by Emmie Lyn
I made an educated guess that Frank wasn’t the mastermind behind whatever was going on between these two. He exited the office quicker than a seagull snatching a sandwich.
“Rhondy?” Lily, with her don’t-mess-with-me voice, ambled around Rhonda and plopped into Ray’s chair behind his ultra-modern, glass-topped desk. She propped her crossed ankles on the desk and settled back in the chair. “What contracts are you looking for? Maybe I can help you find them.”
Rhonda’s head swiveled between Lily and me before she made a decision. She pulled a chair close to the desk and made herself comfortable, too.
Pip and I stayed near the door as Lily’s backup, ready to enjoy this confrontation. I had my money on Lily.
“Well, Lily, I was trying to finish up some loose ends.” Rhonda shrugged and flicked her wrist dismissively. “Just trying to be helpful, take some of the burden off your shoulders.”
“That’s very thoughtful. And Frank? He was helping you?”
“As a matter of fact,” Rhonda leaned forward so she could put her hands on the desk, “the contract I was looking for has to do with the Two Wilde Funeral Home building. Maybe you didn’t know this,” she said with condescension dripping from her words, “Ray just finished negotiations to sell the building to Frank. It’s nothing you need to worry about, though, everything is all set.”
“Right, Frank did mention that to me.” Lily removed her feet from the desk and propped her elbows there instead. She tapped the tips of her fingers against each other somewhat impatiently. “As I recall, though, Ray wasn’t interested in selling. What changed?”
Lily’s strategy of laying out a web for Rhonda to get stuck in had me clenching my hands with frustration. I wanted her to charge ahead for the kill.
Rhonda, sounding full of confidence, answered, “Oh, you know Ray. One minute he was going in one direction and the next minute, he changed course a hundred and eighty degrees.”
They both shared a laugh at Ray’s expense.
“So, I’ll just keep poking around until I find the contract,” Rhonda said.
“Actually,” Lily crossed her arms over her chest, “my plan is to put a hold on all business until I’ve had a chance to review each and every document before moving forward. You know, since this is my responsibility now, I have an obligation to make sure everything is in order.”
“But—”
“No but’s about it, Rhonda. I’m sure Frank will understand.” Lily made a big deal of using a key on her key chain to unlock a document size drawer in the desk.
I wished I could see Rhonda’s face as she jerked forward to look over the top of the desk. “What’s in there?”
Lily slid out a stack of manila folders, taking her time to straighten them before piling them neatly in front of her. The snail’s pace was killing me, and I could only assume that Rhonda was ready to explode.
“Well, how about we take a peek.”
Lily flipped through the folders, reading off the names connected with each transaction. She slipped one folder to the back of the pile without reading the name. “Nothing here involving Two Wilde Funeral Home.”
Rhonda stood up. “What are your plans for Bayside Real Estate, Lily? I’m trying to be patient with you, but until today you never had even the tiniest interest in this business. Ray did everything here, and he promised I could have a more senior position, even be a partner soon. You can’t possibly think you know enough to run this real estate business.” She sat back in the chair and crossed her arms
A twitch next to Lily’s eye was the only indication that Rhonda had overstepped her boundaries. I casually sauntered around so that I had an unobstructed view of Rhonda and Lily’s faces. I needed to know what was coming. Since I’d run out of patience, I decided to give things a nudge.
“Rhondy.” I liked the sound of Frank’s pet name for Ray’s sister. “How did you feel about Ray and Lily getting back together? I’m guessing that might have been a teeny tiny problem for your plans to climb the ladder here?”
I could feel the temperature shoot up in the room. “What is this?” she snapped in a heated retort. “You’re ganging up on me now?” Rhonda glared at me. Hate dripped from her tone thicker than molasses in winter.
“As a matter of fact,” she snarled, “it was Ray’s opinion that Lily couldn’t run this business.” The corners of her lips got stuck between a grimace and a smile. “I have to wonder, Lily, with Ray dead now, you get everything instead of only half if you waited for the divorce to be final. What do I get? A big fat nothing.”
Was she really asking for sympathy with the pouty mouth she gave us?
I was only one step away from her now. “Rhondy, I hope you aren’t suggesting that Lily murdered her own husband, because I’d take that as a threat to my best friend.”
Rhonda smirked at me. “The whole reconciliation was a scam just like that funeral. Ray only wanted to protect himself and his assets from her greedy divorce threat. Lily was on board with the whole scheme. You didn’t know that did you, Dani? Your best friend was scheming behind your back.”
I scoffed in her face. “Nice try to divide and conquer but my friendship with Lily is as deep as Blueberry Bay. Are you seriously trying to paint Lily as Ray’s killer?” I threw my hands in the air and laughed in her face. “Lily has an alibi. You didn’t know that did you, Rhondy? And while we’re on the subject of alibis, where were you after Ray’s funeral fell apart?” I reached out and pushed her hair behind her ear. “And where is your missing diamond star-shaped earring? Did you lose it in the Little Dog Diner?”
Rhonda slapped my hand away. “My ear was infected, so I took the other earring out. Not that it’s any of your business. Where was I after the funeral fell apart? That’s none of your business, either.” She walked out with an air of victory.
Maybe she didn’t want to admit it, but Rhondy hadn’t won a darn thing.
Chapter Nineteen
Lily sagged into Ray’s old chair. “I’m exhausted from that interaction with Rhonda. How will I ever manage this whole real estate business, Dani?
“Don’t worry about that now. I’m more interested in what’s going on between,” I made quotations with my fingers, “Rhondy, and Frank. What shenanigans are they up to anyway?”
Lily perked up a little. “Don’t forget what she said about searching your apartment. She was looking for contracts.”
“Exactly and I noticed you snuck one of the folders to the back of the pile.” I reached across the desk and slid the bottom folder out. “May I?” I asked before I opened it.
“By all means,” she said.
The label said Lemay holdings. I flipped it open and scanned through the various properties. The last entry caught my attention. “This is interesting, Lil. This is a contract to sell Two Wilde Funeral Home to Frank Wilde. Did you lie to me about that? Were you hoping to hide this from me?”
Lily jerked upright in her chair and it bounced against the desk. “No!” she said adamantly. “What are you talking about? I didn’t lie. I didn’t want Rhonda to get her grubby hands on it until I had a chance to check it out first.”
She grabbed the papers from me and flipped through to the signature page. Her face turned to a pasty gray and she showed it to me. “That’s not my signature. I never signed this, Dani. Someone forged my signature.”
“Ray?”
“Or Rhonda. That would be my guess, but I’m not sure. Here, take a closer look.” Lily handed the paper to me.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d think this was your signature.”
“Right? But I’ve never seen this document before. Ray never talked to me about it and,” she stabbed her finger on her name, “I did not sign this.”
“Okay. Okay.” I held my hands up and paced around the office taking in the details, hoping to find a clue of some sort. I stopped in front of a small gallery of photos on a bookshelf. “When was this taken?” I handed her a framed photo.
Her face softened as she look
ed at the image. “On our honeymoon when I still thought Ray was the sweetest, nicest guy I’d ever met. We had a great time.”
I also noted two enlarged photos of Pip on the wall but decided not to bring that to Lily’s attention. It wasn’t Pip’s fault that Ray gave his precious dog a bigger platform than his wife. They were nice photos.
“What do you think of this idea, Lil?” While I’d meandered around the large office, my mind put some pieces in order. “Ray signed your name on the contract. He told you he wanted to reconcile, probably so he didn’t have to hand over half of his net worth to you.”
Lily’s mouth opened but I put my finger up to stop her comments.
“This is just a theory, Lil. He put on that elaborate funeral and promised you a trip because he said he was in danger.”
Lily cocked her head like I’d zoned out for the past twenty-four hours. “Well yeah. Have you forgotten? He must have been in danger. Someone killed him, remember?”
Rather than get into an eye-rolling contest with her, and giving a snarky, of-course-I-know-do-you-think-I’m-an-idiot retort, I reminded myself her husband had just been murdered. He might have been a creep and a crook, but he was her crook. So, I dialed it back and said soothingly, “Right, but he didn’t know he would be killed. I think he wanted to get you out of town so the deal could be finished. Then you’d never know what he’d done. Did you know you’d have to sign off on the property?”
Poor Lily’s shoulder’s slumped under the weight of all this. “To be honest,” she said sadly, “Ray probably could have convinced me that my name wasn’t even on the deed.”
She hung her head. “Rhonda was right. Ray did do everything in the business, but that’s because he didn’t want me involved. Now I can see why. He knew I’d never agree to some of the deals he made.”
“Oh, Lil.” I put my arms around my dearest friend in all the world and hugged her close to me. Her pain was my pain. “You okay?”
She sniffed and her head nodded against my shoulder. “Thanks, Dani. I’m mad at myself for letting Ray manipulate me. If he wasn’t already dead, I’d wring his neck.”
That made me laugh and I had to wag my finger at her. “Don’t stand on Main Street and shout that threat to high heaven, Lil. There are plenty of folks that might take it the wrong way.”
“I’m not stupid.” I felt her body sag a little bit; my little joke seemed to have hit a nerve. “You know what the worst part of all this is?”
I had an idea but just in case I was wrong, I shook my head. “What?”
“You were right about Ray. Thank you for not rubbing it in.”
What could I say? I hugged her again, glad I had the sense to show some restraint when it came to Lily’s relationship with Ray. I finally understood that sometimes it’s best to sit back and let the other person figure stuff out for themselves. I wasn’t saying it was easy to keep my thoughts to myself; I was reminding myself that sometimes it was the smart thing to do.
“Enough of this pity party,” Lily said as she let go of me and returned to Ray’s desk. “I’m going to go through all of Ray’s papers with a fine-toothed comb and organize everything, so I finally know what was going on with this business.”
“Good plan,” I said.
“Are you going to talk to Detective Crenshaw about Rhonda trashing your apartment?”
I gave that serious consideration but came up with an alternate plan. “First I want to talk to Luke. He studied criminal justice so he should have good advice for me. At this point, if I wait a little bit, will it make a difference? All I have for evidence is a conversation we overheard.”
The edges of Lily’s mouth twitched. She saw right through my explanation. “I’m sure Luke will love to help you,” was all she said, but I was positive she knew I was using it as an excuse to visit him. “But before you go, let’s take a look at the Blueberry Acre folder. After what we discovered about the funeral home, we shouldn’t take anything for granted.”
“Good idea. Where is it?”
Lily shuffled through the folders until she found it. “One thing about Ray was that he was meticulous about writing everything down. If he had some shady deal planned, the details will be in here.”
The file was fairly thick, and I examined each page carefully. I didn’t think it was a bad idea to overthink things or be overly suspicious even though Marty had already sounded like he’d given up on buying the farm. But then, I almost missed the most important paper in the folder.
“Look at this, Lil.” My stomach churned with fear.
“Did you find something?” She snatched the paper out of my hands and from the speed with which she absorbed the information, I knew Lily was perfectly capable of running Ray’s business. Heck, any business.
She looked up at me, her face knotted in concern. “Blueberry Acres owes a hundred thousand dollars to the town in back property taxes? The farm goes into foreclosure if that money isn’t paid by,” she looked at the page for confirmation and then back at me. “Today,” she announced in disbelief. “Do you think Luke knows about this? What’s going on? Didn’t Marty say he’d given up on building those high-end condos?”
I slapped the paper on the table. “Of course, he told Luke that. He fooled all of us with that passionate speech about developing a bed and breakfast. Marty wanted Luke to relax and think he’d given up on buying the farm so he could swoop in.”
She shuffled through more papers in the file. “This is almost worse.”
She handed me a copy of a letter written by Ray to Marty: Let Old Man Sinclair think you’re going to make a big offer. Keep stringing him along. Once the farm goes into foreclosure, you’ll get the property for pennies on the dollar. That’s what your hundred thousand gets you!
Lily grabbed my arm. “I’ll make a copy of both papers for you to take to Luke. He has to get right on this and pay those taxes today.” She checked the time on her phone. “The town office close at four thirty, so he only has an hour.
“What if he doesn’t have the money?” I asked. “Would Luke be able to come up with a hundred thousand on such short notice?”
Lily was thinking fast and talking faster. “I’ll loan it to him. Don’t forget that Ray transferred a hundred thousand dollars into an account for me. I doubt he ever dreamed I’d use it to foil one of his schemes. Isn’t it funny how karma can come back in unexpected ways?”
I folded the papers Lily shoved in my hand. “You should come with me.”
Lily pushed me toward the door. “No. I’ll keep looking through these folders and meet you at the town office in a half hour. You need to come back with Luke or his dad. Hurry up, Dani.”
The excitement-charged conversation must have filtered into Pip’s nap because she was awake and out of the chair without my nudging her, eagerly waiting at the door, ready to help in any way possible.
As I hurried to the MG, I shot off a short text to Rose to let her know what was up. Next, a text to Luke that I was on my way to the farm with important information. Neither of them responded, which was irritating, but I didn’t have the luxury of worrying.
Pip seemed to know something was different. I loved how she had tuned into my energy so quickly. Without hesitation, she jumped into the MG and took up her post, tapping her front paws on the dashboard in a kind of Morse code that I translated to mean time’s a’wastin’, Dani.
I guess the good traffic cops of Misty Harbor were on their donut breaks as I put the pedal to the metal and broke some speed barriers on my way over to Blueberry Acres, or I never would have made it in time.
Chapter Twenty
Rose’s Cadillac, parked behind the Blueberry Acres delivery truck, caught me by surprise when I pulled into the parking lot at the farm. Was something else going on here to complicate the pending disaster?
With Pip glued to my side like a sticky note, we hurried to the door, which opened before my knuckles had a chance for a second knock.
“Dani? What are you doing here?” Rose
asked, surprise etched on her face.
“I was about to ask you the same thing. Is Luke here?” I stood on my tippy toes trying to peer behind her. Pip scooted right in without waiting for an invitation.
Rose glanced behind her then whispered, “There’s been an accident. Luke’s wife is in the hospital, and he flew back to California to be with her. On his way to the airport, he called and asked me to stay with Spencer. He’s been sitting in his chair with his head back and refuses to talk. I’ve known him my whole life, Dani, and I’ve never seen him like this. I’m at my wits end trying to get that stubborn old man to tell me what’s going on.”
Luke’s gone? I didn’t have time to sort out the jumble of emotions colliding through me at the moment. My eye was on the clock, or my mind’s eye was and getting a hundred thousand dollars to the town office before Luke and Spencer lost the farm.
“It’s worse than you can imagine,” I said, out of breath from racing up to the office from the parking lot. I glanced at the window, half expecting to see Spencer’s face looking at us. He wasn’t. “Lily and I discovered some papers locked in Ray’s desk that could mean the end of Blueberry Acres. Can I come in or should we continue this conversation outside?”
Rose stepped out with me and pulled the door closed. “What did you find?”
I handed the papers to Rose, wondering why the secrecy. Why wouldn’t she let me into Spencer’s house? She scanned the papers quickly, grasping the urgency instantly.
“Ray set this up? It’s bad enough that Spencer was planning to sell the farm behind Luke’s back but this?” She smacked the papers against her hand. “That man doesn’t deserve to own anything in this town.”
“Ray’s dead, Rose. He doesn’t own anything anymore. Lily is in charge of everything now. I think she’s going to do a great job, but we don’t have time for that discussion. If we show these papers to Spencer, they speak for themselves. Don’t you think he’ll understand that Ray and Marty planned to wait for him to lose the farm, leaving him with nothing? We have to get him to the town hall before they close.”