Beguiled

by Deeanne Gist

  “But I’ve been accused of being the Robin Hood burglar. All the items he’s taken belonged to my family. How can you leave me out of it?”

  His Adam’s apple bobbed. “I haven’t figured that out yet.”

  “I see.” She took a step back.

  “Rylee—”

  “I think I’m ready to go home now.”

  Pushing away from the car, he opened her door. A manila envelope rested beneath the wiper blades on the passenger side.

  “What’s that?” she asked, pointing at it.

  “Let me see.” He slid out the top portion of the papers, trying to read in the golden streetlight. “Looks like some kind of background information. Maybe from that curator or something. I’ll take a look at it later when I have more light. ”

  He tossed the envelope in the backseat, tucked her in, then went around to his side.

  Once she had her seat belt attached, he took both of her hands in his, fixing her with the sincerest, most earnest of looks. “Don’t go back to Liz’s apartment. Let me take you to my parents’ place.

  They’d be happy to have you.”

  She shook her head. “I’m still borrowing everything but my toothbrush from Liz. And I’ve never even met your parents. What would they think of me?”

  “They won’t judge you, Rylee. And my mom will feed you home-cooked meals. Dad will tell you bad jokes. How can you pass that up?”

  She smiled, but held firm. “No, really. Liz is my best friend. Everything’s familiar. That’s where I feel safe.”

  He relented with a sigh, then produced a folded piece of paper from inside his jacket.

  “What’s this?”

  “Some folks in my neighborhood who need a dogwalker.” He put the car in gear and pulled out into the street.

  She punched on the reading light. His neat masculine script catalogued names, addresses, and phone numbers.

  “What about this?” She pointed to various times of day written by each name.

  He glanced over. “That’s when they’re expecting you tomorrow. So don’t be late.”

  The parade of disastrous interviews shuffled through her mind. “Do they know who I am? That I’ve been arrested?”

  Without taking his eyes off the road, he nodded. “They do.”

  She swallowed. “And they’re still willing to trust me in their homes? With their pets? Why would they do that?”

  “Because I asked them to.”

  Carefully refolding the paper, she ran her fingers over each crease. His book had set alarm bells off in her head. But now, those concerns began to fade.

  She tucked the list inside her clutch purse and turned off the overhead light.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  “Who’s seen this?” Lacey asked, flipping to the last page of the affidavit.

  “No one but you.” Logan still clutched the empty envelope in his hands, the one he’d found under his windshield wiper the night before. “Tell me I’m not crazy. Is that what I think it is?”

  She lowered her tortoiseshell reading glasses. “You didn’t show it to Rylee Monroe?”

  “She was with me, like I said. But when I saw her father’s name on it, I just put it aside. She’s pretty sensitive about him.”

  He’d played it off as best he could, and Rylee was so distracted by the encounter with Gibbon that she hardly noticed. Once he’d tossed the envelope in back, she seemed to forget all about it. But he didn’t. What little he’d read burned in his mind.

  “Who do you think left it?” Lacey asked.

  He shrugged. “I assume it’s a gift from the Cherub, since we’d just been talking to him. But I can’t be sure.”

  “Well,” she said, tapping the page with her finger. “If this is legit, then Jonathan Monroe created this affidavit to expose Grant Sebastian.”

  “Only he disappeared instead. It doesn’t make sense.”

  She put the affidavit on her desk, then started digging through one of the cavernous drawers in her file cabinet. “I thought I took you off this story.”

  He held his hands up in surrender. “This was dropped in my lap.”

  From the back of the drawer, she hauled out a thick manila folder so stuffed with mismatched paper that bits were sticking out from the sides. Spreading it out on her desk, she dug through the stack, setting aside whole chunks of paper at a time. Logan saw printouts, older typescripts, and a sheaf of handwritten notes.

  “I covered Monroe’s disappearance,” she said. “Years ago.”

  “I know. I dug up all the old stories.”

  “The thing that always bothered me was, I knew Jon. Knew the family. After the way he felt about his dad leaving, Jon was the last person I would have imagined abandoning his family like that. He and Stella, they were in love. But it was all there on paper. Grant showed me their financial statements.”

  She found what she was looking for, an old spiral-bound stenographer’s pad with half the pages torn out. Flipping through the remainder, she handed the relevant notes to Logan. A report of Jonathan Monroe’s cleaned-out bank account.

  “What about Stella? Did you manage to talk to her before she died?”

  “I scheduled an appointment. Through Grant.”

  “And she was dead before it came?”

  She smiled grimly. “This affidavit changes everything.”

  “No kidding. You don’t draft a document like that and then disappear with the family fortune. He was planning to go to the police.”

  “Maybe,” she said. “Or he thought he could force his partner to make restitution. He could have drafted this as some kind of bargaining chip. ‘Give these people back their money, or I’ll go to the authorities’—that kind of thing. Only he never got the chance.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning it’s not as easy to disappear as you might think. Did you know that Flora Monroe hired a private investigator to find her son?” She looked him square in the eye. “They never found a trace of him.”

  “You think he was murdered?”

  She didn’t answer, but he could see that was exactly what she was thinking.

  “By Sebastian?”

  “Not him personally. He wouldn’t get his hands dirty. But he’s always had the right kind of connections for that kind of thing. Our friend Gibbon, for example.”

  “And what about Stella?”

  She fingered the pearls at her throat thoughtfully. “If she did kill herself, that suggests grief, doesn’t it? Like she knew Jon wasn’t coming back. Ever. But if she had any hope at all, then it seems a little convenient—and suspicious—that Stella overdosed, leaving her daughter behind like that.”

  Logan’s mind raced. The puzzle he’d been putting together didn’t fit the way he assumed. Now the pieces all looked different, and he had to rearrange his mental map. Grant’s whole career was built on a lie. He’d posed as a father figure for Rylee, but only after getting rid of her real parents.

  “At least now we have the proof,” he said.

  “No, we don’t.” Lacey handed the affidavit back. “If that document can be authenticated, all it proves is Grant Sebastian’s guilt in defrauding people whose estates he was executor of. Nothing else. The rest is speculation.”

  “Wait.” Logan stared at the envelope in his hand. “There’s something else. I don’t know how it connects, but I think Karl Sebastian is being blackmailed.”

  He quickly outlined the episode at Sebastian’s office, where the courier handed him the mailer by mistake. The note inside read the same as the message left in Rylee’s apartment.

  “You think the blackmail and the Robin Hood burglaries are connected?” she asked. “And it’s something to do with the affidavit?”

  “I’m not sure what I think yet. But somebody’s delivering an awful lot of unmarked envelopes.”

  “The Cherub?”

  “That’d be my first guess.”

  She nodded. “Well, whoever it is clearly wants this thing plastered across the fron
t page—which is exactly what he’s going to get.”

  “I thought I was off the story.” Logan tensed. “Besides, I’m not sure that’s such a good idea.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Because you want to save it for your book?”

  He shook his head. “It’s not that. Before we do anything with this, I need to talk to Rylee first. I owe her that, don’t you think?”

  Swinging her leg, she scrutinized him for a long moment. “I’ll only wait long enough for you to talk to her. And leave the original here with me.”

  “I expected as much, so I made myself a copy. But it’s more than just talking to her. I want her consent.”

  “Logan, it’s not like she’ll want to keep this a secret. She’s grown up thinking her dad cleaned out the bank account and abandoned his wife and daughter. This is good news for her.”

  “I know. But I still want her consent. I’m not going to exploit her, Lacey.”

  He expected more of an argument, but she conceded with a wave of her hand. “She’ll agree. In the meantime, consider yourself back on the story. You know what that means.”

  “What?”

  “I want a reaction quote from Grant Sebastian.”

  He left Lacey’s office, his mission clear. Before, he’d been uncertain. He had no legal experience. No firsthand knowledge to confirm his suspicions.

  But Lacey did. And if the affidavit rang true to her, then there was no reason to doubt. He could reveal the truth to Rylee.

  The thought thrilled him. Her whole idea of herself, her conviction that the people she loved would ultimately abandon her—a belief borne out by the mass exodus of clients—would be suddenly overturned.

  Her parents had loved her. Her father hadn’t left her. Her mother hadn’t killed herself—at least, it didn’t seem likely. Thinking of it all, he could imagine her face lighting up, the weight she’d been carrying since childhood abruptly lifted.

  At his desk, he paused, examining the affidavit again. Suppose she didn’t light up, though. He was proposing to tell her that her parents had been murdered, after all. That her inheritance had been stolen from her. And that the man responsible was the one person through all the years she’d believed she could rely on.

  Maybe he needed to think about this.

  But no. His prevarication of the night before had not sat well with him.

  What Rylee needed was the truth, and that was the one thing only he could give her. The book didn’t matter. The paper didn’t matter. All that mattered was her.

  But first, he had to go to Grant Sebastian.

  And he’d wring more out of the man than just a reaction quote.

  Rylee’s new clients had one thing in common. They were all members of Logan’s baseball team. Some of them were married with kids. Others were single and asked if she cooked.

  Only three actually had dogs. The rest offered an assortment of cats, hamsters, and even a cockatoo. Their apartment complexes, houses, and duplexes were scattered all over James Island. A long way from South of Broad.

  She found the last house on the list, pulling into the driveway of a tiny white clapboard behind three other cars. The yard was more dirt than grass, bereft of ornamentation.

  The door opened after a couple of knocks, revealing a gangly redhead in his midtwenties, swimming in a pair of oversized athletic shorts and a hockey jersey with the sleeves ripped off.

  “I’m Mike,” he said. “Are you the pet nanny?”

  “Rylee Monroe.” She offered her hand.

  “Hey, guys!” he called over his shoulder. “She’s here.”

  Two more men thundered up to the door, both around her age. The one with Mike’s red hair must have been his brother. The other one had a shaggy fringe of dark hair hiding his eyes. They formed a semicircle around her, saying nothing.

  She cleared her throat. “I understand you need a dogwalker?”

  A panicked look crossed Mike’s face. “A dogwalker? I thought you were a pet nanny or something. You only do dogs?”

  She smiled. “No, no. I do most any kind of pets.”

  He sighed in relief. “Oh, whew. You scared me for a minute.”

  He widened the door. “Well, come on in.”

  They broke ranks, allowing her to pass through to an open living room, dining room, kitchen area. Dorm room chic, complete with mismatched furniture, pizza boxes, and an impossibly large flat-screen tv sprouting game controllers from all sides.

  “This is my brother Randy,” Mike said, “and that’s Harold.”

  She nodded at each. “I assume you’re all Mets?”

  “Me and Randy are. Harold’s an Oriole.”

  The Oriole shrugged apologetically.

  “Well, it’s nice to meet you all.”

  Randy led her to the corner, where a huge terrarium gleamed in the light of the sliding doors. Leaping between a token plant and a hollow branch was a fist-sized lime green tree frog.

  “This is Shamrock.” Randy picked up the frog, then pinched its left foot between his fingers and made a waving motion. “Shamrock, say hello to Rylee. She’s going to be your new nanny.”

  Rylee waved back. “Hey, Shamrock.”

  They all looked at her expectantly, even the frog.

  She held out her hands. Randy transferred the frog into her palm. Its smooth rubbery skin was cool to the touch.

  “So how long have you had him?” she asked.

  Harold glanced at his watch. “A couple of hours now.”

  She looked from one to the other. “Logan gave me your address last night.”

  Mike scratched his chin. “Well, we’ve been wanting a pet but were afraid to get one since none of us had the time to . . . um, walk it.”

  Harold rolled his eyes.

  They might as well have attached a bicycle pump to her heart. She felt it swelling in her chest. “So you went and bought this frog because Logan told you about me. Is that right?”

  Mike shrugged. “The lady at the store said tree frogs are really good for beginners.”

  Randy perked up. “Yeah. And I’ve already taught him to come. Watch this.” He cupped his palms. “Come, Shamrock!”

  The frog gave a slow blink but made no move to jump to him.

  He grinned sheepishly. “I guess he needs a little bit more practice.”

  Harold rolled his eyes again. That seemed to be his role among the threesome.

  She placed Shamrock back in the terrarium and gave the guys a few options for how she could take care of the tree frog, all the way up to raising crickets for his dinner.

  Randy eyed her skeptically. “So what you’re saying is, a beautiful girl like you—pardon me for saying so—will mate and raise thousands of crickets for us?”

  “Yes.”

  The men exchanged a look. “Cool. You got any dogwalker friends you could introduce us to?”

  When she finally left James Island, she figured she’d visited most every player on Logan’s team.

  And none of them needed a pet sitter. They were simply helping out their friend.

  Logan.

  And Logan was helping her.

  Humility, wonder, and gratitude stacked up in her chest. Not only for Logan’s gesture, but for that of his friends. Real friends. Who were willing to go the extra mile for him, no questions asked.

  She didn’t even realize she was crying until she could no longer see the road. Pulling onto the shoulder, she put Daisy in park.

  For so long, the only real friend she’d had was Liz. What was it about her that caused her to have shallow friendships—or no friends at all? She’d lived in Charleston all her life, yet she had only Liz. Why?

  Was it, perhaps, because she was afraid that when the chips were down, they wouldn’t come through for her? That they would abandon her? The way her parents had? The way her clients had?

  An eighteen-wheeler roared by, vibrating her windows.

  She had to let go. Let go of her fear. She had to knock down the wall she’d spent a lifetime cow
ering behind.

  The thought petrified her. But she kept thinking of those three guys buying a pet, just to help Logan—and subsequently her. The realization that someone would do that for him, for her, filled her with a desperate longing.

  I want that, Lord. I want friends like that, too. And I want to be a friend like that to someone else.

  She thought of all the opportunities she’d had to make friends, yet she’d shied away.

  Well, no more. She was tired of keeping the world at arm’s length. Tired of superficial relationships. Tired of being alone.

  And if knocking down that wall meant exposing herself to hurt, so be it. Because for the first time she realized hiding behind it was actually more hurtful than knocking it down and risking her heart for what Logan and his friends had.

  Okay, God. You’re gonna have to help me. Because those are some serious walls and it’s gonna take some kinda power to knock them down.

  Pulling tissues from her messenger bag, she wiped her face, blew her nose, and put Daisy in drive.

  Logan parked on East Battery, across from the house. He’d worn a light linen jacket for the express purpose of concealing his digital recorder in the breast pocket. Now he turned the device on and slipped it inside.

  On the street, he paused to take in the scene. The house now home to the man responsible for the demise of the Monroe family, victims of an exploitation that seemed to know no boundaries.

  Karl’s silver convertible sat in the drive, the trunk open, a set of matching leather suitcases piled nearby. As he approached the steps to the piazza, Karl emerged with a box. An urn, a plant, and some framed art kept its lid from closing.

  He stopped when he saw Logan.

  “Are you moving out?”

  “What’s it look like?” He descended, shouldering his way by, then dropped the box in the backseat.

  “I just came from your office,” Logan said, watching from a distance. “They told me I could find your dad here.”

  Karl slung the luggage into the trunk, fitting as many cases as he could, jostling them left and right. Finally, he slammed the lid and hoisted the remaining things into the backseat.

  “Are you leaving by choice?” Logan asked. “Or is someone scaring you off?”