by SUE FINEMAN
Billy and Kayla finished painting inside, and the carpet she’d chosen for the attic was installed. Aside from a few small projects, like cleaning out the tool shed on the back of the property, they were essentially finished. The house looked as good as it was going to look. It was time to put it on the market before the rest of the summer slipped away.
He called three real estate brokers and asked for marketing plans, including recommended pricing for the current market. There wouldn’t be many buyers who were qualified to purchase a house this size, but Billy didn’t want it sitting on the market forever.
The first Monday in August, Billy signed a listing agreement on the house. The list price was three-and-a-half million dollars. He doubted they’d get close to that amount, but the real estate broker, Patricia Moon, seemed confident about the price. The other two brokers came in closer to four million, but Billy knew that would be pushing it. River Valley was in Ohio, not California or New York, where real estate prices were much higher.
The brokers’ open house was held that Wednesday. Patricia had asked everyone in the house to leave while the agents toured the house. Georgia had a doctor’s appointment that morning, but Billy had no intention of leaving, and neither did Kayla.
Kayla was up early that morning, tidying the house and baking cookies for the agents. Snickerdoodles, Billy’s favorite. The kitchen and family area smelled like cinnamon.
Billy ran the vacuum, and Georgia freshened the bathrooms, not a quick task, since there were so many bathrooms in the house.
By the time the agents arrived at eleven-thirty, Georgia was gone, and Kayla sat at the piano in the ballroom, playing soft music. She had the French doors on the ballroom wide open, so their guests could hear the music while they ate. The ballroom was the only room in the house that hadn’t been painted. Billy didn’t want to cover the kids’ mural.
The sun shone brightly, and Billy stood at the barbecue grill out by the pool. As he grilled hamburgers, he handed them to hungry agents. The purpose of feeding the agents was to keep them there long enough to get a feel for the house, to see how a big family could function there, and to give them a reason to remember the house. There was plenty of interest, but nearly everyone said the house was too big for their high-end clients.
Patricia walked around, pointing out various features to the agents. Billy had neglected to mention the secret room to the broker. If and when the house sold, he’d show the new owner how to gain access to the room. No one else needed to know about it.
Patricia walked over and spoke quietly. “I’ve never seen so many agents at an open house. Providing lunch was an excellent idea, Billy. Every agent in town came to see the house and get a free meal.”
“Good. What about their comments?”
“For the most part, they like it a lot. There were questions about why the bathrooms weren’t updated like the kitchen.”
“Because there are so many of them, that’s why. It’s all we can do to keep them clean.”
She laughed and he handed her a hamburger. Patricia had rented several tables, with umbrellas and chairs, for the open house, and after agents toured the house, they sat out by the pool, talking and eating. Billy was pleased with the way it was going, until he saw Steve Sullivan through the open kitchen door. The minute Steve saw Billy, he froze.
Billy handed his spatula to Patricia and took off after Steve, who had a manila envelope under his arm. Had this jerk gone through his desk while the agents toured the house? Yes, of course he had, but he had a surprise coming when he opened the envelope.
Steve went through the kitchen toward the dining room, and Billy was waiting for him when he got through the living room. “Find what you were looking for, Steve?”
The envelope had Sullivan written on the outside. After he showed those pictures to Elizabeth Stanton, Billy knew the snake would do something like this.
“You’re not going to blackmail me, Kane.”
“Get out of my house. If I ever see you here again, I’ll call the police, and I’ll call a reporter, too, so everyone will know what kind of man you are. Now get the hell out of here.”
Steve ran out the door, and Billy returned to the grill. He should have called the police, but he didn’t want to disrupt the open house after all the work they’d done to get the house in shape to show.
By the time the last agent left, Georgia was home. She helped Billy clean up the mess around the pool.
Kayla asked, “Was that Steve Sullivan I saw?”
Billy nodded. “He thinks he stole the file with the pictures.”
“Did he?”
“No, the file is in the safe. He’ll be back.”
Sullivan wouldn’t give up until he had those pictures.
Chapter Twenty-One
After the successful open house, Billy thought some of the agents who’d previewed the house would bring their potential buyers, but no one came. Kayla spent at least two hours a day cleaning, and Billy and Georgia tidied up after themselves, so they’d be ready if someone called and asked to see the house. But there were no calls and no showings.
Two weeks after the agents had seen the house, Billy called Patricia. “Any interest in the house?”
“None. It’s such a big house.”
“Did we price it too high?”
“I don’t think price is the problem. What we need is a Kennedy family, someone with a big family and a lot of money.”
The academy could fill this house with boarding students, but Billy hadn’t heard back from the board. They didn’t even give him the courtesy of a phone call saying they’d changed their minds on the teaching position, so after he ended his phone call with his real estate agent, he drove to the academy.
A slender gray-haired man in the principal’s office asked, “Can I help you?”
Billy stuck out his hand. “Billy Kane. I taught here for the past three years.”
“Marcus Wilmot. I’m the new principal. If you’re looking for a job…” He shook his head. “We have a full staff this year.”
“The board offered me a position, but I didn’t hear from them again.”
“I don’t know anything about that. All the positions were filled when they hired me.”
Sorely disappointed, but not surprised, Billy drove home. Elizabeth Banning had set the moral standards for the academy, and she didn’t want a teacher who lived with a former topless waitress. And she didn’t want her boarding students exposed to an unmarried teenage mother.
That evening, Kayla came into the library, where Billy sat reading one of William’s books. “I just had a vision about Monica or Monique.”
“What kind of vision?”
“I think she might have killed William.”
He stared at her, surprised by the unexpected revelation. “Tell me about it.”
She sat beside him on the sofa. “Monica was here in this house, talking with Eleanor, and William tried to throw her out. But she wouldn’t go.”
“She wanted money.” It wasn’t a question. He knew how Monique operated. If she couldn’t steal something she wanted, she’d con someone out of it. “I wonder how much she swindled out of William and Eleanor over the years.”
“Monica told Eleanor she was broke, and if she and William didn’t come through for her, she’d tell Maggie that William was a child molester.”
Billy groaned. How could he tell Hannah her mother was a killer? The woman was already serving time in prison. “Did you see her kill him?”
“No, but she put sleeping pills in his coffee.”
So she drugged him. “Did you see the heroin?”
“No, but it was the night he died. Who else could have killed him?”
“Eleanor, Maggie, the maid, a business associate… any one of a number of people.”
She looked around the room. “William, are you here?”
William appeared by the door to the secret room.
“Who killed you?” Billy asked. “Was it Eleanor?”
/> “Better give him a way to respond, Billy. If you think Maggie did it—”
“No, I don’t think Maggie did it. She may have been narcissistic, but she wasn’t a killer.” He looked up at William. “Can you give Kayla a vision? Show her what happened the night you were killed.”
Kayla closed her eyes and talked her way through the vision. “Monique was arguing with Eleanor and William at the dinner table. When Monique was left alone, she put sleeping tablets in their coffee. But Eleanor didn’t drink hers. Monique left. Eleanor screamed a few not-so-nice things at William and went up to her room, and William went to bed.
“Monique snuck back into the house, into William’s bedroom, and pulled out a big syringe, but she heard Eleanor coming, so she slid under the covers beside William and pretended to be asleep. Eleanor saw the syringe and plunged it into what she thought was Monique’s arm.”
Billy leaned his forehead against his hand. “Eleanor killed him, but she didn’t mean to.”
“Monique realized right away what happened, and as soon as Eleanor left the room, she escaped from the house and never returned.”
Kayla opened her eyes. “Thank you, William.”
Billy twisted around to face Kayla. “So it wasn’t suicide, and it wasn’t murder. It was an accident. Eleanor meant to kill Monique to stop the blackmailing tramp from talking to Maggie.”
“Eleanor lost her husband, and not long after that Maggie got cancer and died. No wonder Eleanor is having trouble finding her way now.”
A soft thump from the secret room drew Billy’s attention. He jumped up and went to see what it was. An unmarked videotape lay on the floor in front of the television. It was one of three he hadn’t watched yet.
He turned on the television and pushed in the tape. William’s face came on the screen and he began to speak. “Billy, as I’m sitting here talking to you, you’re still a little boy, but someday you’ll grow up, and I hope you see this video then. I don’t think I’ll be around much longer. I’m being blackmailed by Maggie’s natural mother, and she has threatened my life. If you’re seeing this tape, that means I’m gone, and it means you’ve found the secret room, so listen carefully to what I have to say.”
Billy leaned forward, focused intently on the television screen.
“Maggie’s mother is Monique Maxwell, only I knew her as Monica Maxwell. She was a teenage hooker a business associate gave me as a gift. I’d been depressed about Eleanor’s condition, and he thought I needed a night of pleasure. I went along with it, but immediately after I sobered up, I regretted it. That was the night Maggie was conceived.
“After what she’d done to John, I didn’t want Eleanor to get her hands on another baby, but Monica didn’t care. She said if I wouldn’t take the baby – she meant buy the baby –she’d go to Eleanor. And she did. Even though she was angry with me for sleeping with another woman, Eleanor was excited about having a perfect baby to love. Monica lived with us during her pregnancy and made my life a living hell. When Maggie was born, Eleanor paid her off and we brought the baby home.
“Over the years, Monique extorted money from us on a regular basis. Now she’s threatening to tell Maggie all the details of the night we spent together unless I pay her a million dollars. We’ve already given her that much over the years, but no amount would be enough for this woman. She’ll always want more. If she asks you for money, tell your father. Donovan is a good man, and as a police officer, he can arrest her for blackmail.
“If I die mysteriously after I make this tape, take it to the police and let them handle it. Don’t try to face this woman yourself, Billy. She’s wicked, evil through and through.
“I’ve put my affairs in order and left you an insurance policy I hope will see you through college and beyond. I’m also leaving you some property and this house. When the insurance money is gone, you can access the off-shore account. I put the money there so Eleanor couldn’t give it to Maggie or Monique. The money is yours, Billy. Eleanor has enough to see her through, and your father will take care of Maggie. And you know what to do about Monique.”
“What off-shore account?” Kayla asked.
Billy shrugged. It was the first he’d heard of it. He’d wondered what happened to William’s fortune.
On the tape, William said, “You’ll find the numbers for the off-shore account in my parents’ photo album. Look on the back of the picture of my brother in his coffin.”
Billy put the tape on pause and jumped up to grab the photo album off the shelf. Seconds later, he had the picture in his hand. There was a series of numbers on the back. The first number looked like a phone number, so he opened his cell phone and punched in the number. A voice with a British accent said, “Account number please.”
He gave the voice the next series of numbers on the back of the picture and was given the balance, “Twenty-nine million, three-hundred thousand, seven-hundred and ten dollars, and fifty-two cents, American. Would you like to make a withdrawal at this time?”
Stunned, it took Billy a few seconds to find his voice. “Not today. Thank you.”
He disconnected and grinned. “I don’t have to sell the house. I’m rich.”
“Do you want to live here, Billy?”
“Not especially, but—”
“Then sell it. Find a buyer and sell it.”
He twisted to face her. “Is that what you’d do?”
“It’s too big for you. Whether you can afford it or not, it’s too much house for you.”
She was right, but where would he live? He had Georgia and Kayla to think about now, and his apartment only had one bedroom. “If I move, will you come with me?”
She rubbed his hand. “You don’t need me. You can afford to marry some fine lady and have yourself a dozen kids. I’ll find myself a job, and Georgia and the baby can live with me. We’ll be all right.”
“But I won’t. I do need you, Kayla. I love you, honey. I don’t want to go anywhere without you.”
“I love you, too, but you need—”
“You. All I need is you.”
“What about Georgia?”
“We’ll keep her, and we’ll find more kids who need us, and we’ll keep them, too.” He kissed her and she melted into his arms. “Please, Kayla. Please marry me, honey. I love you.”
He held her tightly, fearing if he let go, she’d disappear and he’d never seen her again. “I don’t need kids as much as I need you.”
Buford put a paw on Billy’s leg and one on Kayla’s, and woofed.
Kayla scratched him behind his ear. “I know, Buford. You love him, too, but I don’t know about marriage.”
“Isn’t that what you want?”
“I want you to love me just as I am, whether I can give you babies or not.”
“But I do love you, Kayla.”
“That’s what Leonard said, but when it came right down to it, he didn’t want a woman who couldn’t give him a baby. Think about it some more. Put your life in order and give it some time, then we’ll talk about it again.”
She walked out of the room, her dog tagging along, leaving him alone with a ghost and a picture with a fortune written on the back.
The women on this side of his family didn’t love him, but his grandfather did or he wouldn’t have left him this house and all that money.
Eleanor must have been furious when William died without telling her where he’d put his fortune.
<>
The next day, after transferring money from the off-shore account to his checking account, Billy took the videotape to his father’s office. “I thought you might like to see this.”
“Why didn’t you bring it by the house?”
“I didn’t think you’d want Hannah to see it.” He sat across the desk from his father. “William gave Kayla a vision. Monique was going to kill William because he wouldn’t come through with more money, but some things happened, and Eleanor was the one who stuck the needle in his arm. She didn’t do it on purpose. She thought it was Mo
nique’s arm.”
“So it wasn’t suicide?”
“No, he didn’t kill himself. Monique gave him sleeping pills and Eleanor finished him off. She probably didn’t know what she’d done until the next day, when she found William dead and Monique gone.”
Dad put the tape in his desk drawer. “Hannah doesn’t need to know. She’s already been through hell with her mother.”
Billy pulled the picture from his shirt pocket. “This is on the tape, too.”
“A picture?”
“Turn it over.”
Dad turned it over and stared at the numbers. “What is this, an off-shore account?”
“Nearly thirty million worth. William said it belongs to me. I guess I don’t have to worry about finding work this year. I’ll cover the boys’ college expenses, Dad. What do they want for their birthdays?”
“What do they want or what are they getting?”
“What do they want?”
“Cars, of course, but you don’t have to—”
“Charlie can have my pickup. I’m going to buy myself a new one, and I’ll buy you a new car if Andy can have your old one. I could buy them new cars, but—”
“Not a good idea. The pickup is perfect for Charlie. If he had a car with a backseat, we’d have a girl like Georgia knocking on the door in no time.”
Billy smiled. “That’s what I figured. Tell the boys to go ahead and plan their birthday party. Might as well have a big one, since I don’t plan to have the house next year. If I can’t sell it, I might just have to give it away. Can you get away for a couple hours?”
“Why?”
“I transferred money to my checking account this morning, and I feel like car shopping. I’ll buy Hannah a new one for Christmas.”
“She’ll love it.” Dad picked up the phone and told his receptionist he was taking a long lunch break, beginning right now.
<>
While Billy was gone, Kayla got a phone call from Leonard. “Hey, Kayla. I know you don’t want to hear from me, but I thought you’d want to know. Norma said they’d let her go if she’d testify against Ted and that lawyer who offered to buy her baby. She said her lawyer would be sending you a bill, since she ain’t got no money to pay him.”
