Love Is Murder

by Allison Brennan

  “Alan,” Heather said, “do you remember that postcard Vanessa asked us to mail?”

  “Of course.”

  “Who did she mail it to?”

  “Nelson Russell.”

  Heather said, “There you go,” she said to Lucy. “Why do you want to know?”

  Lucy shrugged. “Just curious.” She glanced at Patrick, nonverbally telling him she’d clue him in later. “Patrick, Trevor is drinking heavily. You might want to talk to him now.”

  “I’m bringing him this food—” Heather began.

  Lucy took the plate. “I’ll take it for you.”

  “I am frozen solid,” Alan said to his wife. “Let’s go upstairs.”

  Lucy followed Patrick into the library. Kyle joined them. Angie sat with Trevor, holding his hand while he sobbed. The room reeked of scotch. Angie looked to be at her wit’s end.

  Lucy said to Kyle, “We’ll relieve Angie. She needs a break. You two should get some food and relax. It’s going to be a long night.”

  “Good idea,” Kyle said, escorting his wife from the room.

  Patrick shut and locked the door. He sat down across from Trevor. “I’m sorry for your loss, Trevor.”

  “Two years. We waited two years to get married. Two wasted years.”

  “I know this is difficult. But—”

  “We were both married before. But her ex-husband was an asshole and my ex-wife was just nuts. That we met up again after all those years—”

  “Again?” Lucy asked.

  “We dated back in high school, after my family moved to Phoenix from California. Vanessa and Nelson—her brother—became my closest friends. Then we went to different colleges, got married, all those things that people do. I always loved Vanessa, and when my divorce was final I moved back to Phoenix and we started seeing each other again. For two years. Taking it slow, because we wanted to make sure—” He coughed to cover up his distress.

  “You come from a wealthy family?”

  “We both do. Vanessa’s dad was in the construction business. He always did well, but in the eighties his business took off. He retired ten years ago, left it to Vanessa and her brother. They’ve done even better. She’s so smart.” He put his hand to his mouth. “She was. She was so smart. She wouldn’t kill herself. She loved life. Everything about it.”

  “We don’t know that she killed herself,” Patrick said. Both he and Lucy were closely watching Trevor’s reaction. But his grief seemed genuine.

  “She didn’t,” he said as if Patrick’s statement needed additional emphasis.

  “Was she on any medication?”

  Lucy hadn’t found any other prescriptions in the Marshes’ room other than the Seconal.

  “No.”

  “But she took sleeping pills.”

  “Sometimes, but only when we travel because she doesn’t like sleeping in strange beds. She took one last night because she couldn’t sleep, but that’s it.”

  “Was she acting depressed lately? Did she get any bad news?”

  Trevor shook his head.

  “And your relationship was good?”

  “Yes! We just got married!” He wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “I love her so much.”

  He reached for his scotch and saw it was empty. He stood and grabbed the arm of the couch for support.

  “Maybe you should slow down,” Patrick cautioned.

  “Leave me alone. Just leave me alone!”

  Patrick put an arm on Trevor to steady him, then eased him back onto the couch. Lucy asked, “Was Vanessa close to her brother?”

  “Very. Two peas in a pod. Nelson was one of my best friends. We’re a year older than Vanessa. He’s my brother-in-law now—” Trevor choked back a sob. “This will kill him. Why did this happen to Vanessa?”

  “A coroner will make that determination,” Lucy said.

  “I need to know. I just need to know that she was happy. That she didn’t—” He pressed his palm on his forehead.

  “What did you do today after breakfast?” Patrick asked. That had been the last time he and Lucy had seen the Marshes.

  “We went on a walk. A long walk to this vista with an amazing view. We talked. Thought about how nice it would be if we could have a vacation home up here. Phoenix is so damn hot—and I suggested we go to Kirkwood and check out some properties. Vanessa asked if I would do it alone, she wasn’t up for snowmobiling. Beth went with me, and it only took thirty minutes to get there. We stayed a few hours, got back at three or so. I went to check on Vanessa, but she was sleeping and I left—What if she was in trouble and I could have helped her?” His voice rose in panic.

  But Lucy caught what he’d said. “She was sleeping? You went into your room?”

  “I opened the door and saw her lying on her side, curled up like she sleeps. I let her rest. But when she didn’t come down by five, I went back to wake her up and she—” He broke off.

  Trevor had put himself at the scene of the crime during the window when Vanessa was murdered.

  “Are you sure she was asleep?” Lucy asked.

  “I don’t understand, of course she was asleep.”

  He could have been mistaken. She could have been dead, but looked asleep. The eyes often opened as the muscles in the lids contracted during early stages of rigor mortis. But she might have been sleeping. Or drugged, in order for the killer to inject her with whatever killed her.

  But she was presupposing that Trevor wasn’t the killer.

  “Where did you live before you returned to your hometown?” Patrick asked.

  “I went to college in Boston, and stayed there. Met my first wife. We moved to Dallas so I could be close to my team.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I owned the Dallas Kings.”

  “The baseball team?”

  He nodded. “I sold it during the divorce, to my ex-wife. I bought it for her, anyway, but at least I got my money back, and more. Treena was the sports nut. So nutty that after I caught her cheating on me the second time with a player, I filed for divorce.”

  “And what do you do where you can buy and sell baseball teams?”

  “Do?” He almost smiled, though his blue eyes were still watery and rimmed red. “I’m an investor. Venture capital. I invest in companies I think have promise, in exchange for a small percentage. I’m good at what I do. Out of twenty-nine investments this last decade, twenty-two were successful.”

  “Define successful.”

  “Five years ago I invested five hundred thousand in two college students to develop tracking software that helps businesses target their most likely customers. I gave them a little advice on how to sell the software—instead of flat-fee licensing, they get royalties on the license. In two years, they were netting over one million a year. Last year, it was three million. I own twenty percent of the company. In five years, I’ve more than tripled my initial investment. That’s my most successful venture to date. I love those boys like they’re my own sons.”

  Patrick seemed impressed, but he was always into technology. Something felt wrong to Lucy, though. “Trevor,” she said, “why would you and Vanessa spend your honeymoon at a lodge like the Delarosa? I’d imagine that you could buy your own cabin anywhere you wanted.”

  “Vanessa saw a brochure for the place and wanted to visit. We’re going—” He stopped himself, leaned back and closed his eyes. “We were leaving for Hawaii on Wednesday. Now—I have to call her father and brother. Oh, God, how are we going to make it without Vanessa?”

  #

  Lucy and Patrick stood in the dining room, dishing up lukewarm dinner. “I don’t think he killed her,” Lucy said quietly.

  “It could be an act.”

  “Could be.”

  “You don’t think so?” he asked.

  “No. You didn’t see him with her body. I don’t think that could be faked.”

  They sat at one of the round tables. “Maybe we’re wrong,” Lucy said. “Maybe that mark isn’t an injection.
”

  “It wasn’t a bee sting.”

  “We won’t know until an autopsy.”

  They ate for a moment in silence. Lucy added, “The lodge here is struggling. Steve said his father spent their savings keeping it afloat.”

  “Upstairs, Beth and Grace were talking about selling.”

  “Beth was,” Lucy reminded him. “Grace was worried about Steve.”

  “What if Vanessa wanted to buy the Delarosa?” Patrick said. “With Trevor’s money, she could easily afford it. Probably could with her own money.”

  “A place like this, with all the land, so close to Kirkwood? It’s worth a lot.”

  “Then why is Steve so worried? He could get a loan on it.”

  “I don’t know—maybe there already is a big mortgage.”

  “We can look into that easily enough. But what if Steve heard that Vanessa wanted to buy the lodge? Maybe she persuaded Grace or Beth. Steve wouldn’t want to sell—”

  “You’re suggesting he killed her?”

  “If Grace owns the place after his dad’s death, then she could sell whenever she wanted.”

  Grace might have been worried about Steve’s health. She could have thought selling the lodge was the right thing to do. “But,” Lucy said, “we don’t know if she owns the land, or Steve, or both.”

  “We can find out.”

  “We’ll need to go to the recorders office, or—”

  “Or I can look around here.”

  Lucy frowned. “You need to be careful.”

  “I know what I’m doing.”

  She didn’t want to believe Steve was a killer, but he seemed so distraught. Perhaps his mysterious illness made him act rashly.

  There was something premeditated about Vanessa’s death. Who keeps hypodermic needles lying around? Who has poison at their disposal—and knows how to use it?

  “You need to be careful, too, sis.” Patrick said.

  A crash from the kitchen had Lucy and Patrick bolting up from their chairs. Patrick pushed open the swinging door into the kitchen and found Kyle DeWitt on the floor, struggling to stand.

  Patrick squatted next to him and helped him sit up. “Whoa, Kyle, hold on a second. What happened?”

  “I just felt dizzy.”

  “And fainted?”

  “I guess.” He touched his forehead. A bump was already forming.

  Lucy walked over to the refrigerator for ice and stepped into a puddle of spilled juice amid broken glass.

  “Sorry,” Kyle said. “I dropped my glass.”

  Grace rushed in. “What happened?”

  “I’m fine. Really.” The guy looked embarrassed. “Just slipped.”

  Grace stared at the mess on the floor.

  “I’ll clean it up,” Lucy offered.

  “No,” Grace snapped, “I’ll do it.” She strode over to a cabinet and grabbed some rags and a broom and dustpan.

  Lucy and Patrick exchanged glances. She was wound tight. Maybe they all were tonight, with a dead body in the root cellar.

  “You fainted,” Patrick said. “You didn’t just slip.”

  Grace said, “We’re at a seventy-five-hundred-foot elevation. The air is thinner up here.” She knelt to pick up the biggest pieces of glass.

  Lucy said, “Grace is right. The thin air could affect you, especially if you overexert yourself. Usually symptoms of high-altitude sickness don’t occur until eight thousand feet—”

  Grace cut her off. “That’s arbitrary. People are affected differently.”

  “True,” Lucy said, though she didn’t completely agree. The human body processed oxygen at different ranges comfortably; it was when the atmosphere started to thin at eight thousand feet that the oxygen level sharply declined. Kyle was a grown man, physically fit, and he shouldn’t have a problem here. But she wasn’t going to quibble over five hundred feet. “Do you have a headache?” Lucy asked.

  “No, I just felt light-headed and dizzy. I didn’t really faint.”

  Patrick helped Kyle to his feet. “I think we’re all tired and under stress. You should go to bed. We all should.”

  “Good idea,” Grace said.

  Angie walked in. “What’s wrong?” She looked at the bump on Kyle’s head. “My God, Kyle! What happened?”

  “I slipped. It’s nothing.”

  “It’s not nothing!”

  Lucy handed Angie the makeshift ice compress she was holding. Angie put it on his head. “Ouch, that’s cold!”

  “Let’s go to bed,” Angie said. “I need to keep my eye on you.”

  He kissed her, then pulled her into a hug. “I’m fine, babe, really. You can have your way with me.”

  Angie hugged her husband back tightly, her voice filled with emotion. “You’d better be.”

  “Hon, I am. Really.”

  Kyle kept his arm around his wife, and they said good night to the others as they walked out together.

  Lucy watched them leave the kitchen. She reflected that even after two years with Cody, she’d never felt that comfortable with him, where she could joke about their sex life or show public displays of affection. With Kyle and Angie it was entirely natural, not in any way forced. Their affection showed in their expression, how they looked at each other, how they touched each other. It was the subtle hints that showed Lucy that Kyle and Angie truly cared for each other, the little things that Lucy had worked hard to remember when she and Cody were still together, but usually forgot.

  She wondered if she would ever find someone where she didn’t forget those small touches that said I love you.

  V.

  Lucy couldn’t sleep.

  Her first night here, it had been the silence that kept her awake. Tonight, it was the howling wind as the snow continued to fall. That, coupled with the disturbing thought that someone in this lodge had murdered Vanessa Russell-Marsh.

  She tried a hot shower, and while that eased her sore muscles, it did nothing to help her sleep. Finally, she put on her robe and left her room just after midnight. There was no light under Patrick’s door, but she knocked anyway. “Patrick?” she said quietly.

  She heard a moan and movement. Patrick opened his door, alert. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. I—” She felt stupid. “I can’t sleep.”

  He groaned. “Warm some milk in the microwave.”

  “Never mind. I’ll go find a book to read.”

  She half-expected Patrick to go downstairs with her, but he closed his door and went back to bed. She wasn’t surprised, she supposed. They’d had a busy and strenuous day, physically and emotionally.

  The hall lights were left on low throughout the lodge. Lucy padded silently in her slippers down the staircase, across the foyer, and slowly opened the double doors to the library. They’d left Trevor to sleep on the couch; Grace had made up the last available room for him, but he was too drunk to walk upstairs and had ended up back on the couch.

  Angie DeWitt gasped. “Oh, you startled me!”

  “I’m sorry,” Lucy said. “I didn’t know anyone was up.”

  Angie was curled in a chair wearing a fluffy robe, a stack of books next to her. Trevor was snoring on the couch, all blankets on the floor. “I couldn’t sleep and thought reading would do it, but Kyle can’t sleep with the light on. And I wanted to check on Trevor. He was so upset. Justifiable, but—I didn’t want him to do anything stupid.”

  “You have a kind heart.”

  She shrugged. “Kyle says I have a bleeding heart, but I just laugh at him. He can act like a hard-ass sometimes, but he’s the sweetest guy on the planet, especially when he doesn’t think anyone is looking.”

  “That’s when it’s most important,” Lucy said. “I won’t stay long. I just wanted to grab a book since I couldn’t sleep.”

  Lucy perused the bookshelves, but nothing jumped out at her. She realized that she was worried about Steve Delarosa, and Grace, and Trevor Marsh. She couldn’t get Vanessa out of her mind, or the cryptic postcard she’d had the Larsons s
end her brother. Lucy didn’t want any of them to be guilty of murder, and just maybe there was another explanation for Vanessa’s death. Maybe the puncture wound in her neck indicated that something she’d yet to figure out.

  She found it doubly odd that Kyle DeWitt had fainted—or nearly fainted—and complained of being dizzy. Very similar to Steve. Had the two of them been somewhere that no one else had? Could Vanessa have been exposed to the same thing and it killed her?

  There was no place for any of them to go now. And with Grace and Beth both living here, it didn’t seem likely that whatever was causing the dizziness was airborne.

  Lucy understood Steve’s deep desire to keep his family lodge running. Businesses were hurting everywhere, and it couldn’t be cheap to keep this place running, especially with only six guest rooms in the winter, and a few extra cabins open in warmer weather. The food, the heating, the generator for electricity, routine maintenance. And losing Leo to a heart attack had been doubly tragic because being this isolated had delayed getting him quick help. And then for Steve to find out that his father’s nest egg was gone.

  Lucy liked the family, and wished she could help. That was one of her greatest assets, Patrick had always told her, as well as one of her greatest weaknesses.

  “You want to save the world, Lucy. But sometimes the world doesn’t want to be saved.”

  How many times had she heard that! She wanted to scream, “I don’t care!” But she did care. About the world, and the people in it. And she could never seem to sit idly by and watch good people suffer.

  But what could she do? She wasn’t a doctor; she couldn’t examine Steve. She wasn’t a businesswoman; she wouldn’t tell the Delarosas how to run their resort. She wasn’t even a cop. She shouldn’t even like any of these people personally, knowing that most likely one of them killed Vanessa Marsh.

  Logic reasoned that the person who had killed Vanessa knew her. The only person fitting the bill was Trevor Marsh, her childhood sweetheart and new husband.

  Unless …

  What if someone else at the lodge also knew Vanessa? Trevor said that Vanessa’s ex-husband had been an asshole. What if he was lurking around?