“What’s fine?” Catherine asked, looking between her daughter and her brother-in-law. “Tabby, what’s wrong?”
The question made Tabitha crumble. She brought her napkin up to her face half a second too late to hide the tears beginning to fall. Kenneth’s eyes narrowed, his expression twisted in what could only be sympathetic pain, but he didn’t get up and go to her.
Jeremy cleared his throat. “The night Hal died, I found Tabby in the hall. He was… his usual drunk self. Anybody in her position would have done what Tabby did.”
“But what did Tabby do?” Catherine asks, her voice growing more panicked. “No, wait, don’t say anything else.”
She really doesn’t know what happened. She might be the only one.
“I didn’t hurt Daddy!” Tabitha sobbed. “I mean… I did. But I didn’t… I didn’t—”
Again, Jeremy picked up the thread on his niece’s behalf. “Tabby didn’t kill Hal. She kicked the heck out of him, then panicked. We dragged him back to his suit together and dumped him in bed.”
“Jer, don’t say anything else!” Catherine Jepsen’s eyes darted to me and narrowed.
I raised my hands. “It’s not me you need to worry about, Catherine. Detective Reid already knows the stories he heard this morning don’t fit.”
“Then we’ll tell him the truth when he comes back,” Jeremy said. “I loved Hal, but he was an abusive bully. He deserved worse.”
Catherine’s eyes widened in horror. “For goodness’ sake, Jer, think about what you’re saying!”
“The honest truth about my brother, Cathy. Maybe for the first time in my life.” Jeremy reached up and undid the top button of his shirt. “Hal deserved worse, and I’d have given it to him years ago if I had more of a spine.”
Emily reached for her husband’s hand. “Jer, honey don’t talk about yourself that way.”
“Why not? It’s the truth too.”
The energy in the room shifted. Now that the dam of secrecy was broken, there was no stopping the flood.
“May as well finish it.” Jeremy slumped back in his chair. “After we got Hal back in bed, I sent Tabby back to her room. I waited to see if Hal would wake up.”
“Did he?” I asked.
Jeremy shook his head. “No, but I noticed some blood collecting on the pillow case. I figured Tabby’s strikes went a little wild. If I’d gotten to take a swing at Hal, I know I wouldn’t have been able to keep control. I grabbed a washcloth and used it to stop the bleeding, then I switched the pillow with the one on Cathy’s side and flipped it over. I figured Hal was more likely to forget what happened if he didn’t see the blood. At worst, I figured the hotel would charge for a new pillow case.”
“Honestly, Jer!” Catherine huffed. “Why cover for him?”
“I was covering for Tabitha, not Hal. And I won’t apologize because I would do it again.” Jeremy looked at me. “But I swear, my brother was still breathing when I left that room. Hal was alive.”
I believed him, but they weren’t all telling the truth yet. I turned to Emily, who had been strangely silent the entire time.
She shrugged. “Don’t look at me. I wasn’t even on the second floor. The pregnancy has had me feeling restless at night, so I was downstairs.”
I didn’t believe her. By that point in the night, Ashley was in the front parlor. Ash would have seen Emily sneak into the downstairs sitting room to watch television, and she would have told me about it.
For now, I let it go and turned back to Jeremy. “How did the bloody washcloth get into the bathroom?”
He shrugged. “I put it there. Hal always woke up hungover, and he had this rigid morning routine that he used to cope with it—”
“Mercy, that routine!” Catherine rolled her eyes and took a big swig from her glass of wine.
“It started with checking his medicine bag for his epinephrine injector,” Jeremy continued. “Every morning, right after he opened his eyes he’d check for the pen. After his first cup of coffee, he’d check the expiration date, I took it and left the bloody cloth in the sink.”
“Why take his medication?” I asked. “Weren’t you afraid something might happen?”
“I carried a spare for him,” Jeremy said. “Have since we were teenagers. After the bathroom, I would have been Hal’s first stop. But his heart gave out first.”
Jeremy’s shoulders slumped. His eyes drifted from my face to the table. I could only imagine what he was thinking—what I would be thinking were I in his shoes. Had he been wrong about the severity of his brother’s injury? Jeremy didn’t seem to know about the wine. Did he think his brother had needed medical attention, and by choosing his niece instead… he had doomed him?
I didn’t believe he had. Now I had another piece for the puzzle of what happened that night, but I didn’t believe I had all of them. Not yet.
Emily squeezed her husband’s and turned to me.
“I found Jer on the sofa in our suite a little while after,” she said. “He looked so pale and shaken I wouldn’t leave him in peace until he told me what happened.”
“All of it?” I asked.
Emily nodded. “I insisted he get some sleep, but by that point the storm had started and he was under so much stress. So he took a sleeping pill. He didn’t wake up until the next morning.”
The table descended into silence again, but this time, nobody reached for their food. All five pairs of eyes stared at me, as if I could rewind us all back to the day they’d arrived. The day before their secrets had come crashing down on them.
“Are we done here?” Catherine asked.
“Just about,” I said. “I know what happened now.”
Chapter Thirty
Catherine’s lips flattened. Her fingers curled tightly around the stem of her wine glass.
“Of course you know what happened,” she said. “We’ve just told you.”
“You told me part of it, but not the whole thing. I don’t think any of you can be completely honest when it comes to what happens in your family. I think the lies have taken so much of a hold, you don’t remember where they end and the truth begins.”
Catherine’s face flushed. “Is that so?”
I nodded, but tried to keep my voice gentle. The last thing I wanted to do was cause Catherine Jepsen any more pain.
“And I think Tabitha was at the end of her rope that night,” I said. “Against all odds, she managed to have a romantic evening on the first night of vacation, and her father spoiled it all by bringing all the baggage from back home along with him. That’s why she went into the hall and tried to break up the fight.”
Tabitha sniffled. Catherine took a sip of wine. Nobody tried to deny my theory.
“But that would have further inflamed Harold’s already raging temper.” I continued. “Enough so he would forget where he was and who was around. That’s when Kenneth got involved.”
The young finance executive shifted uncomfortably in his chair, but he held my gaze firmly.
“Why would I get involved?” he asked. “What would I possibly gain by getting involved in my boss’s personal affairs?”
“Nothing, which is why you didn’t go out when the target was his wife. But once he turned on Tabitha, you couldn’t stay out of it anymore. That’s how Harold fell. That’s how he got the head wound.”
I saw Kenneth’s jaw work for a few seconds before he nodded. “She asked me to stay out of it, but—”
“You still should!” Tabitha sobbed softly. “Ken, you don’t have to be involved.”
“But I am involved, Tabby, and I want to be,” he said, taking her hand gently. “Besides, Laura’s right. It’s all going to come out. There’s no stopping it now.”
Tabitha wiped the tears from her cheek with her finger tips and mumbled a soft okay.
Kenneth turned back to me, but he didn’t let go of Tabitha’s hand. “Harold was going ballistic on both of them. When I came out, he had Tabby by the collar and he was shaking her.”
“That’s when you pushed him,” I said. “To separate them.”
He nodded. “I only meant to push him away, but he was so plastered he… he crumbled like a rag doll. He hit the ground like wet cement, and then he stopped moving.”
Catherine reached for the bottle of wine on the table and refilled her glass, this time almost to the brim. “We should have all just left him there. I said so that night, and I meant it. It would have served him right for putting his hands on Tabby.”
“That’s when you left?” I asked.
“You’re darn tootin’!” Catherine raised her glass a little too quickly, spilling a few drops of the red liquid on the wooden table. “I grabbed my things from our suite, went into Melody and Alexis’s room, and locked the door behind me. It made for tight quarters, but they’re better company than Hal ever was.”
With that, Catherine’s order of events for the night seemed complete. According to her, and just about everyone else at the table, she had the most to gain from her husband’s death but the least opportunity to take action. She hadn’t even known how he got back into bed.
So far, my theory was holding, and Catherine Jepsen was off the list of suspects.
One down. Four to go.
I turned to Kenneth. He shrugged and put an arm around Tabitha’s shoulders.
“Catherine’s suggestion suited me just fine,” he said. “Tabby was too shaken up to sleep, so I suggested she grab her laptop and we watch movies until she got tired. We watched sitcom reruns until we fell asleep.”
Tabitha nodded. “That’s where I went when I left Uncle Jer. First to my room to grab my backpack, then back to Kenneth’s room. I didn’t leave until sunrise. Sorry, Mom.”
Catherine waved a dismissive hand. “Just have better taste than I did. You’re a good man, Kenneth.”
The tense silence returned. This time instead of looking at me, almost everyone looked away. They must have been ready for my questions—for this whole ordeal—to end.
Almost there.
“Getting Harold back to the other end of the hall must have taken a long time,” I said, turning to Kenneth. “You didn’t wonder where Tabby had gone?”
He shrugged. “I could hear what was happening. She knew I was awake. If she wanted help, she would have asked for it.”
I agreed Tabitha Jepsen didn’t strike me as a woman who liked being fussed over. Kenneth’s logic seemed sound. Tabitha was already on edge and reluctant to commit. Why risk pushing her too far by offering help when she didn’t ask? It was safer for him, and the relationship, to wait.
Besides, Kenneth and Tabitha hadn’t killed Harold Jepsen.
Before I could say anything else, the sound of a chair scraping against the hardwood floor pierced the silence. Emily Jepsen slid back from the table and flew to her feet. The color drained away from her face. One hand moved to her stomach, the other clamped over her mouth.
She rushed out of the room before anyone could stop her.
“Morning sickness?” Catherine asked.
“Must be,” Jeremy said, turning to the path his wife had taken with concern evident in his eyes.
I doubt it.
Emily was the only family member whose whereabouts couldn’t be accounted for that night. She was the only one who knew everything that had happened. One of only two people who knew that Harold Jepsen didn’t have his epinephrine injector that night. And according to her, the other had taken a sleeping pill and was out of commission until sunrise.
I didn’t know why, but Emily Jepsen had killed her brother-in-law.
Chapter Thirty-One
I ducked my head into the hallway and listened for the sound of a closing door. Given everything the Jepsen family had already admitted to and my suspicions about Emily’s involvement in Harold’s death, I didn’t believe for one second she was actually going to the bathroom.
My suspicions were confirmed when I heard the soft sound of a door closing in the kitchen. Much farther down the hall than the bathroom, in the alcove behind the staircase.
“Oh, no!” I hurried toward the kitchen, just in time to see Granny coming out.
She looked at me in confusion. “Is everything all right, honey? You look upset.”
“I am! Did you see Emily Jepsen walk this way? She’s supposed to be going to the bathroom.”
Granny huffed. “Oh, I saw her. But she’s a long way from the bathroom. She just went outside through the back porch. Looked like she was gonna be sick.”
Of course she did. Her world was crashing down around her.
“I need to get to her before she does something terrible. Call Reid, tell him to get back here. Quick.”
“Wait, where are you going? Should I let your sister know?”
“Just call Reid,” I insisted as I ran for the door. “Emily killed her brother-in-law.”
“Laura, wait!” Granny cried after me.
But I couldn’t. There had been so many lies in the Jepsen family and so much pain. If there was any hope of me reaching Emily, I had to try.
It was still raining outside, a gentle patter that slowly soaked through my shirt. I looked up the walkway and saw Emily running toward the boathouse.
The boathouse was an old wooden structure, built in the 1980s to resemble a building from an earlier, more nostalgic time. For most of his life, Andrew’s family owned at least one boat. For most of the years his parents owned the Paradise, they had offered fishing excursions to guests—for a modest additional fee. But neither Andrew nor Danielle had any interest in fishing tours. They didn’t have the money or bandwidth to find an employee to handle them either. So the elder Lopers sold their boat and bought a smaller one to enjoy in retirement. Meanwhile the boat house sat unused, its wooden walls wearing in the face of weather, always bumped to the end of the Paradise’s never-ending list of necessary repairs.
That was an awful place for Emily to be.
I ran after her. “Wait! Stop!”
Emily looked over her shoulder, but kept running.
I ran after her, skidding to a halt at the door and dipping inside.
Emily was waiting for me. She flew toward me, letting out a guttural screech I wouldn’t have believed could come from her if I hadn’t heard it myself. Her fingers wrapped around my collar and pulled, knocking me off balance. I scrambled across the deck and collided with one of the support beams.
I looked down to see the dark water rushing up at me. Even in the boathouse, the water was still high and rough from the storm. It would drag me out into the open water in no time at all. I grabbed hold of the beam closest to me. A jagged nail embedded in the wood bit into my palm, but I held on.
When I finally managed to pull myself back to safety, Emily Jepsen was standing over me. There was almost no light in the boathouse, except moonlight and an ambient glow from the big house, but I could see the silhouette of a wooden oar clutched in Emily’s hands.
I stared up at her, my heart sinking as the gravity of the situation sank in.
Reid warned me not to go too far. He said she’d killed once and wouldn’t hesitate to do it again. But I wouldn’t listen.
“Hurting me won’t change anything,” I said, still struggling for air. “Whatever you’re planning won’t erase the truth.”
A strange smile came to her lips. “Planning? How could I be planning anything? I’m mad with grief and overloaded with hormones, courtesy of the baby. That’s why I came out here for air, you see. And you are such a wonderful and compassionate person, you came after me. You didn’t know I couldn’t swim. You didn’t expect to find me in the water, thrashing for my life. For my unborn child’s life.”
“Your family is still at the house. By now somebody’s checked the bathroom. They won’t believe it happened that way. Neither will my family.”
She shrugged. “Maybe not, but your family is easy. Doesn’t matter if it’s through favors or threats, money covers all sins. Hal taught me that. His money kept Catherine prisoner. It silenced my husba
nd. It charmed me into his bed.”
At last, the truth. “It’s Harold’s baby, isn’t it? Not Jeremy’s.”
“Who said something so awful?” Emily demanded. “That little weasel Kenneth? He thinks he’s so clever, nosing after Tabby. As if making eyes at the boss's daughter is novel.”
“Jeremy told me.” I braced my feet against the deck planks and pushed myself into a crouching position. “He hasn’t admitted it to himself yet, but deep down, he knows.”
Emily looked down. “Jer’s looked the other way before. He can one more time. It’ll be the last time I make him do that. I made sure of that when I took care of Hal.” She shrugged her shoulders, a gesture at odds with the trembling in her voice.
“Is that why you did it?” I asked. “To protect Jeremy?”
Emily nodded. Her fingers tightened around the oar. “When I found out I was pregnant, I told Hal first. Stupid me, I thought I could swear him to secrecy before I told Jeremy anything. And it worked… for a while. Then he found out the baby is a boy. He became obsessed with making the baby his.”
Yes, he would be. Catherine had called her husband Henry VIII reborn. A man obsessed with producing a son to carry on his legacy, and viciously bitter to the woman, in his eyes, who’d failed to deliver. Yet here was not only a son, but living proof of Harold Jepsen’s ultimate triumph. Over his brother. Over his own wife. Over his brother’s wife. Over everyone and everything that had ever denied him.
The man Harold Jepsen’s loved ones described would never let that pass. That was the one secret he wouldn’t keep, nor allow anyone else to.
“He wanted to make it public,” I whispered.
Emily laughed bitterly. “The affair, the baby, everything. He didn’t care what it would do to his wife, or his daughters, or his brother, or me. He just wanted everyone to know that when it got down to it, he could make a boy.”
“Is that why you went to his room that night? To talk him out of it?”
“It was supposed to be my last chance to,” she said. “When we got back home, he was going to serve me with papers and force me to take a paternity test. I was… desperate to get him to change his mind. That’s why I was restless that night. By the end, even the thought of spending time with Hal made my skin crawl.”
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