Duty and the Beast

by Chelsea Field

  Was that it?

  “Okay, let’s leave the victims out of it,” I said. “How might Isaac persuade Rick to willingly give him millions of dollars?”

  “Well, people hand over money to solve problems. I suppose Rick’s biggest problem was the impending trial.”

  I thought about it. Rick had seemed pretty uncaring about the trial, but there was no doubt in my mind that he would’ve loved to have the jury proclaim him not guilty, to prove all the media stories wrong, and to walk away from his “creative business” practices without a single consequence. That was when I remembered that Stanley Cox wasn’t the only one who’d claimed Isaac was going to help Rick clear his name. Lyle had said the same thing.

  So why would Lyle be under that impression when it was evident Isaac would never help a scammer like Richard get away with his crimes?

  Oh.

  “What if Isaac was giving Richard a taste of his own medicine by scamming him? He could’ve pretended he was somehow able to guarantee the outcome of both court cases and charged Rick a hefty fee for his services. A fee he was secretly planning on donating back to the victims. That would explain why Lyle thought they were working together to clear Rick’s name even though we know Isaac would never do that. And if Isaac convinced Rick to hand over the money before the trial was over—probably with the aid of Suadere—Rick wouldn’t realize he’d been conned until it was too late. Plus he could hardly tell anyone he’d paid Isaac to make his problem go away.”

  I’d caught Connor’s interest. “If that was true and the Knightleys caught on to the scam, they’d both have a motive to kill Isaac. But then Richard’s death makes no sense.”

  Yes, it was a strong motive to kill Isaac. And while Connor’s second point was a good one, the pieces were clicking together in my brain thick and fast now, and I thought I could explain that too. Could explain all of it.

  Why the people who knew Isaac swore it was impossible for him to be helping Richard, and yet Lyle and Stanley had told us that’s what Isaac had been doing.

  Why Isaac and Richard had been killed together, even though none of our suspects had a solid motive to kill both of them.

  And why making any of our former suspects fit was like hammering a square peg into a round hole.

  I realized I’d been doodling on my napkin in concentration. Oops. I dropped the pen and flipped the napkin over, hoping Connor hadn’t noticed. My doodling skills were far less impressive than Adeline’s. Mostly it was a lot of question marks, plus a pair of devil horns over the words Richard Knightley.

  At least it wasn’t love hearts.

  Ahem. “Remember how Lyle said he was skeptical about Isaac’s ability to clear Rick’s name? Lyle told us he didn’t know the details because Rick was mad at him for expressing that skepticism, but what if that was a lie? What if Lyle knew the details and was convinced Rick was being scammed? But Rick was stubbornly refusing to believe it?”

  Connor raised a brow. “You’re not suggesting Lyle would try to kill them both, are you?”

  “No. He’d want to protect Richard and wouldn’t take kindly to someone trying to cheat his son. It’s no secret he’s protective of the Knightley name either—he’s said a few times how people are seeking to take advantage of their weakened position. I’m suggesting maybe Lyle felt like he needed to send a message. A powerful, lethal message about what happens to those who dare to mess with the Knightleys. Only Rick skipped out on their evening engagement and Lyle’s plan went horribly wrong.”

  “Explain.”

  “At the time of the murder, Lyle had organized for Rick to be having drinks with him. Where he’d be safe. Except Rick got a phone call from Isaac, something that was exciting enough for him to drive straight over. I would guess Isaac wanted to secure the money before the trial began and Rick could realize he’d been deceived. But regardless of the reason, Knightley Junior, being the selfish cad he was, blew off his dad without even telling him about it.”

  “So why didn’t Lyle just call off the murder?”

  “I’m betting Lyle wasn’t able to do the hacking required himself, so he must’ve outsourced it. Maybe he couldn’t get ahold of that third party in time to get them to reverse the coding changes they’d made to the AI. Remember how many phone calls he made to Rick that night? Too many for a father used to his son’s unreliable ways.”

  Connor used his own napkin for its intended purpose. “Yes, that did strike me as over the top. And I thought Lyle’s word choice was odd when he said his son ‘wasn’t supposed to die.’ He’d also have the money and knowledge to make that offer to Cox. An offer that was only made after the murders. But he couldn’t have planned to use one of the scam victims as a patsy beforehand if he believed his son would be safe with him, so it would’ve been quick thinking on the part of a grieving father.”

  A sudden breeze flipped my napkin over and blew it toward Connor. In my haste to snatch it back, I knocked over my glass of water. Dammit. That was probably more embarrassing than the doodles.

  Lucky I had my napkin on hand to mop it up.

  Connor donated his napkin to the cause and waited patiently.

  I put the sodden, inky mess on my pastry plate. “Lyle didn’t turn his millions into more millions by being thick-witted. Or emotional for that matter. He’s smart and he’s the one and only suspect we have that all the details make sense for. It must have been Lyle.”

  Connor stood up. Maybe to avoid the last of the water dripping off the table. “All right. Let’s go tell Hunt we’ve identified his murderer for him. And that we don’t have a single shred of evidence to prove it.”

  20

  Hunt was about as pleased as I’d imagined he’d be. Meaning I was pretty sure he was envisaging rummaging through my bag and finding something to break.

  After putting our heads together and going over every possible angle we could think of for another hour, we were convinced it must have been Lyle. The problem was, none of us had any ideas how to get him convicted for it.

  He may have pulled off the perfect crime. Or at least close enough to perfect that no jury would find him guilty.

  The police had been unable to trace the microcomputer found in Isaac’s home to anything at all. It was a common model, and while they’d confirmed the device had been used to make the changes to the AI security system, they hadn’t found any identifying information on it.

  Someone would’ve had to plant it there, but the microcomputer was free of fingerprints. The thirty days of surveillance footage was a dead end too since no one had conveniently carried the device in their hand on their way to Isaac’s front door. Plus it could’ve been smuggled in prior to the thirty-day period we had coverage for.

  With Richard’s DNA on file, the police would be able to check for probable DNA matches with Lyle at the crime scene, but we weren’t holding our breath. He’d probably convinced someone else to plant it for him, and even if he hadn’t, his DNA in Isaac’s house was hardly incriminating by itself. It’s not like we would ever find a murder weapon with his prints on it.

  Murder by machine, by a few simple code changes, was incredibly clean.

  Between the voice distortion, burner phone, and unseen cash drop-off, Lyle had ensured that Stanley Cox would be useless in identifying the person who’d hired him.

  The strongest link we had was that only Stanley, who’d been told what to say by the killer, and Lyle himself had claimed that Isaac was helping Richard. But if my theory about why Lyle had killed Isaac was correct, that part of Mr. Knightley’s story hadn’t been a lie.

  Our best shot was finding someone Lyle had enlisted to help him pull it off. The mysterious hacker who’d changed the AI. The person who’d planted the microcomputer in Isaac’s home. Perhaps someone he’d paid to make the cash drop-off to Stanley’s door. But we had no leads on any of those fronts, and without a chance of getting a warrant to go through Lyle’s house and computer, no way of acquiring them.

  In short, proving Lyle’s gui
lt might be impossible.

  Connor suggested we call it a day so we could look at it with fresh eyes tomorrow. We’d all experienced how sometimes the brain worked better on a problem when you stopped focusing on it and did something else for a while.

  Except in this case, I couldn’t summon much hope of that happening. The subconscious was a powerful tool, but it couldn’t conjure up evidence where there was none. There might be more than one way to skin a cat, but what do you do if you don’t have a cat to start with?

  Connor drove me home in silence, both of us worn out from rehashing the case every which way. It was only when he stopped the car that I recalled the vow I’d made this morning.

  I needed to convince Connor to talk about our relationship.

  What had he thought of the letter? What was he thinking about us? Surely he had to agree that we could make this work—so long as he wanted it to. I jumped off that train of thought before it pulled up to Sob-story Station. Of course he wanted to. He’d said he loved me a little over two weeks ago. Things didn’t change that fast. And he’d made every effort to be kind and break the ice after our painful talk on the stair landing, hadn’t warmed to Adeline in the slightest, had stood up for me against Hunt on numerous occasions, and brought me coffee each morning. Of course we were going to make this work.

  Now I just had to convince him of that.

  I cleared my throat. “Um.” Off to a good start. “I need you to talk to me. Share your response to that letter.”

  He started to protest, but I interrupted.

  “No. Look, I know you can’t have anywhere else you have to be right now since we’re taking an unexpected afternoon off. And I know this is hard for you to talk about. But I think we both want this to work if it possibly can. I recognize you have your doubts, but I believe we can figure this out. It’s like a case though—we need to hash it out, talk about it from every angle to find the solution, and I’m refusing to let this go until we’ve at least tried. So if you want me to stop bugging you about this, the way to get that to happen is to talk it out with me. Now. Before you can come up with some excuse not to.”

  Connor expelled air from his nose. “You’re not going to let this go, are you? I thought we’d agreed to keep our work and personal lives separate.”

  “We did. And we are. That’s why I brought it up now we’ve finished for the day. Besides, it shouldn’t come as a surprise I’m not giving up so easily. You once described me as the most impossible woman you’ve ever met.”

  His shoulders—those oh-so-strong shoulders—actually sank a fraction, and for a second, I thought I’d won.

  “All right,” he said. “When the case is over, we’ll talk.”

  My mouth opened and shut like a fish. It was a brilliant maneuver. One I couldn’t find a comeback to that wouldn’t jeopardize the concession he’d just made.

  Fine. I’d wait till the damn case was closed. But if he thought he’d found a loophole because it was looking as if this case would never be resolved, he was going to be disappointed.

  I wasn’t going to let Lyle get away with taking Isaac from his grandmother. And now I had even more reason to see Lyle Knightley behind bars.

  21

  I was throwing Meow’s new pink mouse around the living room (new to her at least) when a fully formed plan walked itself into my mind. A plan to do the impossible, to trap Lyle into convicting himself.

  The only problem? Connor would hate it.

  I turned it over in my head, desperately hoping I could get someone else to do the dangerous part. The part that might just blow up everything I’d been working toward achieving with Connor. But as much as I wished otherwise, I was the best person for the job. Probably the only one able to convince Lyle the threat was real.

  Hunt and Connor might’ve had opportunity to do what I’d be claiming, but I had the advantage of knowing Richard and Lyle before the crime had been committed. And thanks to my attempted sabotage of the job interview, Lyle already thought of me as someone who was fame-hungry, uncaring, and amoral. The type of person who would do something like this.

  On top of all that, if Lyle didn’t go for option number one, I was the only individual on the case he’d perceive as weak enough to try option number two: attack.

  God help me, I wished I could be more like Adeline in this moment. She’d have no problem choosing her personal interests over the well-being of others. But when I thought of that crappy old bowl Isaac Anand had pretended was worth forty-five thousand dollars and thought of the grandmother who’d lost both her only son and now the grandson she’d raised as her own too, I couldn’t do it. Couldn’t let Lyle get away with this if it was in my power to prevent.

  Which meant I had to tell Connor the plan. I’d promised I wouldn’t see anyone connected to the case without him, and I had to keep that promise at all costs if we were ever going to be able to work from a place of trust and equal footing.

  Unfortunately, keeping the promise jeopardized the happy ending I was keeping it for.

  I banged my head on the foot of the couch, apologized to Meow for bailing on our game, and picked up my phone.

  This was a conversation that needed to be had face-to-face, so I asked Connor to meet me at a park by my house. A park he’d taken me to once when I’d been upset, not realizing my comfort came from food more than nature.

  I was hoping he’d derive some calm from the greenery since it had been his instinct to take me there. I needed all the help I could get.

  A short while later, I spotted his familiar striking figure and walked over to him. “I have good news and bad news.”

  “Then why do you look like you’ve been sentenced to life in the gym?”

  “Um…”

  “I’m not going to like this, am I?”

  I wished again that Connor’s worries could be eased by comfort food the way that mine and Oliver’s and Hunt’s—and well, almost everybody else’s—could. Nature was wonderful and all, but this conversation needed a vista like the Grand Canyon to put into perspective.

  A few leaves were not going to cut it.

  “Maybe we should sit down,” I suggested.

  We found a park bench, and when we were seated, I took a deep breath and outlined the plan.

  “No. It’s too dangerous.”

  “That why I wanted you and Hunt there.” I flashed him an encouraging smile.

  Connor buried his face in his hands.

  “Seriously, it’s not that bad. I’ve been keeping up with my self-defense lessons—as you saw in that YouTube video—and I’ll agree to absolutely any security measures you want. We can make this work.”

  His response was muffled by his fingers. “How about the security measure of not going in the first place?”

  I tried for a chirpy and reasonable tone. “Any except that one. Unless you have an alternative plan—in which case, even that one!”

  Connor looked up. “You don’t have to do this. It’s not even your job to do this. For heaven’s sake, why do you need to do this?”

  “Because Mrs. Anand has lost not only her husband and son but the grandson she raised as her own as well. She deserves justice.”

  “Deserves, yes. But it’s not going to bring her grandson back, is it?”

  I swallowed a lump in my throat, remembering Earnest. It was true, solving his murder hadn’t brought him back. But I also remembered how much it meant to Mrs. Dunst that his killer was found. And how much would Connor have given to achieve that for Sophia? “I know. You’re right, but—”

  “Don’t you get it? You could be killed getting this justice! Where’s the justice in that? What about justice for me”—he cleared his throat—“I mean, the people who love you? Think about them before you run headlong into danger chasing this justice thing you value so dearly.”

  His words gave me pause, raising questions I didn’t know the answers to. Was the risk—a small risk—to my life worth seeing Lyle go to prison for what he’d done? You could argue that
he wasn’t super likely to kill again, so what if I was risking my life just to give Mrs. Anand closure and see Lyle punished? Was that worth it?

  I didn’t know.

  But what was the alternative? To turn a blind eye to any crime that didn’t have immediate and fatal consequences? How many terrible things had been carried out and overlooked with justifications like that?

  And where did that leave me? When I’d first come to LA, I’d been running from a bad situation, my life out of my control, shoved around by forces bigger and nastier than me. I’d felt powerless. Yet solving that first case with Connor, saving Dana’s life, had shown me I didn’t have to stay powerless. That we always have a choice. And I’d been getting stronger since then. I liked who I was becoming. For the most part anyway. So if I chose now to let this killer go free, would I be able to live with myself in the days and weeks to come? Besides, there was risk in everything. Life itself was a risk.

  Even so, I was tempted to turn a blind eye just this once in the hopes of reconciling with Connor. The problem was, it wouldn’t be just once. If we reconciled, we were sure to find ourselves back in this situation, and I wasn’t okay with having his fears rule my decisions forevermore. So I had to explain, try to help him see things how I saw it. And pray that it wasn’t going to be the final nail in the coffin of our relationship.

  “I’m sorry,” I told him. And I was. “I know you have damn good reasons to avoid loss at any cost, but life and death isn’t something anyone has control over, and I don’t want to make all my decisions as if it is. I could die tomorrow in a car accident—or shopping at Best Buy like Isaac’s parents—or I could live until I’m a hundred and three. At the end of the day, the only thing I have control over is the choices I make in the hours allotted to me. And I want to stand up for what’s right. The way you showed me. I’m going to talk to Lyle.”