“It’s he said, she said. And after confessing to killing Carl, her credibility sucks.” Teesdale shook his head. “Why the hell she didn’t make Carl drive up to the trailhead himself to meet her there, I haven’t figured out yet. She might have gotten away with it, if she had.”
Brax leaned forward and tapped the recorder. “Tape two. She wanted everyone to think he’d run away with another woman. So, she planned to keep his truck in her garage for a few weeks, then drive it into the desert and push it off some bluff so it wouldn’t be found. Don’t know how she figured she was going to get back home after dumping it.” Brax puffed out a disgusted breath. “Course, when the chickens found him, she had to improvise. Lucky for her, the trailhead wasn’t a far walk from her house.”
Teesdale snorted. “The criminal mind. Musta really missed the good part when I got up for that doughnut. Sorry I didn’t bring you one.” Then he smiled a shit-eating grin. “Thank God I had a good small town sheriff holding down the fort in there.”
Brax didn’t comment that Teesdale should have stayed to handle the interview, since he suspected a doughnut wasn’t the business the sheriff had taken care of. A man deserved privacy. Between them, they’d gotten what they needed out of Della.
“You know, women really make murder complicated,” Teesdale went on. “She doesn’t kill Carl because she wants the gold, she kills him because she doesn’t want anyone to find out she isn’t really a lawyer. Is that ass-backward or what? She could have stolen the gold or put her own name on the claim, or, for that matter, hightailed it out of town and started over somewhere else. But no, she creates this elaborate murder scheme.”
“Women are deep, complicated creatures.” Brax doubted he would ever truly understand them.
Teesdale stretched back in his chair and put his hands behind his head. “At any rate, Lafoote will hire some wily lawyer to get him out of any blackmail charge. His story is that he didn’t understand the significance of what he saw Della doing until after you told him Carl had been murdered.” He raised a skeptical brow. “In fact, he claims he was on his way to see me when he saw Della following you and Simone and thought he better see what was up.”
Bullshit. “He was following Simone, not Della. I think the little weasel’s been following Simone for a long time.”
Teesdale spread his hands. “It was stalking lite, if anything at all. Nothing we can prove.”
Earlier, in her same flat monotone, Simone had confirmed a feeling of being watched a couple of times. But there were no threatening phone calls or messages, nothing about her trailer that appeared tampered with—in short, no hard evidence.
Dammit. Teesdale was right, even if Brax didn’t like the fact. Lafoote had skirted the hairy edge on everything he’d done, and consequently, they couldn’t get him conclusively on anything. “Fine. I’ll give you that. But he threatened us both with a weapon. Assaulting a peace officer. I don’t care what you get him on, just get him. He’s got some weird obsession with Simone, and I don’t want him out there threatening her.”
Teesdale shook his head sadly. “Says he was about to hand the gun over when your sister jumped him.”
“Bullshit.”
“We have nothing substantial to hold him. I gotta let him go.”
Dammit. Brax finally raised his hands in surrender. Maggie’s war cry had ended any further incriminating crap that might have flowed out of the guy’s mouth. Jesus Christ. If Simone hadn’t had a gun pointed at her, the whole incident would have been laughable. Teesdale had followed Maggie, who’d followed Lafoote, who’d followed Simone. Why they hadn’t stumbled all over each other, he’d never know. God. The sheriff was right. It was a major cluster fuck.
“I’ll make sure he doesn’t get near Simone.” Though Brax wasn’t sure she’d let him near her even to provide protection.
“That’s your job, buddy boy.” Teesdale twirled a pencil stub on his blotter. “What are you going to do about Maggie?”
An ache started behind his eyeballs. Maggie’s friend had planned Carl’s demise from the moment he’d demanded she process the claim ASAP, right after his wife had threatened to Bobbitize him. Carl told Della he had to show Maggie the gold before she left him. It was the only hope of saving his marriage. Brax would take that part with him to his grave and hope to hell Maggie never found out. Jesus, Carl had simply wanted to show Maggie he wasn’t a loser. With a million bucks in the bank, he’d still needed to prove something. After losing everything in the stock market, Carl had lost his belief in himself. His current bank balance hadn’t restored his self-confidence. Brax was pretty damn sure the gold wouldn’t have either.
They’d never know.
Della had bled Carl. She’d had him give her money for filing fees, recording fees, et cetera, though she claimed she still had the cash in her office desk at home. Teesdale would check that. When she couldn’t think of another erroneous fee, she’d had Carl catalog his entire financial history, which explained the organization of his files and the listings in his spiral notebook. Della had conned him into believing he’d need to provide every detail when they finally submitted the filing papers. Was it stupidity on Carl’s part or implicit trust in a woman he’d known for years? Freaking pathetic. Della had been stringing him along to cover her own ass.
That last night, when Della demanded three thousand dollars to complete the registration, cash she’d never dreamed Carl had access to—she hadn’t even looked over the fiscal information he’d given her—he’d gotten the money to her the next morning. Concealing her shock, she took it, revised her plan, said she had to see the claim itself in order to verify it before, as a judge, she could sign off.
She’d killed him on the way up.
Brax couldn’t tell Maggie. It would kill her spirit to know exactly what Della had done, just as the truth had crushed Simone.
If Maggie hadn’t screamed at Carl, if they hadn’t been fighting about sex and money. If, if, if. Maggie would drive herself crazy with it all, and there was nothing he could do about it.
Except lie and hope she never heard the gossip in The Stockyard’s produce section at.
“Don’t whitewash it, Braxton,” Teesdale said, reading his mind. “Tell her the truth. She deserves it, and she’s strong enough to take it. Never underestimate a woman’s strength.”
He didn’t underestimate a woman’s strength. He’d overestimated his own. And he didn’t know where he’d find the extra reserves to do what he had to do.
Chapter Twenty-One
Maggie sat on the bed in her room, in the gloom, the blinds drawn against the heat of the endless day.
Brax picked up her limp hand, pressing his lips to the back of it. She hadn’t spoken since he told her. The truth. All of it. From the gold to the fantasy, and finally what her friend Della had done to them all. “Maggie.”
“I’m sorry, Tyler,” she whispered.
Listening to her childlike voice, his heart broke in half all over again. “Carl wouldn’t want you to be sorry. None of this was your fault.”
“I never thought he was a loser.”
Nor had Brax implied it when he revealed the story piece by piece. He didn’t give her verbatim every detail of Della’s confession, but the woman had shed quite a bit of light on Carl’s antipathy. Lafoote had hammered Carl with his less-than-a-zero-nobody theme in an attempt to sucker Carl into supporting the resort. His plan had been to reward Carl with a percentage of the hotel if he got Della to sign all the permits. The strategy backfired, creating a seething anger in Carl. As soon as Carl found the gold, he made his own plan to stick it to Lafoote. Whatever prosperity came to the town because of the gold, Carl intended to see that Lafoote didn’t share in it.
Maggie had known Carl’s insecurities, but she’d misjudged where the anxiety would take him. That didn’t lay the blame at her feet. She couldn’t have anticipated how Lafoote would use those insecurities and that Carl’s lack of confidence would eventually lead to his death.
; Maggie wiped a tear from her cheek before Brax could reach up to catch it. “I can’t believe he had Simone write me a fantasy.”
“He loved you. He was willing to do anything to make things right again.”
“I wouldn’t really have hurt him.”
“I know. He knows it, too.” Wherever he was, Carl knew.
They hadn’t said a thing about Della’s betrayal. Brax had told her. Maggie had heard. Then they’d put it away.
“I didn’t mean to scare Mom by sneaking out.”
“You promised me you’d stay put.”
She shrugged helplessly. “I said I wouldn’t leave while you were sleeping.”
He could have given her a hard time, but what was the point? With all his questions, he was the one who put the idea of Jason Lafoote in her mind in the first place. “You weren’t thinking straight, honey.”
Mom had called 911, and Teesdale had started an immediate search. No idiot, he’d assumed Maggie would head up the trail to see where Carl had died. The spot was a magnet. Jesus, they’d had a posse on their tail the whole time.
Yep, the cluster fuck of the century. He closed his eyes. Jesus. He’d almost lost Simone.
“Tyler, it wasn’t your fault.”
“Don’t start trying to look after me, Maggie. I’m looking after you.” The way he should have done from the moment he arrived. If he’d read the signs, Carl wouldn’t be dead.
She stared at him. “You look like me when I see myself in the mirror. You think if you’d done this or you hadn’t done that, none of this would have happened.”
“Yeah, that’s what I think.” If he’d listened to his gut, Simone wouldn’t have walked into that cave either. But, as Simone said, hindsight only worked in hindsight.
“That’s the way I think, too,” Maggie said. “I shouldn’t have said all those awful things to Carl that night.”
If she saw that it was wrong for him to heap the blame on himself, then maybe she could see it was wrong for her, too. “We both should have done things differently. But we didn’t.”
“I should have told him he’d earned that money and he deserved to spend it without having to account to me.”
He should have told Simone he loved her before he let her walk out of Teesdale’s office. “I should have made Carl tell me how he was going to prove to everyone he wasn’t a failure.”
She cocked her head at him. “He told you he was a failure?”
“That was the gist.” The night they’d driven home from The Dartboard. So many things he should have figured out that night.
“I never called him a failure. I never thought he was.” Maggie pulled open the drawer of the nightstand and shuffled things around. Holding her hand out, the ring glittered on her palm, as if it somehow found what little light there was in the room and let itself be worshipped by it.
“Isn’t it the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen?” Maggie whispered reverently.
It was just a ring—Brax wasn’t partial to jewelry—but it did glitter, a large diamond in the center flagged by smaller stones around the band. “It’s beautiful.”
“Carl found it in one of the outhouses.”
The famous outhouse diamond. “Why keep it in a drawer?”
“I wanted to wait until he found a diamond necklace to match. I guess we were both waiting for something better to come along. Carl and his gold, and me and a diamond necklace.”
“Start wearing it now, Maggie.”
She shook her head. “It’s too late for Carl.”
“It’s not too late for you. Put it on.”
She slipped it on next to her wedding band. “We got married so quickly, we never even bought an engagement ring.”
“This one will work.”
She squeezed her eyes shut and leaned against his shoulder. “I miss him so much, Tyler. I made so many mistakes, and I can never take them back.”
He held her hand in his. “There’ll always be mistakes we can’t take back.” He’d made plenty of his own over the years. “But you have to let them go and start over for yourself. It wasn’t your fault he fell. You didn’t push him.”
She didn’t say anything.
“Look at me.” He lifted her chin. “He loved you. Wear the ring and remember that.”
“I’ll try, Tyler. I really will.” She sniffed, and sucked in her breath, holding back her tears.
The coming days and months would be hard on her, but he’d remind her how much Carl loved her every time she needed him to. She and Carl had both made mistakes, taken each other for granted once too often. There would be no second chance for them, and Maggie would mourn that as much as she would mourn Carl.
Brax couldn’t say the right thing to cleanse Maggie’s pain. He would never be able to. The only things he could provide were an ear to listen when she needed to talk and open arms to hold her while she cried.
Hallelujah. He’d finally figured out the big secret. After years of searching, it all came down to those two simple things. They were all any man could offer. Maybe they were all a woman needed. He planned on giving both to Simone. For the rest of her life, if she’d let him.
“Go ahead and cry your eyes out, honey. I’m right here.” He held Maggie tight while she cried, never once begging her to stop.
* * * * *
“Where on earth were you, Simone? We’ve been frantic.”
Her mother didn’t look frantic. In fact, she looked fresh as a daisy in a silk Chinese print and perfectly painted red lips. The silk print clashed with the orange tufts of Simone’s thrift store sofa. Jackie huddled in a ball in the opposite corner of the couch, her chin on her knees, her eyes wide.
Kingston nursed a steaming cup of coffee and stared at Simone with worry. “You all right, honey?”
“I took a walk.” She hadn’t come straight home. She’d wandered Goldstone streets, the same ones she’d already traversed. No one had stopped to ask about Della or Carl. Nor had anyone accosted her. She was safe.
But she hadn’t felt safe. The times she’d sensed something in the shadows, Jason had probably been outside her home, watching her. She’d locked the darn screen, too, but he’d found a way to invade her territory.
Jason wasn’t the worst. He’d never been a friend. He’d never been anything. Della was the one who’d ripped away her security.
Safety was an illusion. Maybe her sense of home was an illusion, too. Maybe Goldstone had never been home at all, but nothing more than a place she’d run away to. Just like her mother said.
“You should have called,” Ariana snapped, rising off the couch.
“I did call. I told you it would take a while.”
“You look tired, honey.” Kingston came close, as if he’d put a comforting arm around her. Simone jerked away, then was unable to look him in the face. “Why don’t you take a nap?” he finished.
Simone just wanted to go to bed and sleep forever.
“She cannot go to sleep, Kingston. We are leaving. Jackie, start packing our bags. We’re getting out of this horrible place. And Simone, you’re coming with us.”
Going with her mother? Ariana had saved the declaration along with the packing to create her dramatic moment. Her mother did so love her drama. Leaving with her almost seemed like a relief.
“I never should have let you follow your own mind and come here. I knew it would end in disaster.” Ariana fluttered about, her fingers tapping her dress, her arms, her chin.
All that movement made Simone dizzy.
“Ariana, calm down.”
“I won’t calm down. She should have listened to me, Kingston. She ignores everything I say. And look what happened. She almost got herself killed in this godforsaken gnatsville.”
“It was a cave, Mother.” She couldn’t even manage the capital letters.
Her mother snapped her fingers. “Jackie, did you hear me? Start packing. And don’t forget my toiletries in the bathroom.”
“Don’t snap your fingers at Jackie,” Kin
gston barked.
Ariana flew at him, stopping before she actually smacked him in the face. “It’s the only way they hear. They don’t listen. They don’t take my advice. I won’t have it, do you hear? I know what’s best for them.”
Her mother then whirled on her, stabbing the air with a long, manicured nail. “You’re coming home. And you’re taking that job with Ambrose. I won’t hear another word about it.”
“She never wanted the job with Ambrose.” Kingston slashed a hand through the air. “Can’t you get that through your head?”
“Then why didn’t she come right out and say she didn’t want it? I would have found her something else. But she never even said what she wanted. She never says what she wants.”
No, Simone never had. She’d hidden all her wants and needs from her mother for fear they’d be trampled beneath more important needs—Ariana’s needs. Simone had been hiding her own needs for so long, she wasn’t even sure what they were anymore.
“Then let her tell you what she wants,” Kingston said. “And listen to her this time.”
Think. What do you really want? Safety. Security. Home. Della had taken those things away.
“I always listen,” Ariana went on. “I know what’s best, that’s all. Why, she’s a child. Look what happened in Silicon Valley. She failed.”
Stop talking about me as if I weren’t here. I can speak for myself. Yet she didn’t say a word. Her mother was right. She hadn’t done well on her own. Not well at all.
“She didn’t fail. Her customer base went away. It wasn’t failure.” Kingston pushed Ariana back with the force of his rising voice. What had suddenly gotten into him?
“She ran out of money. Even her fiancé couldn’t take it.”
Andrew couldn’t take her excessive and exuberant screaming during lovemaking; that’s why he’d dumped her. Her business failure had been an excuse.
Fool's Gold (A sexy funny mystery/romance, Cottonmouth Book 2) Page 29