I felt agitated at the guesthouse. Seven made me promise not to go out looking for Rachel Evans and just let the police handle it. So, I waited until after he went to his room to shower before hurrying out of the waterfront community to catch a bus to Jamestown. There was no way I could just leave it to the police. They weren’t probing enough. And I had to know what the deal was with Ms. Vaughn.
After reaching Jamestown, I got off the bus at Watson Avenue and entered the quiet neighborhood in search of Rachel’s house. I walked for nearly five minutes when the end of the street came into view and I stared out at Dutch Island Harbor. Then, right there on my left, was number 82.
I slowed in front of the house, keeping my fingers near the emergency speed dial on my phone. Just in case. Walking up the entrance, I surveyed the house for any sign if she was home—if in fact it was the right house.
There was no car in the garage and the blinds were drawn. I swallowed down what felt like a rock in my throat as I stepped closer to the storm door. It made a creaking sound as I pulled it open. That did nothing for my anxiety.
Taking a deep breath, I remembered how nice Ms. Vaughn was to me when I met her that time in Mr. Cornwell’s office. I told myself there was nothing to be afraid of. Raising my hand to the door, I knocked briskly and waited for her to answer.
Some time passed and still there was no answer. I leaned to the side and tried to see through the window. It appeared dark with the blinds. I couldn’t see a thing.
I went back to the door and turned the knob. It was locked. I had no idea when she’d be back and I didn’t want to come all this way for nothing. I took my time and slowly went around to the back of the house, trying to remain discreet so neighbors wouldn’t see me sneaking in and call the police.
I lightly opened the storm door and tried the knob. It was unlocked. I opened it and entered the kitchen, then tip-toed across the floor into the living room. I browsed the place, making sure there wasn’t anyone at home before I started looking around for anything that might be helpful.
I lowered a bit as I walked over to the window and peeked outside. Then my eyes glimpsed the pictures on top of the chest by the window. It really was Ms. Vaughn’s house. There were pictures of her and a little boy, possibly her son. I picked one up and stared at him intensely. His sea blue eyes looked familiar.
Setting the photo back down on the chest, I began to rifle through the drawers. There were only utility bills among other things useless to me. I made sure to fix the stuff back the way they were then I walked around the corner to her bedroom.
The room was as neat as the rest of the house. I paused in the middle and peered around for a second before my eyes landed on a box inside her opened closet. I walked over and took the box out, stooping down to go through it.
There were folders from Mr. Cornwell’s office with different types of claims on the front. I went through the pile until getting to one with nothing written on it.
Sitting on the carpet, I flipped it open and skimmed through the papers. My name popped up on one of the pages. It had information about me dating back to when my mom and I lived in Warwick. I assumed it belonged to Mr. Cornwell only there were papers with stuff about Seven and his family as well. I didn’t understand why Ms. Vaughn—Rachel—had gone through the trouble.
I let out a breath in frustration then put everything back together. Setting the box back in its rightful place, I straightened the area to make sure nothing else was disturbed. That’s when my eyes caught sight of a smaller box in the corner of her closet. I reached over and plucked it out of the tight spot it was in. Then I pried it open.
“Uh,” I gasped. There was a gun inside, and a paper splattered with blood. I covered my mouth, utterly shocked by the sight.
“I see you’ve found something you shouldn’t have,” Rachel’s delicate voice rang from the doorway throughout the bedroom.
Startled, the box fell from my hand and I staggered backwards.
She glided over to the edge of the bed. “I really wanted to keep you unharmed for the time being, Julian, especially since you’ll be important in my future.”
I collected my thoughts to say the obvious truth, “You….killed him.”
Rachel shook her head and made the tsk-tsk sound. Inconspicuously, I managed to squeeze my cell phone in my jeans pocket as she began pacing the room. Hopefully, my phone had dialed emergency and they would be able to trace the call.
“I had to. Robert just wouldn’t listen to me. He insisted on keeping the will as is, but after Cole Vanderson got sick like I planned, I knew it was time to take matters into my own hands.”
“What do you mean like you planned?” I gritted my teeth.
“Well, allow me to start from the beginning, since you won’t make it out of this room alive.” She grinned. “I made two separate wills that are absolutely nothing like the original. And secondly, I fabricated that whole story about Robert leaving a last message to me. I believe that’s pretty obvious by now.”
She went back to the doorway and leaned against the wall. “You see, I’d lost so much because of your father and I wanted him to not only die just like my husband did, but I wanted the Vanderson empire to shatter with him.”
I fidgeted in place. “Then it wasn’t a heart attack.”
“Of course not, it’s an untraceable drug,” she gloated. “I slipped it into his coffee the last time he came to see Robert at the office.”
Rachel dipped her head and eyed the box at my feet. “The evidence is all there. Only, no one will find it at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.”
I glanced down at the box as well. “What about me? Why’d you leave the estate to me?”
“Because,” she chuckled. “You were supposed to marry him and then, after some time, you would be killed by your jealous half-sister, and as your husband, he would in turn inherit the estate and Vanderson’s wealth.”
“Well, you’re already too late. I signed the estate over to Mackenzie—”
“No you haven’t,” she barked. “I threatened Mr. Douglas and I know very well Marlene’s lawyer won’t have the papers ready because I’ve dealt with them.”
My eyes shot up at her then.
“Oh don’t pretend to be disappointed, Julian. I hear you’re enjoying Narragansett quite a bit.”
Rachel laughed deviously, while I lowered my eyes to the floor and tried to decipher who was helping her in all this.
Her cackling stopped all of a sudden and I looked up. Rachel was coming at me with a knife. I slid to the side and escaped her aim. She resolved herself and lunged at me again.
“Come here!” she shrieked.
I spun instantly and kicked her in the stomach. Rachel grabbed her belly and moaned, falling down on one knee.
I tried to get the box by the closet, but I had to jump back as she stabbed at me before I could get past her towards it.
Shuffling backwards, I took off out of the bedroom just as she composed herself and came at me again. The moment I turned the corner for the living room, Rachel yanked at my back and shoved me into the chest by the window. I hit my side on the edge and stumbled to the floor.
No time to get distracted by the pain, I crawled quickly past the chest and pulled it down in her way to buy myself some time. Rachel’s eyes flashed with even more anger as her pictures smashed on the floor.
“Damn you!” she growled, climbing over the fallen chest.
Pushing off the floor, I gripped my side as I bustled over to the front door. There wasn’t any time to unlock it. Rachel had already scrambled over the chest and was right behind me. I ducked just in time as the knife came stabbing at me again. It got wedged in the door. I elbowed her out of my way and made for the kitchen.
She staggered a bit, but Rachel was too determined to kill me. She pried the knife out of the wood and hurried after me as I made my way through the doorway. I rushed for the kitchen door but she caught my hair, pulling me down on my back. I hit my head hard on the tile. So ha
rd I didn’t have the energy to keep fighting.
Rachel stood over me. Getting ready to shove the knife in my chest, she raised it in the air and whispered, “Say hello to your daddy for me.”
The front door kicked in right then and I heard Detective Walters yell, “Drop the knife, Rachel!”
“No!” she ignored him and plummeted for me. A shot fired. I looked up. Rachel had been hit in the shoulder. She was only inches away from my chest.
Rachel fell over as the cops rushed inside. An officer pried the knife out of her hands. Detective Walters came over and helped me up off the ground, escorting me outside. Seven was there. Relief washed over him as he saw me come out of the house.
He hurried over and flung his arms around me. “You’re so stubborn,” he scolded. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
I slipped out of Seven’s embrace to ask, “How did you know?”
“Well,” Detective Walters explained, “your friend here called us and said he thought you might be in trouble. Also, there was a dispatch at the station about some emergency call from this location.”
“My cell phone,” I muttered, thankful. Turning to Seven I said, “My father was really murdered. It’s all in that box inside her room.”
“I’ll check it out, Julian,” Detective Walters said. “We also have another thing to charge Rachel for, even though we still couldn’t find any evidence about her faking that last message from Robert Cornwell.”
My brows went up. “What else has she done?”
“Rachel attacked Jennifer Henry two hours ago in the restaurant’s parking lot. Beat her unconscious, not enough to kill her though so she was able to ID her.”
“She’d been watching us,” Seven proclaimed.
Detective Walters nodded. A police officer brought out the box and handed it to him. He took out his pen and used it to rifle through the items inside, examining the gun, then the sheets of paper.
“This gun looks like the model used to kill Robert Cornwell. I’ll have to test the bullet to be certain. I’ll also have the blood on these papers tested to see if it matches Cornwell’s.” He used the pen to unfold the sheets of paper. “This looks like the will of Mr. Cole Vanderson and a paper describing an untraceable drug called Anectine, otherwise known as succinylcholine. This can definitely be used to cause heart attacks.”
He peered up at me and Seven. “Why don’t you two get out of here? Once we’ve had the evidence analyzed the evidence, I’ll send the original copy of the will over to your family.”
We nodded our agreement then headed for Seven’s car. As I got to the passenger side door, I turned in an afterthought. “Detective, what about the person that helped her?”
Detective Walters spun and stared at me with narrowed eyes. “Someone helped her? We’ve had no evidence of that whatsoever, even if she mentioned someone keeping an eye on the family in the letter she contrived. That could’ve been another lie.”
“Yes, but she mentioned something about someone marrying me to inherit the estate. So, what if she did have someone else working with her in all this?” I remembered the boy in the pictures. “What about her son?”
He shook his head. “Nathan Evans drowned at ten years old. I found a death certificate while looking up Rachel.”
I lingered by the car door, still untangling it all in my head.
“Julian,” Detective Walters pulled me out of my thoughts. “It’s all over. Case closed. You can go home now.”
Bobbing my head slowly, I hopped onto the passenger seat. Seven squeezed my shoulder and I glanced over at him and smiled. His face was all I needed to see to uplift me. But Detective Walters’ words left an unsettling feeling in my stomach. You can go home now.
The only question was where was my home?
Chapter Twenty-Seven
I woke up the next day feeling renewed. Mr. Cornwell’s murder had been solved, along with the mystery surrounding my father’s death.
Getting out of bed, I drew back the curtains and let the luminous rays of the sun warm my skin. It was time for me to call Mom. I’d made the decision to stay in Narragansett for a while, especially to work on my relationship with Mackenzie now that she was starting to take small steps with me.
As for Seven, my feelings for him were still troublesome. I hoped one day he would admit he felt the same way about me. Still, while that day might take forever to come, I certainly didn’t mind staying in such close proximity to him.
I showered and got dressed in a t-shirt and jeans shorts. Afterwards, I went outside to call Mom, sitting on one of the beach chairs. I feared she wouldn’t take my decision well.
Mom answered at the first ring. “Jules, my God. It’s been a few days now. Did you get through with the legal stuff? Are you finally—”
“I’m staying in Narragansett,” I blurted out.
The sounds of rushing waves filled the line. I could also hear her breathing deeply, anxiety gnawed at my insides.
“Mom, it’s only for a little while,” I tried to make her feel better.
“No. You can’t stay there. You have to come back to Manhattan.”
I got up from the beach chair. “No, listen to me. Mackenzie and I are actually talking now. Can you believe that? She’s actually treating me like a sister—”
“And what about her mother?” she grunted. “Is Marlene comfortable with you still staying there? Of course she’s not.”
“I know that. So I was thinking I would—”
“Enough with your thinking,” she cut me off again. It was starting to drive me insane. “You listen to me, Julian. If you’re not back in Manhattan by tomorrow, I’m coming to Narragansett to get you because they’re obviously messing with your head. It’s only because of the inheritance he left you, do you hear me? They don’t care about you, Julian.”
Tears flooded my eyes. Her words hurt so much my lips trembled as I spoke. “Why do you do that? You make me feel like it’s impossible for anyone else to want me besides you.”
“That is not true,” she retorted. “I’ve always taught you to accept who you are and not care about what other people think.”
“Yeah, and who I am, Mom? How can I accept myself when I don’t even know that and you don’t want me to find out?”
I was unable to stop the tears. They streamed down my face like a waterfall. I didn’t care if she heard my sobs over the line. She needed to understand all the hurt I’d experienced over the years.
“What is it, Jules? What do you want from me?”
Collecting myself, I said, “I want you to tell me about my father. I want you to tell me how you felt about him.”
“We are not having this conversation over the phone. Now when you come back to—”
“You and I both know we won’t have this conversation in person either, Mom.” I’d had enough of her interrupting me. “You always dodge the topic. So please, for once, just tell me. Don’t make me go on assuming. I need to hear it from you. Was it a mistake? Was I a mistake?”
I sobbed quietly, waiting for her to respond.
She let out a long breath before finally saying, “I loved him, Julian. No. What we had wasn’t a mistake. It was beautiful. It was love.”
Drying my eyes, I stayed silent so she’d go on.
“I’m sorry I never told you about it, that I let you believe whatever. But I did love him. And in spite of telling you otherwise, I knew he was married.”
I gasped, hearing her confession. “But…you said he kept it from you.”
“That was a lie. I just didn’t want you to think less of me if I told you I knew.”
“You knew he was married and you still…” my voice broke off.
“He was going to divorce Marlene,” she explained, it still didn’t make it right. “We were going to move to New York together.”
My eyes widened as it all started to make sense. “That day, you were going to leave together, weren’t you?”
“Yes,” she breathed.
“But, t
hat was years after…I was eleven…you’d already ended the affair.”
“We’d met up a few months before I moved to New York. He said he’d had enough and that he was finally going to leave it all behind, but…” she trailed, sobbing. “When I called him that morning he wouldn’t answer, and he wouldn’t even see me when I showed up at the house.”
“Mom, he was married. There was Mackenzie, not to mention all the responsibilities his own father had placed on him with the family business.”
“But don’t you see, Jules,” she said lowly. “I wasn’t worth giving up anything for. We weren’t worth it.”
And that was the reason she made me feel like only she could love me. “Mom, I want to let it go. I want to move on from that.”
“Then what? He’s…gone, Julian,” she struggled to say the word. I knew how much it hurt because she obviously still loved him.
All I could do was explain how being in Narragansett made me feel complete.
“I just feel so different here, Mom. I want to stay and learn about the other side of me I didn’t get the chance to know before.”
“No,” she sneered. “You listen to me, Jules. I’m driving to Narragansett and I am not leaving without you.”
Choking back tears, I said flatly, “You’ll never understand.”
I hung up before she could get another word in, turning my phone off.
I stood on the beach for a while, soaking in everything my mom had said. None of it mattered anymore though. With all that had happened, I was starting a new. Too bad my mom found it so damn hard to accept that.
When I finally decided to go back to the guesthouse, I spotted Mackenzie on the lawn. She was waiting for me.
“Hey,” I whispered as I got close.
“Hey.” She offered me a genuine smile. “I was thinking I’d like to show you the rest of his paintings.”
Mackenzie tugged on the belt at her waist. She was wearing a floral romper with flip fops and her hair pulled back into a loose ponytail. She still managed to amaze me with how effortlessly put-together she looked even when dressed casually.
Finding Julian Page 15
