“Because I followed you there. I really should have taken you ladies out of the picture last night, but you were too quick to find the body, and then it was already too late to off you when the cops showed up.”
Agnes was livid. “You are making a mistake here. All along I thought Clive was guilty, so why are you foiling the plan now?”
Vincent gripped the steering wheel and ignored Agnes’s question. Agnes swallowed hard, her mind racing. She didn’t worry so much about her and El, but Kimberly was with child, and there just was no way she’d allow that deranged man to harm Kimberly or the unborn baby.
Chapter Sixteen
About an hour later, Vincent drove into the drive of the beach house where both Clare and Sasha had been killed. He powered up the garage door and drove in, slamming into the opposite wall with a thump. Agnes gripped her chest. “Are you trying to give me a heart attack?”
Vincent turned with a sneer. “That would be darn convenient, but I imagine an old bird like you has nine lives. I assure you that none of you will see the morning.”
“Why all of us?” Kimberly asked. “What did I do?”
“Besides steal my daughter’s boyfriend, you mean?”
“That wasn’t my fault. I wasn’t trying to steal Jeremy away from her, but I suppose it would have only been a matter of time before ... you know, he sent her packing.”
Vincent’s face reddened. “Oh, and what makes you think that would have happened?”
She shrugged. “She just wasn’t Jeremy’s type, that’s all.”
“If you saw him in Hollywood, you’d realize you’re not his type. I’ll be doing Jeremy a favor when you’re dead.”
Agnes coughed at the gasoline fumes. “Are you planning to off us right here in your car, or—”
“You’re a pushy woman, Agnes. Everyone out of the car,” he ordered.
Kimberly, Agnes, and Eleanor clamored out and waited while Vincent popped the trunk. Clive dove out of the truck, but when saw the pistol trained on Kimberly, he mellowed out.
“Were you trying to kill me?” he asked Vincent.
With a cold stare, Vincent said, “Oh, but of course, just not out here. Although it was just awful the way you wrecked the car, slamming into the garage like that.”
“Oh, is that how this is going to play out? I’m the scapegoat here?”
“Get in the house,” Vincent said with clenched teeth.
Clive led the way though the door, making way into the living room with the brown blood stains. Tears danced within his eyes. “Is this w-where Clare was murdered?”
“It’s where you murdered her. Isn’t that right, Agnes?”
“Beats me. You’re the one telling the story.”
“Oh, yes, how right you are. I’m going to tell you all how it played out.”
“I can hardly wait, but go ahead.”
“I’ve heard rumors about you, Agnes Barton. You fancy yourself an investigator, like Jessica Fletcher, but this is no Cabot Cove and the story won’t play out in your favor.”
Agnes drummed her fingers against the fabric of her capris. “We’ll see.”
He raised a hand to strike Agnes, but Eleanor jumped in the way. “Don’t you dare, mister! Or I’ll—”
“Or, you’ll do nothing. I really hate to be interrupted so if you would please shut up, I can continue.”
Agnes knew Vincent was over the edge as it was, so she kept quiet. The man might be the toast of town in Hollywood, but here he was just another thug capable of anything—and a desperate one, at that.
Vincent sighed. “As I was about to say, Clive found out that Clare was involved with Sasha and just lost it. He came here sometime after the photo shoot and killed Clare with a hammer.” The said bloodied hammer was on the ground as evidence.
“You’re a very sick man if you think I’d kill Clare. Even if she was involved with Sasha, I’d have never killed her, but I’d sure as hell convince Corrine to fire her ass.”
“See how angry you have become since the lawsuit? If you kept in your pants, none of this would ever have happened. I had to settle with Sasha, too, and it practically wiped me out; but when the movie was canceled, I was ruined.”
“Then why get involved with her?” Agnes asked. “What would have stopped Sasha from coming against you?”
“She wasn’t interested in that, not after she got involved with Clare, anyway. They both betrayed me, as far as I’m concerned.”
“Is that when you planned it? You know, to kill both Clare and her lover?”
Vincent clenched his hand into fists. “I was a laughing stock of Hollywood and virtually penniless when news of their relationship hit the airwaves.”
“But Jeremy said he didn’t know about Clare and Sasha,” Kimberly said.
Vincent whisked a stray lock of his gray hair aside. “I have no idea how he couldn’t have known, since the story was in every damn tabloid in town.”
“So Clive, are you denying that you had anything to do with Clare and Sasha’s death, just to be clear?”
“Do you at least have an alibi?” Kimberly asked.
“Not really, but I swear I didn’t know about any of this. If I had wanted to kill Sasha, I’d have done it long ago.”
Vincent’s brows furrowed. “Oh, would you really have after the lawsuit? I think not. It will be perfectly believable to the cops that you just bided your time. Perhaps you even figured that nobody would put the pieces of the puzzle together.”
“You’re insane, Vincent.”
Vincent laughed low in his throat. “It’s not like that’s the first time someone has said that to me, nor the last, I’m sure.”
Kimberly flashed Vincent a coy smile. “So, after you found out about Clare and Sasha, is that when you took out the life insurance policy on Clare?”
“I had to. I need to get back in the game and the only way that’ll happen is with the proceeds from the life insurance policy.”
Kimberly just shook her head. “You killed your own daughter?”
“I didn’t mean to, but when she came back from the photo shoot that day, I knew she was going to be even a bigger embarrassment to me. I mean, she was chasing after a married man. I dreaded what the press would do with that bit of information when they found out.”
Agnes rubbed her neck. “Oh, you weren’t planning to kill her, but conveniently had a hammer with you?”
Vincent narrowed his eyes. “So what if I had it planned? What does it matter now?”
“It doesn’t. I just don’t understand why you need to lie about your actions when it’s apparent you planned to kill her all along.”
Kimberly cocked her head sideways. “So what about the night you killed Sasha? How did you pull that off when you took Mrs. Barry home that night?”
“It wasn’t as hard as you think, Blondie. I simply took Mrs. Barry home. I had the perfect alibi with that one. I drove back here in time to catch Sasha leaving in a hurry. She never saw it coming, but in those last moments of Sasha’s life, she knew full well that she had made a mistake, betraying me the way she had.”
Agnes gulped. “You were outside when we found Sasha?”
“Yes, but none of you stayed outside long enough and I knew I had to get out of there before the cops showed up. I had hoped one of you would be considered a suspect.”
“So why follow us the next day?”
“I had to find out where you were going. I knew Sasha had told you something, but I had no idea what. When I followed you to the McGregor Hotel and I read the sign that Teresa Magnus and Samantha Brite were there doing an Aerial show, I knew I had to take action. One of the girls, I forget which, knew I had taken out a life insurance policy on my daughter. I knew that would throw up a red flag with you, Agnes.”
“So you were there and none of us saw you?”
“You were in the pool area by then and I left before any of you saw me.”
“So that’s when you knew you had to get rid of us, but what about Clive? How did he get into you
r trunk?”
“Oh, I had to contain him that night. I wanted to be sure when the cops showed up that he was nowhere to be found. He’d make a better suspect that way.”
Agnes shook her head. “Why do you think the cops would even question Clive? He wasn’t a suspect, Kimberly was. She was the one at both crime scenes.”
“It doesn’t matter, but I need Clive to make it all make sense. He needs to be the one who was responsible for both Clare and Sasha’s deaths, and of course—you three ladies.”
Kimberly rolled her eyes. “Eventually the cops would find out about the insurance policy and you’d be done for sure, then.”
“She’s right. Nobody will ever believe I was responsible for killing the spokesmodel for the Pretty and Pregnant lotion line,” Clive said.
“Well, you did murder my daughter, who was spokesmodel for the Pretty and Hip perfume line. It’s completely plausible.”
“So you plan to kill me, too?”
“It’s more of a murder-suicide. It’s all the rage these days.”
“You’re off your rocker,” Agnes said. “Why not just turn yourself in to the cops? You might be good for an insanity plea.”
Kimberly put her hands against her belly protectively. “Please, don’t kill me. My baby doesn’t deserve to die.”
“I agree with Kimberly,” Agnes said. “Why not just let Kimberly leave.”
Vincent began to pace. “Because you all have to die. It won’t work any other way. Jeremy will thank me later when I console him. What man wants to raise the baby of another?”
“A good man, is my thought,” Agnes said. Out of the corner of her eyes, Agnes caught sight of movement outside the patio door, but tried hard not to react or look. She prayed it was someone who had come to help them before this madman killed them, and murdered Kimberly’s unborn child.
They made way for the door when Vincent strode to the kitchen, but he returned quick and shouted, “Where do you think you’re going?” He had donned gloves and was wiping off the pistol. “Who wants to die first?”
“That’s like asking someone if they want to get a shot,” Agnes said.
Eleanor shrugged. “Or if they want their blood drawn.”
Clive jumped toward Vincent and Vincent popped off a shot at him; at about the same time, the patio door shattered. Agnes took ahold of Kimberly and pushed her behind a leather chair for safety as a rifle went off, dropping Vincent to his knees.
“God dammit!” Vincent shouted.
Cops rushed forward with guns drawn. Agnes, Eleanor, and Kimberly held their hands high, but Clive was on the floor in a heap.
Kimberly wailed. “Is Clive dead?”
Deputy Danworth strutted forward and pressed a hand against Clive’s chest wound, shouting for assistance. Tears trickled down Kimberly’s face.
“You bastard!” she shouted at Vincent. “How could you?”
Vincent was on his stomach, a deputy’s knee to his back, holding him as metal cuffs were slapped around his wrists. Sirens echoed closer, and within minutes, paramedics were on scene working on Clive as Agnes, Eleanor, and Kimberly were escorted outside. Jeremy ran to Kimberly and hugged her tightly as she wept into his arms. A gurney rolled past and Clive was loaded onto it and off they went in the waiting ambulance. With flashers on, the ambulance tore off down the road. Another ambulance arrived, taking Vincent to the hospital, along with a deputy in back for security.
Sheriff Clay Barry made his way toward the group along with a blood-covered Deputy Danworth, who was cleaning off his hands with a garden hose. “Can you tell us what happened here?”
Kimberly swiped the tears away. “Yes. Vincent Barnett intended to kill us all. Thank God you arrived in time. How did you get here so quickly?” Kimberly asked Deputy Danworth.
“Your husband called us and told us he received a panicked voice mail message from you, Kimberly.”
“We tracked Mrs. Barry’s Impala’s GPS and the state police found it in a ditch about an hour away. It was then that we tracked your cell phone and it led us here,” Sheriff Barry added. “We knew something was very wrong. When we arrived on the scene, we heard the commotion that was happening inside and we proceeded with caution until shots were fired inside.”
Agnes sighed. “I never thought I’d say this, Sherriff Barry, but I’m so glad to see you. I was so worried that Vincent would kill Kimberly and the baby.”
“He planned to kill us all,” Eleanor added. “Vincent planned to kill us and make it look like Clive was the person responsible. Clive’s a hero, in my book.”
“He tried to stop Vincent before he had a chance to kill us and that’s when Vincent shot him.”
“But why, is what I want to know?” Danworth asked. “What did any of you do?”
“We were getting too close to the truth,” Kimberly said. “When we found out Vincent had taken a large life insurance policy out on his daughter, Clare, we knew he was the killer. He also killed Sasha and told us he’d have killed us that night if we had stayed outside longer.”
“It seems Sasha used to be involved with Vincent, but then she hooked up with Clare, and from what Vincent said, it was an embarrassment to him. He was also broke, from what he told us,” Agnes said.
“Sasha had sued Clive for sexual harassment in the past,” Agnes said. “Although I’m still unclear why Vincent had to help pay Sasha off.”
“Or why he’d get involved with her later,” El added.
Deputy Danworth squared his shoulders. “We men do some strange things sometimes, especially when it comes to beautiful woman. Isn’t that right, Sheriff?”
Barry nodded. “You don’t know the half of it.”
Agnes smiled in relief. “So, you never considered Clive a suspect, then?”
“Not at all, but we were still investigating Sasha’s murder. We’d have turned up the information about the lawsuit soon enough. How did you piece this all together?” Barry asked.
“Well, after Sasha died, we did suspect Clive of murdering both women, but Sasha also gave us some useful information about who to question next. We drove all the way to the McGregor Hotel in Harrington to question a few models, who then told us about the life insurance policy.”
“And you found out all of this how?”
“Just questioning people. It seems folks are more inclined to spill their guts to unassuming senior citizens than they are to the cops.”
“It’s a good thing you two came to town. I was about ready to put together an arrest warrant for Kimberly,” Sheriff Barry said. “I’m so glad to learn you weren’t involved. I mean, I knew, but Deputy Danworth wasn’t so easily convinced.
Kimberly rolled her eyes. “Well, it’s not like I’m his most favorite person in the world.”
“That’s not true,” Danworth said. “I was just doing my job. I’m glad to find out you were innocent all along.”
Jeremy yawned. “Does that mean I can take my wife home, now?”
“Maybe you should take her to the hospital to get checked out. She had to crawl out of the car after I put it in the ditch,” Agnes said. “It also wouldn’t hurt for us to get checked out, too. I sure know my hip is aching horribly, now.”
Danworth got on his radio and called for more ambulances. Soon all three ladies were at the hospital, making a nuisance of themselves, asking about Clive Baxter and his condition, but unfortunately, thanks to the privacy policies, no information was given.
Epilogue
Mrs. Barry’s house had standing-room only, except for Clive Baxter, who was reclined in a black leather chair. One month ago, he had sustained a life threatening injury, but luckily for him, Vincent Barnett’s bullet had narrowly missed Clive’s heart and punctured a lung instead. He was still on oxygen now, but the doctors hoped to be able to take him off it, soon.
Kimberly massaged a cramp away as her loving husband, Jeremy, gazed on in wonder, while her parents, Bethany and Hal Steele looked on from across the room. Kimberly’s belly had really poppe
d out the last month, but she still wore sky-high heels like she always had. “I can’t thank you enough, Agnes, for coming to town to clear my name.”
“Hey, what about me?” Eleanor asked.
Kimberly laughed. “Okay, I wasn’t trying to forget you, Eleanor. I hope both of you plan to make Redwater a regular stop.”
“You do realize that where they go, crime is sure to make an appearance?” Jeremy reminded Kimberly with a wink.
“Of course you did hire us, Mr. Hot Shot Lawyer, this time around,” Agnes said.
“Crazy B—” said Birdie, who was held by Mrs. Peacock.
“Sorry,” Mrs. Peacock apologized.
“You need to take that damn bird to obedience classes,” Eleanor said with a snicker.
“If they had them for Macaws, believe me, I’d be the first one in line.”
“You can’t blame the bird. He just says it like he sees it,” Eleanor said.
Deputy Danworth elbowed his way through the crowd with a box wrapped in blue paper, handing it to Kimberly. “I’m not really good at this sort of thing, but it’s for the baby.”
Kimberly wrinkled her brow. “Why is the present wrapped in blue paper?”
“In my opinion, you have to be carrying a boy because you sure were one gutsy gal throughout your ordeal.”
“Girls can be quite gutsy, Danworth, I’ll have you know.”
He shrugged. “Believe me, I know that, now. I also wanted to give you a peace offering. We really got off on the wrong foot. I promise you the next time your dog, Weenie, is on the beach, I’ll look the other way.”
“And I promise I’ll slow down when I pass your place, so I won’t run over your dog again.”
Laughter filled the room, or it could be a tipsy Mrs. Barry, who toddled into the room with the sheriff behind her. He handed Agnes a silver badge. “In this town, you’ll always be an honorary deputy. Sorry, Eleanor, I only have one so you’ll have to share. I know we never saw eye-to-eye when I was running for office in East Tawas, but this case was an eye-opening experience. It’s no wonder the sheriff back in East Tawas tolerates you.”
“It’s a work in progress. It was great to be able to help Kimberly out, but she’s one smart cookie too, and we all made a great team.”
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