by Kay Hooper
“Did that have to include humiliating me? Constantly challenging my authority even in this house? Oh, no, Daniel, I think not. I think you enjoyed it, just the way you’ve enjoyed fabricating this entire—”
“I have proof.” His voice dropped, the words falling like stones. “You know that. And perhaps it’s time the others knew it too. I have proof, plenty of it, that you were criminally irresponsible at best and wantonly destructive at worst. Any judge would have been satisfied, Amelia, with what I had to show. You would have been stripped of all power, all authority, and left with no more than a small allowance and the right to live in this house until you died. Publicly humiliated. But I didn’t do that, did I? I didn’t drag you into court for all the world to see.”
Quite suddenly, in a chilling turnaround, Amelia was calm. Even smiling. And her voice was contemplative when she said, “That was where you made your mistake, Daniel. Your only one, really.”
“Oh? And what was that?” As thoughtful and conversational as she was, Daniel, with the ease of an old habit, slipped back into their polite game.
“You didn’t use your weapon, your evidence, when you should have. It gave me time, you see. And just how long did you think I would go on waiting for you to stop playing your little game and take me to court so you could do it all legally? No longer than I had to, certainly. But I couldn’t just … get rid of you. There was that little matter of the letter you’d left to be opened in case something happened to you, and your evidence against me. So there was only one thing to do. Ruin you.”
Amelia rose to her feet, erect as always, not leaning on her silver-headed cane. “I had hoped that Peter did meet with the broker that night. I assumed he was killed so as to avoid payment.” She might have been talking about the weather for all the emotion she showed. “I also knew that you had discovered the missing plans. But I was certain that, given enough time, the plans would surface—with your fingerprints all over the transaction. All I had to do in the meantime was to keep you … reasonably distracted, so that the search for the plans wouldn’t have your full attention. So that you wouldn’t realize what I had tried to do, and take me to court before I could see you finished. Luckily, a distraction presented itself.” Her gaze flickered to Laura, and she smiled. “That was easy enough.”
“You failed, Amelia,” Daniel said quietly.
“I didn’t fail. Peter failed.” She let out a soft laugh that was like dry leaves rustling in a cold wind. “Men have always failed me.”
“Beginning with David?”
“No. Beginning with my father. But that’s a long story, and I’m feeling very tired right now.” She smiled. “I’ll tell it to you tomorrow, perhaps.”
“I’ll look forward to it.” Daniel’s voice was still low, still courteous.
And Amelia was still smiling as she went slowly, erectly, from the room.
There was a long, long silence, and then Brent Landry stirred and addressed Daniel for the first time since Madeline’s entrance. “You could press charges.”
Daniel was staring down at the notebook in his hands. “No, I couldn’t. The plans weren’t sold. My reputation will be unharmed. And there’s no evidence to connect her to the theft of the plans. She committed no crime.”
“If she killed her husband—”
Looking up at the detective then, Daniel said, “If you want to investigate a forty-year-old accident, good luck. If there was no evidence then, do you expect there to be any now?”
“She might have killed Anne—” Landry began.
“Oh, no, she didn’t do that,” Madeline said brightly.
Daniel looked at his mother for a long moment, then slowly rose to his feet. “Mother …”
Madeline must have seen something in her son’s face, because she took a step back and laughed nervously. “Don’t look at me like that, Daniel. I didn’t mean to kill her, of course. It wasn’t intentional. But she kept going on and on about knowing all Peter’s secrets. And she kept telling people what he’d told her in confidence. Betraying that confidence. And then, out in the garden, she … taunted me. She said I hadn’t known all of Peter’s secrets, that he’d kept things from me. So I told her to shut up and—and I pushed her. And she fell.”
Shaking her head with a little grimace of dissatisfaction, she added, “I would never have betrayed Peter to the rest of you, of course, but I had to prove it. That Anne didn’t know his secrets like she said. I did. I knew all his secrets, all his secret places …” Her voice trailed off, and she smiled.
Alex seemed to shake himself out of the limbo of fascinated horror that had gripped most of the people in the room, and said, “None of this is admissible, Brent. She wasn’t advised of her rights.”
“She wasn’t being questioned,” Brent murmured.
Madeline looked at them, frowning as though they were speaking a foreign language. She pulled at the sweater slipping off her shoulder, seemed to realize that she looked less than her usual flawless self, and shook her head with a little “tisk” sound. “It’s almost time for dinner, isn’t it? I should go and get ready …”
As she went vaguely from the room, Laura rose, said, “She shouldn’t be alone,” and started after Madeline.
“I’ll come with you,” Josie said, and did.
Daniel looked down at the notebook he was still holding, his mouth a grim slash. “She isn’t responsible, Brent. And it was an accident.”
“That’s clear enough,” Alex agreed.
Brent hesitated. “I’ll speak to the DA. Given the circumstances, Madeline still under sedation because of Peter’s murder … he may decide that prosecution would benefit no one.”
Daniel nodded. “Thank you.”
Brent nodded toward the notebook. “I’ll need to take a look at that, Daniel. Peter might have been killed by someone he was supposed to meet that night. If there are names …”
After a moment, Daniel tossed him the notebook. “Discreetly? There’s no point in making any of this public if we don’t have to.”
“I’ll do my best.” Brent frowned at him. “Do you mean to say that you intend to take no action against Amelia? After everything she did to try and destroy you?”
Daniel sat back down on the sofa and reached for the manila envelope on the coffee table. His expression still unemotional, he said, “No, it has to stop. If Amelia had not been involved with the business, she would never have known about the plans for the new design. I can never allow her that kind of access again, and until she has no legal authority …”
“A court battle?” Alex asked.
“I no longer have a choice.”
Brent looked from one to the other. “That’s it? Her punishment is to be publicly tossed out of the business?”
It was Kerry who murmured, “Weren’t you listening? That may well be the worst punishment she could face.”
“But she probably killed her husband,” Brent said. “And possibly created a situation whereby Peter was killed. And it sounded to me as if she would have attempted to have you killed, Daniel, if there had been any chance she could have gotten away with it. Surely that deserves more than public humiliation?”
Daniel looked up at him, and Brent thought there was something both inflexible and certain in his expression. “Justice is always meted out. Eventually. Amelia will have to face a higher court.”
There was another little silence, and then Kerry rose and told Brent, “I’ll show you out.”
Brent went with her, but paused at the door to look back at Daniel. “You’ll—get help for her?”
“For which one?” Alex murmured.
But Daniel was nodding to Brent. “I’ll get help for her.”
A moment or so later, they heard the front door open and close. Kerry did not return to the parlor.
Daniel opened the manila envelope and pulled out the contents. His mouth twisted. “Stills—presumably from one of these tapes or the others we found.” He started to return the black-and-white photographs
of various naked women doing various things with Peter Kilbourne to the envelope, then paused and looked at Alex. “One of Peter’s secret places, she said. This stuff was in one of his secret places.”
Alex stared at him, then groaned. “Oh, shit.”
Daniel nodded. “We’ll have to talk to Mother. Later. When she’s … able. Find out what else Peter might have hidden away.” He sighed tiredly and returned the photos to the envelope.
“Great.” Alex climbed to his feet, his face showing a mixture of disgust and awe. “What a day. Look, I’m going to go call Madeline’s doctor—if Josie hasn’t already. How much should I tell him?”
“As much as you have to.” Daniel shrugged. “As much as he needs to know to help her.”
Alex nodded, hesitated a moment, then said, “Do you know what I find incredible about all this?”
“What?”
“That we still don’t know who killed Peter. It’s as if some ghost walked in off the street, killed him, and then vanished into thin air. All the secrets laid bare in the last couple of weeks, and we still have no idea who killed Peter. I wonder if we’ll ever know.”
Daniel wondered the same thing.
• • •
IT WAS NEARLY seven that evening when Laura knocked tentatively at Daniel’s door. She heard his voice and went in, finding him sitting in the armchair by his cold hearth.
“The doctor’s with Madeline,” she said quietly, coming to sit on the hassock at his feet. “Josie had a tray sent to Amelia’s room and told the cook to just set out food on the sideboard and anybody who wants can serve themselves.”
He nodded slowly, his eyes fixed on her face. “You should eat something.”
“I thought I’d wait for you.”
“I’m not hungry.”
Laura hesitated, then leaned forward and put her hand over the one resting so still on his thigh. “I’ll go away if you’d rather be alone.”
His hand turned under hers and grasped it strongly, just this side of pain. “No.” A faint tremor disturbed the granite stillness of his face. “I need you with me, sweetheart.”
“Then I’ll stay.” Without thought, she lifted his hand and cradled it against her cheek.
Daniel seemed to catch his breath, and the granite cracked a bit more. His eyes were like silver. Unsteadily he asked, “You do love me, don’t you, Laura?”
Perhaps oddly, it didn’t surprise her that he would ask. Nor was she surprised to hear herself reply, “I’ve always loved you. Even before I knew you. Didn’t you know that?”
Daniel closed his eyes briefly. “I only know how long I’ve loved you. God … so long …” He reached for her and pulled her onto his lap, holding her tightly.
Laura burrowed even closer, absorbing his warmth and his hardness, trying to give him whatever he needed of her. Body and soul.
“Stay with me,” he murmured, granite crumbling finally into shards of pain and the emotional weariness of battles long fought and bitterly won. “Just let me hold you for a while.”
To Laura, there was no place on earth she would rather have been. Murmuring her love, she turned her face up for his kiss, and as always the first gentleness became something searingly urgent and unstoppable. It burned away pain and healed bitterness, and when at last they found their way blindly to the bed, it forged yet another thread of belonging between them.
LAURA MOVED HER things into Daniel’s bedroom that night.
AND SOMETHING ELSE happened that night. Ending a generations-long tradition of violent death, Amelia died quietly. In her sleep.
Chapter 16
Just over a week later, on a cool Wednesday morning in mid-October, Laura stepped back from the easel and nodded absently to herself, and dropped her brush into a can of turpentine on the small table that held her paints and other brushes. “Finished?” Daniel asked.
She looked up, smiling, to see him coming from the house out into the conservatory, where she’d been working. “Finished.”
He joined her, slipping an arm around her waist, and they both studied the portrait of Amelia begun before she died. It showed an elegant old lady, her high-necked, turn-of-the-century black gown starkly formal against the background of the casual fan-backed wicker chair and lush green plants. Her dark, dark eyes were secretive, her small smile enigmatic, and something in the tilt of her chin spoke of ruthless self-interest.
“You’ve captured her,” Daniel said. “Congratulations, love. You’re an artist.”
Laura smiled at him, and as they walked back into the house together, said, “I have to say, I feel pretty confident. If I can put Amelia Kilbourne on canvas, I can put anyone there.”
“We’ll hang it in her parlor, I think. Perfect place for her.”
“Even Amelia would probably say so,” Laura agreed.
Amelia might also have been pleased to know that her death had created a sensation. Coming so soon after Anne’s death and Peter’s murder, there had of course been speculation of suicide at best—and murder at worst. But an autopsy had shown clear evidence that Amelia had died of a stroke. Not even the tabloids had been able to do much with that fact, though they had naturally tried.
Still, the past week had been difficult for everyone. After some thought and a doctor’s evaluation, the DA had chosen not to prosecute Madeline, so Anne’s death had been officially noted as accidental. More tabloid fodder, of course. And though Anne’s estate had been minimal, Amelia was found to have a considerable personal fortune in addition to all the legal ties that had bound her to Kilbourne Data and other family businesses; Daniel and Alex had spent long hours in the past week wading through all the complex legalities.
In fact, this was the first day that Laura and Daniel could look forward to spending any time together, since Daniel had gone into the city with Alex for what both had hoped would be only a couple of hours earlier in the day.
“Did you get finished up?” Laura asked now.
“We did all we could for the day, at the office, anyway. It’ll take months to get probate on Amelia’s will, but the legal transition of power in the business has been smooth enough, thanks to David’s foresight.” Daniel shrugged. “As for the rest of it, we can do that as well here. Alex is still trying to track down all the women Peter was probably blackmailing and return the tapes to them, and he wants to talk to Mother now that we can. We have to make sure we’ve recovered everything Peter had hidden away.”
Laura knew he wasn’t looking forward to that, but also knew it was necessary. They probably would have asked Madeline before now about Peter’s other “secret places” and what they might contain, but she had been under the care of a new doctor, and he had okayed the questions only in the last day or so.
“Is that where Alex is now? With Madeline?”
Daniel nodded. “I think he just wants to get Peter’s business behind him. The rest of this is draining enough without also worrying if there are more women out there terrified of their secrets being exposed.”
As they turned by mutual consent toward the library, Laura slid an arm around his waist and said, “At least they won’t have to be terrified much longer. Josie went up to sit with Madeline after you two left this morning; Madeline seems to find it easiest to talk to her, so I’m sure she and Alex between them can find out what else might be hidden.”
There was a fire burning in the library, and the drapes were open to let in the weak October sunshine, so the room looked much more cheerful than it had once upon a time. They sat down on one of the long leather sofas, and Daniel pulled her across his lap, smiling at her.
“Have I thanked you for being so caring and thoughtful with Mother these last days? Believe me, I’m grateful.”
Laura shook her head a little. “It hasn’t been just me. Josie, Kerry, and I didn’t really talk about it, but between us we can keep Madeline company and make sure she’s all right. That new medication the doctor put her on seems to be helping; she’s calm, but not drugged the way she was. I think sh
e’ll be all right, Daniel. I really do.”
He half nodded, but said, “We’ve still got some hard ground to cover, with Mother as well as everything else. You know that, don’t you?”
“I know that. But we will get through it.”
Daniel touched her face with gentle fingers and looked at her with restless eyes. “I don’t think I could have borne any of this without you, love. These last days, especially. Just knowing you’d be waiting for me when I came home, that you’d be sleeping with me in our bed, made all the difference. I love you. So much.”
Laura rubbed her cheek against his hand and smiled at him. “I love you too.”
He hesitated, then said, “I know you’ve barely had a chance to think, and I know I should give you time. But I also know without a shadow of a doubt that I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Say you’ll marry me, Laura. Please.”
She looked at him for a long moment, her eyes searching his face. “You’re so sure,” she murmured.
Daniel nodded, a muscle tightening in his jaw. “I’m sure. I knew we belonged together that first day, when I walked in and saw you here. Didn’t you know it too? Didn’t you feel it?”
Slowly she nodded, still just a bit wary, maybe even frightened of something so powerful that had taken over her life so suddenly and unexpectedly. “I felt it. I didn’t understand what it was, but … I know I love you, Daniel. I know I loved you then.”
He surrounded her face with hands that weren’t quite steady. “I won’t rush you to the altar, love, but I need to know that’s where we’ll end up. Say you’ll marry me.”
On some level of her mind, Laura was aware that they had things to talk about still, and that they did need more time to be together. But she also knew, as certainly as he seemed to, that this was right.
“Yes.” Her arms slid around his neck as he drew her closer and kissed her, and she felt more than heard herself murmur the acceptance again against his lips, as though it had to be repeated.
They were still in that general position, Laura lying half across his lap and cradled against his chest, their faces close together, when Alex walked into the library a few minutes later.
