of course. Password Frenchie.”
“Thanks.” The silence was awkward while Jane logged in. When she had Firefox up and running, she opened the donor website. “I had a long talk with Ayla about the funding site she set up.” Jane spun the computer to face the sisters. “And in the course of the conversation, she mentioned that Brenna has a gift for spotting sock puppets, and aligning them to their other identities.”
Brenna lifted an eyebrow.
“So, I thought maybe we could read some of the comments on here…if we could find which critic matches which donor message, we might be well on our way to finding the person who killed Devon.”
Brenna tilted her head to the side. “I can let you look over my notes, but I’m not sure they will lead you where you are going.”
“You’ve already done this?” Jane was relieved. S
he hadn’t wanted to make Maggie read over all of the terrible comments again, but hadn’t really seen a way to avoid it.
“Of course.” Brenna crossed her arms. “And I’ve compared it with the VoA trolls as well.”
Jane quickly pulled up Cascadia Surety. “Could I toss another source in there for you?”
Brenna gave a slight nod, but her eyes were glued to the screen.
“Can you compare them to the blog posts on this site?”
“Cascadia?” Maggie said the name with disgust. “You think our insurance company is trolling us?”
“Maybe.” Jane passed her computer to Brenna. “How did you guys end up with Cascadia?”
Maggie drew her eyebrows together. “My mom told us we had to get it. She said we were spending too much money, and being uninsured was upsetting her.”
Jane glanced at the kitchen. Margot didn’t seem in a hurry to come back, which suited her fine. “That seems prudent. But, of all of the companies, why them?”
Maggie scratched her chin. “I don’t know.”
Jane gave her more time to think.
“No. Maybe I do. I think Kyle knew someone who worked there. Maybe someone from college? I think that was it. They weren’t the best deal or anything, but he either knew someone there from college or from high school.” She tilted her head to the side and narrowed her eyes. After another pause she shook her head. “I don’t remember him saying though. I just know he acted like he was obligated. It didn’t really matter to me. I mean, I didn’t want to throw money away, but they weren’t awful or anything.”
“Hmmm…” Brenna interrupted. She grabbed an iPad off the side table. “Look at this for me.” She turned the computer to her sister while she opened a file. “Now look at this one.”
Maggie read both, turning her head from side to side, her eyes wide. “I see it.” Her words came out a quiet breath.
“Right? An uncommon use of both ‘to’ as the go to comma splice and ‘beyond’ as the preferred preposition.”
“You found a match?” Jane leaned forward to catch a glimpse of the screen, but neither were in eyesight.
“It looks like it, but it couldn’t be.” Maggie passed the iPhone to Jane. The screen was open to a gaming blog.
“Whose blog is this?”
“Devon’s.”
“But the post isn’t by him?” Jane asked.
“No, it’s by an anonymous author,” Brenna said.
Maggie bit her lip and stared into the distance.
“But you know who the author is,” Jane said.
Brenna tried to catch Maggie’s eye but failed.
Margot came in, just as shaky as she had left, but this time with a tray of tea cups. “Here, girls, have some tea.” She set the tray down on the coffee table.
“Do you think Devon could have been writing for Cascadia? Maybe he was the contact? He could have been pretending he had guest bloggers.” Jane tossed the idea out there though she didn’t like it herself.
“Yes. That could be it.” Maggie was quick to answer.
Jane doubted she meant it.
“Can I ask you to keep looking? Keep reading the site? I think there might be someone else there…someone who had heard of Devon’s device and maybe donated.”
“I getcha. I can do that.” Brenna passed the computer back to Jane.
“Thanks.” Jane sipped her tea.
Maggie and Brenna recognized the author of the Cascadia blog post but wouldn’t tell her who it was. Jane could always read more of Devon’s website and see if she could figure it out for herself. In the meantime, Brenna was happy to look over the blog posts for any other links between the insurer and the trolls. What else was there to do?
“Have you heard anything yet from Kyle?” Margot looked at Jane over her teacup, her eyebrows lifted in hope.
“No. I haven’t. I’m sorry. But I’ve been talking a little to Ayla, trying to find out what happened.”
Brenna snorted.
“Now, Brenna…”
“It is okay, Mom.” Maggie patted her mom’s knee.
She was tender with her family, Jane noted. And not at all the fire-breathing dragon she had been on the phone.
“Brenna knows better. Ayla can’t help the way she is.”
“Why’s that?”
“Well she couldn’t, could she? Raised out in the wilderness with the motorcycle gang.”
Maggie dropped her forehead into her hand. “Mom.”
“What?”
“The Fishes aren’t in a gang. They do ride, but they aren’t a gang.”
“With all those tattoos?”
Maggie sighed.
“Did they come down for the wedding?”
Maggie pressed her lips together. “No. Their plane is broken and they…”
“They didn’t try hard enough. They could have gotten off their island if they had just asked for help.”
“Probably so.” Maggie’s face was turning red from the neck up. “But what could I do about it?’
“I bet they feel awful, stuck up there with Kyle missing.”
Brenna snorted again.
“I’m sure they do,” Maggie said.
“You haven’t spoken to them?”
“I have, but I can’t really… I don’t really…” She let out a slow breath. “I don’t really get them.”
“They were relieved,” Brenna said. A cold hard fact. “Until they heard Kyle and Maggie had gotten married before the ceremony.”
Maggie’s eyes flew open.
“What?” Margot dropped her tea cup. It landed on the hardwood floor with a sharp crack. Tea spilled down the front of Margot’s khaki pants.
“Mom, it’s not what you think.”
Margot stood up, patting her pants. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know what got into me. Of course. It’s nothing.”
“It’s not nothing, but it was important to Kyle to have his editor perform the ceremony, and he’s not any kind of pastor or anything. Just a man he really respects. So we just did a civil ceremony first. We hadn’t…” Maggie blushed.
“Oh!” Margot blushed.
“We just got the legal stuff out of the way. The real wedding was the one you were going to be at.” If eyes could shoot daggers, Maggie’s would have, as she stared down her sister.
“No, I see.” Margot backed towards the kitchen door. “That was silly of me. Of course you kids can do whatever you like.”
“Did anyone else know about the legal ceremony?” Jane kept her voice level, calm. “Your dad? Or Devon? Anyone at all?”
“Devon knew, of course. And Paul, who was doing the ceremony. And…my boss at the café did. But I wasn’t really telling anyone. The big wedding was the real one.” Maggie stood up and went to her mom. “I promise.”
Margot looked at her daughter with sad eyes. “I believe you. It’s silly of me. I just wanted to be there, and I keep thinking that when he comes home, we will have the ceremony. And I will get to see you get married. But…you already are.” A little tear spilled from her eye.
Maggie wrapped her arms around her mother’s waist. “It wasn’t like that, Mom, honest. It wasn’t, and when he comes home…” This time a tear spilled out of Maggie’s eye, too.
“Hmm…” Brenna interrupted again.... “This one sounds awful familiar.” She tapped the screen of the iPad, got up, and left.
Jane wanted to follow her. And she wanted to wipe the spilled tea from the floor, and she wanted to leave to give the women privacy. So she did the last one.
When she had buckled her own seatbelt, but before she started her car, she called her mom in Phoenix, just to say hello.
It was late when she finally tucked herself into her apartment, and she was exhausted, but she had promised to call Jake, so she did. “Hey. Phoebe is going to be fine.”
Jake exhaled, like he had been holding his breath since their last talk. “She’s not answering my calls. What happened?”
“She got hit—hit and run—outside
of my apartment. She knocked her head pretty hard against the curb, and the car actually crushed her ankle, or something. She says she doesn’t remember much—just hitting her head and then waking up in the ambulance. Any incoherence, or mixed messages you received from her were due to the pain medication.”
“Does she know who called the ambulance for her?”
“Ah…” That was a good question. Jane tucked her feet under a blanket on the couch. “I don’t think so. It didn’t really come up.”
“She didn’t run into traffic or anything, right?”
“Right. She seems to have her head on her shoulders.”
“You said she was leaving your place? Why was she there?”
“Returning some clothes. But you know she’s welcome to come over anytime. It would be good for us to be friends.”
“Yes. Definitely. I couldn’t agree more. She just doesn’t head to your place often.”
“True. But she did and she was the unfortunate victim of a horrible person.”
“I’ll keep calling. One of these days she’ll answer her big brother.”
“Of course she will. Especially because she thinks you will pay her bills for her.”
“Harrumph.” There was a laugh behind his complaint.
“In fact, we have a little bet on it.” Jane went on to explain the bet, and then the newest clues in the case.
“You say that guy came to your place to threaten you?” Jake’s voice got deep all of a sudden.
“I thought that’s what he was after, but he went to the SCoRI office pretty willingly. I think he was just trying to protect me.” She let herself relive his visit for a moment. No, it hadn’t felt like he was trying to protect her. Not until he had had plenty of time to think up an excuse.
“You would agree that Phoebe and I don’t look anything alike, right?”
“Right. You are a short, dark brunette with eyes that crinkle when you smile, and she is a leggy bottle blonde, right now, with eyes that sneer.”
“Can eyes sneer?”
“She has a foot on you in height.”
“Only when she wears heels.”
“Don’t spend too much time worrying. I’m not secretly in love with my sister.”
“It wasn’t that, though now that you mention it…”
Spoiled Rotten Murder: A Plain Jane Mystery (The Plain Jane Mysteries Book 5) Page 10