Unintended Detour: A Christian Suspense Novel (The Unintended Series Book 3)

by D. L. Wood

  “I wonder why Mary agreed to be the go-between. She could have lost her job,” Jack said.

  “Joe’s mother told him she saw something in Lily and Will that reminded her of herself and her late husband. According to Joe, she was a romantic and wanted Lily to be happy.”

  By September, Will’s responses were more fervent, both in his desire to find a way to be with Lily and to help end the utter hopelessness and poverty around him. “People are starving. Dying. I can’t stop thinking about how my own father died in a fight over a loading dock job because he wanted to feed his family. We’re only barely surviving thanks to my work and the gifts from your pantry. It’s horrendous. And then there’s your father, with his palace on Fifth Avenue and now an even bigger one up the Hudson. It’s sickening. I know you agree. How the same blood can run through your veins, I’ll never understand. I’ve been considering what you proposed, and you’re right. I think we can do it. And I think it’ll change so much for so many, including us.”

  “He’s talking about the robbery,” Jack said. “A Robin Hood scheme. I can’t believe it was her idea.”

  “I know. But think about it. She would have known about the party they were planning and the guests they were inviting. Her parents were desperate to keep up appearances. She would have known how much jewelry would be in that banquet hall that night.”

  “And Mary knew about this and didn’t say anything?”

  “Joe swears his mother said she kept her word and never read the letters she passed along for them. She didn’t know anything about it.”

  Jack blinked, sighing heavily. “I can’t imagine the guilt that must’ve plagued her after the fact. No wonder she never said anything. Or Joe either. I’m surprised he’d give you these even now.”

  “I promised to make it clear that his mother knew nothing. I actually got a recording of him telling the story from his perspective and what he knew from his mother. People can hear it straight from him.” Sadness pricked her heart. Carrying that secret, knowing she might have done something to stop Lily’s death, must have been an unbearable burden for Mary Graves.

  There were more letters from October and November confirming that Will agreed with Lily’s plan to stage a robbery and leave with a sack full of jewels. But one thing the letters made absolutely clear was that no one was to get hurt. There would be a gun, but he wouldn’t use it against anyone, even if it meant getting caught. Afterwards, they would meet up in the city and then run away to Philadelphia, where they’d sell the jewelry and donate nearly all the proceeds to the needy, keeping just enough to live on.

  “Then we’ll go out West,” Chloe read from the November 20, 1930, letter. “Start a new life. You and me, Lily. You can have your horses and dogs and a barn full of every animal you could ever want. And we’ll have children. Lots and lots of children, lucky to have the most wonderful mother alive…”

  Jack picked up the last letter, dated December 15, 1930, just two weeks before the robbery. “Dearest Lily, This will likely be my last letter to you before it happens. After finishing preparing the spot last week, I think we’re ready. It was a brilliant idea, but then you always have brilliant ideas. I kept looking at your dark, empty window, just to keep me going in the freezing cold. And now that you’ve taken me through the house, I’ll know my way. This is going to work.

  “I’ve found help, but I’m not telling you who it is. The less you know the better. And I don’t want his name in this letter anyway, in case it’s found. He’ll make sure I get out safely. He’s agreed to help in exchange for a small cut of the loot. I’ve known him a long time. I trust him, but only so far. I’m not telling him everything. I’m not telling him where the spot is. Only you know that. Collect it and meet me as planned in the city on January 3rd by the clock in Grand Central. That’s when our lives will start. I’m marrying you, Lily Stone, as soon as we get to Philadelphia. Then you’ll truly be mine. Until then, I love you and will forever. Your soon-to-be-husband, Will.”

  “This is a lot,” Jack remarked, the last letter now laid on top of the stack, both of them staring at the pile of revelations.

  “It answers so many questions, like why Will chose this estate and how he knew so much about the house. I mean, it sounds like Lily sneaked him through it beforehand. He knew exactly where to go,” Chloe said.

  “And where not to. It also proves Will had an accomplice. Two, actually if you count Lily.”

  “Yeah. But who was the other guy? And what happened to him? And why didn’t Will say anything to help himself by giving up his name?”

  “If the accomplice was loyal, Will was probably protecting him. After all, whoever it was didn’t say anything about Lily either,” Jack speculated. He held Chloe’s gaze. “Can you imagine how Will must have felt when they told him she was dead?”

  A dizzy wave of sick passed through her at the thought of hearing such news about Jack. “He had to be devastated. Guilt-ridden. Completely lost,” she said and could tell by the wistfulness in Jack’s eyes that he was imagining and feeling the same about her. “The police records say he was shocked by the news. That all Will would say was to ask them to tell the family how sorry he was. I know they were trying to do good things, help the needy and all, but how could they have thought this was the way to do it?”

  “You heard it in the letters,” Jack replied, tapping the stack. “They didn’t feel there was any other option. It doesn’t excuse it, but it does explain their choice. She detested her father and his stinginess and extravagance, and so did Will. It must have felt like some sort of justice for them to take what he wasn’t willing to freely give.”

  “I’ll bet Will Rader would never have tried this if Lily hadn’t suggested it,” Chloe said. “After everything, after all the years of everyone blaming Will for what happened, the truth is that Lily Stone was responsible for her own death.”

  “Will clearly didn’t see it that way, which also might explain why he never disclosed where the treasure was to the police. It was blood money. Lily died for it, trying to get it to people who really needed it. He and Lily already thought the people in that ballroom were a bunch of greedy rich folks who had more than their share and were wasting it. He wouldn’t want them to get their things back. Especially after one of them shot her.”

  That makes sense, she thought, brushing a hand over the letters absentmindedly.

  “And maybe he didn’t want a more lenient sentence by turning it all over.”

  “You think he wanted to be punished?” Chloe asked.

  “Possibly. I’d never forgive myself if I got you killed as part of some ridiculous scheme like that. No matter how well intentioned it was.”

  She scooted over, leaning against him, wrapping a hand around his.

  “They were just a couple of stupid kids.”

  “Maybe. But they paid a high price for that stupidity.”

  They sat like that for a few moments, quietly taking it all in. “Are you going to put all this in the exhibit?” Jack finally asked.

  “I think I have to. The only person left in the Stone family is Lilyanne Caudle, but she doesn’t have strong personal feelings about it. Her mother did but not…” Chloe’s words trailed off as a thought struck her. “Mrs. Caudle said that her mother, Cora, blamed their father for Lily’s death. She said she never quite understood her reasoning but that Cora was insistent about it. This must be why.”

  Disbelief creased the lines of Jack’s face. “You think Cora Stone knew about the robbery plan? She was only six.”

  “I don’t know if she knew about the plan, but she knew about Will. She’d met him, remember? She could have recognized his voice during the robbery. Maybe they warned her. Or maybe she just overheard them talking about her father’s stinginess and put it together later, when she was older.” Chloe grabbed one of her curls and twisted it through her fingers, contemplating the possibilities.

  “Or maybe Mary Graves eventually told her? If Cora liked Will as much as he indicated
in his letters, maybe Mary didn’t want her thinking badly of him.”

  Chloe pondered that. “So Cora blames her father for her sister’s death. And this leads her to keep quiet about Lily’s involvement in the robbery, if she ever learned about it at all. She certainly never told her daughter.”

  “None of this answers the question everyone’s going to be asking, though.”

  “Where he hid the loot?” Chloe asked, Jack nodding in confirmation.

  She sifted through the letters and pulled out the one that talked about Will on the estate property preparing “the spot.” She laid it on her lap and tapped the line gently. “I think, from the way he speaks about being outside and looking at her window, that he was doing whatever he was doing outside.”

  “Yeah. I think so too.”

  “Which would mean he didn’t hide it in the house.”

  “That still leaves a lot of ground to cover. Literally. This property is enormous. It could be anywhere—buried in the ground, tucked away in an outside wall behind stones he loosened, in the pools, in the fountains, under the sculptures. He could have carved a hole in a tree and tossed it in there. The possibilities are endless.”

  Both their gazes swiveled to the view outside their window, and the vastness of the rear grounds was again impressed upon Chloe. She tried to think of ways to narrow down the list of hiding places.

  “Well, he obviously didn’t toss it in the river, so that theory’s out. It would have to be located in a place that he could get to quickly after exiting the house. And the hiding place itself would need to be easily accessible and able to be closed up quickly too. So many spots have been checked over the years, many of them scanned with metal detectors. Maybe if we can find the details from some of those searches, we can eliminate some options, but I wouldn’t even know how to begin gathering that information.”

  “Joe wasn’t able to give you any clues about the treasure?”

  “He said he had no idea where it was,” Chloe said. “Cora never mentioned anything about it, and neither did Mary. He said he’d swear on his life that neither woman knew what Will did with it.”

  “So, when it comes to finding the treasure, other than being pretty sure it was hidden outside, we’re no closer than we were before.”

  “But in terms of getting closure for Lily and the family and this legend, knowing this part of the story, knowing the why, makes a huge difference. This gives me more than a tragic tale. It gives me something to work with so I can spin it into a story that encourages gifting, sharing the wealth. It’ll turn a legend into a legacy.”

  “I like that. Legend into legacy. You ought to be a writer. A journalist maybe…” Jack smiled.

  She slapped his leg playfully. “I’m going to do some good here.”

  “I know you are. You always do.” He pulled her close. “I want to do some good here too. I want to find out who tried to kill Riley and why. I want to bring an end to the destructive craziness plaguing this place.”

  “You have to let the police do their job. They’ll get to the bottom of it.”

  “Not fast enough for me. That state police detective has been on this since Nate Lewis died, and as far as I can tell, they’re still in the dark. If Patrick Kingsford is involved, if he’s got someone planted here doing his bidding, I want that person outed.”

  “Jack, Riley went looking for answers in that basement—” She pressed a finger against his lips, hushing him as he opened his mouth to speak what she expected would be a vigorous defense of his friend’s actions—“And you know he shouldn’t have, at least not alone. And look what happened.”

  “It’ll be fine, though. He’s going to be okay.” Jack’s voice was firm, his presentation confident. But as the person who knew him better than anyone, Chloe detected doubt in his tone.

  “Of course, he is,” she said. “You heard the doctor. A couple of days, and they’ll be able to remove the tube, and he’ll be reminding all of us how charming he is. In the meantime, I don’t want you joining him in the hospital. So leave the detective work to the detectives.”

  He groaned. “I’ll try.”

  “Thank you,” she replied, knowing full well that no matter what he said, Jack Bartholomew would be jumping into the thick of things the second the opportunity presented itself.

  Once a hero, always a hero.

  33

  Jack and Chloe didn’t leave the room for the rest of the night. At around seven thirty, they ordered room service—comfort food of Spaghetti Bolognese, salad, and garlic bread. Cherry cheesecake slices showed up with it, although they hadn’t ordered dessert, along with a note from Deidre wishing them a restful night and saying she would be praying for Riley and checking on him in the morning. After a quick call to the hospital for an update—still stable with no change—Jack passed out just before nine.

  Chloe, on the other hand, found it impossible to sleep. She tried, but her mind was swirling with the maelstrom of discoveries from the day and the adrenaline left over from the crisis with Riley. After staring at the ceiling for an hour with no success at falling asleep, she slid out of bed and to the vanity, where she’d laid the hotel laptop and paperwork from the gallery.

  Might as well try to get some organizing done. Or plan out the new arrangement. Some of the letters would need to be displayed, and she’d need a place for Joe’s recording to be accessed. I’ll need to have a designer put together some kind of wall placard for that. Maybe a museum-like informational board where you push a button and it plays the recorded interview.

  Chloe flipped the laptop open, turning the brightness down and muting it to be sure not to wake Jack. She was still imagining the best way to insert the new material into the exhibit and retain an elegant feel in keeping with the resort, when she noticed she had several new emails. With all that had gone on that day, she hadn’t thought to check them.

  Her heart jumped when she saw that one was from the New York Department of Corrections Records Division. Clicking on it, she was delighted to see that there were attachments.

  Could they actually have gotten back to me so quickly?

  The email was short and to the point.

  Dear Mrs. Bartholomew,

  I received your email regarding the theft of the documents previously requested by your office regarding William Rader. Fortunately, the hard copies of documents at issue had not been refiled yet. I was able to have these scanned as you requested, and they are attached to this email, along with a bill for the electronic copies. If you wish to have another set of hard copies mailed to you, please reply to this email.

  In regard to your question as to when these documents were last requested, according to a notation in the file, the last request was made in 1992.

  Sincerely,

  Mallory Banks

  Chloe turned to check on Jack. He was still sleeping soundly. Swiveling back to the computer, she clicked on the file.

  The documents from the prison included what one might expect: an intake form, a personal property inventory, medical records from the infirmary, cell and cellmate assignments, several incident and complaint reports, visitor logs, and finally, a death certificate and transfer form to the coroner’s office. There were even a few notes from the warden and guards.

  The file painted the picture of an inmate who was quiet, kept to himself, and generally stayed out of trouble. The few incidents he was involved in prior to the one that got him killed were started by someone else and involved Will defending himself. The notes from the warden and guards indicated he was well liked by the staff, which might explain why he jumped in to help the guard being attacked in the brawl that led to his death.

  The visitor logs were interesting. More sad than interesting, really. In the year Will spent in prison, he only had five visits. Four of those were his mother, every twelve weeks, starting a few weeks after his incarceration.

  Must have been a long and expensive trip to make. Especially during those times. Which is probably why she did it alone
. Chloe knew from her research that Will had two younger brothers and a sister. None of the siblings came to see him, though. And now they knew from the letters that his father was already dead by that time.

  Chloe could imagine the heart-wrenching visits between mother and son, her delivering news from home, apologizing for not being able to afford to bring his siblings to see him. Will feeling guilty that she had to spend her money on a train ticket to get there.

  Had he tried to persuade her not to come? If he had, it hadn’t worked. Her last visit was only two months before he died.

  The only other visit was from Ansel Wagner in January of 1932. Under relationship, it listed him as Will’s friend, twenty-one years old, and gave an address of 451 East 12th Street, NYC.

  Chloe stared at the glowing copy of the visitor log on the screen, pondering multiple questions.

  Who was this friend and why did he wait eleven months before visiting Will in prison?

  As for the waiting, that could be reasonably explained. Maybe he had a job or had to save for the expensive trip. What was more interesting than the length of time this Wagner person waited to visit, was how little time he spent with Will once he got there.

  The log recorded visitor sign-in and sign-out times. Will’s mother stayed for several hours on each visit, presumably making the most of their allowed time. But according to the log, Wagner was only at the prison for twenty-five minutes.

  Twenty-five minutes after a long, inconvenient, and costly trip.

  Why only twenty-five minutes?

  The name Ansel Wagner hadn’t come up in any of Chloe’s research. Presumably, other researchers must have known about him, had even seen this record before. But if the last time these records had been requested was 1992, it wouldn’t have been as easy as it was now to dig up information on Wagner with just a name, age, and address. It would all have had to be done on paper through requests and time-consuming channels—and that was if you knew where Wagner had ended up after the address given in the log. If he’d ever left that part of New York, it might have been nearly impossible to find him. Maybe someone had tried and maybe they hadn’t, but if they had, they must not have come up with anything useful.