The Perfect Little Lie: A Thrilling Romantic Suspense (The Perfect Revenge Book 2)

by Madyson Grey

  “I guess anything is possible,” Victoria said slowly. “But he always seemed to love his business. And just yesterday I learned that my mother had a number of extramarital affairs over the years. If I could just ask Lena about these names, she might know some of them.”

  “Lena?” the detective asked.

  “Sorry, my parents’ cook and now housekeeper. She’s lived with us all my life. She was my babysitter and our cook. Until just before Daddy died, they also had a housekeeper. Now it’s just Lena, and she’s in the hospital because Mother attacked her yesterday morning with a small statue and cracked her skull. But maybe I can call her and talk to her. Want me to?”

  “If you think she’s able to talk, it would be helpful,” the lieutenant said.

  “I’ll try,” Victoria said.

  She dialed the number of Lena’s hospital room and let the phone ring until Lena picked it up.

  “Hi Lena, it’s Victoria,” she said. “How are you feeling this morning?”

  “Hi, honey,” Lena answered. “I feel much better today. My head still hurts, but I don’t feel so messed up.”

  “I’m so glad. Listen, I need to ask you something. I have a couple of police officers here and we need to know if you know some people. I found a sheet of paper with several names on it. I know a couple of them, but I want to know if you know them.”

  “OK, shoot.”

  “Well, there’s Paul Johnson.”

  “Yes, I know who he is.”

  “Kevin Trapp.”

  “Yes.”

  “Dan Sheets.”

  “Yes.”

  “Rob Kensington.”

  “Yes.”

  Victoria read off several more names, to which Lena replied in the affirmative that she knew who they were.

  “Now, Lena, tell me if any of these men are ones that Mother had affairs with.”

  There was silence on the other end for a moment.

  “It’s OK, Lena, you can tell me,” she said gently.

  “Is your mother there? I’m afraid if I say anything she’ll really flip out on me,” Lena said.

  “No, Lena, she’s not here. And I don’t think she’ll ever hurt anyone again. You probably don’t know this yet, but Marian was arrested yesterday and is in a psych ward for mental evaluation. She confronted Rafael with a gun yesterday and demanded he give her back the company, and she used his secretary as a hostage.”

  “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry for you,” Lena said.

  “It’s OK. I’m actually relieved,” Victoria admitted. “Anyway, these men. Did Marian have an affair with any of them?”

  “Yes,” Lena said slowly. “All of them.”

  Chapter Four

  Victoria let out her breath in a soft whoosh.

  “I thought as much. I have one more name to ask you about, Lena, and don’t lie to me. Did my mother ever have an affair with Rafael?”

  “No!” Lena’s voice was stronger now and very firm. “Rafael wouldn’t have anything to do with your mother. She did try to come on to him more than once. But he rebuffed her every time. I think that may be one reason that she was so anxious for you to dig up some dirt on him. She didn’t take kindly to being told no by anyone for any reason. Especially when it came to flirting with men.”

  “Thanks, Lena. You’ve taken a great load off my mind,” Victoria said, her tone expressing relief.

  “Don’t you worry about Rafael, honey. He’s been a real flirt and ladies’ man, but he’s got a good heart, and he didn’t fall into your mother’s trap,” Lena said.

  “Good, I’m glad. Listen, I need to hang up now, but I’ll come see you some time today. OK?”

  “OK, honey. Take care.”

  “Bye, Lena.”

  Victoria hung up and turned back to the officers.

  “Yes, these are all men with whom my mother had affairs. All except for Rafael Rivera. Lena said that he absolutely refused my mother. Which may explain at least in part why she is so angry with him.”

  The men mulled over the information and nodded their heads in agreement. The detective had been looking around the room while Victoria was on the phone with Lena. He was sure there was no use in taking fingerprints anywhere. There had been too many people in the room following David Thornton’s death. Too many things touched. But then he noticed that the wastebasket hadn’t been emptied. There wasn’t much in it. A few crumpled-up papers. An empty used envelope. A used tissue or two.

  Detective Nash used tweezers to pull out both tissues, and he placed them in a plastic bag. They would tell him who had been in the room. Maybe only David Thornton, but it was somewhere to start.

  “Victoria, is there anything in the house that might have both of your parents’ DNA on it? Something like lipstick, a toothbrush, a razor? Anything like that?” the detective asked her.

  “Oh, yeah. At least for my mother. I don’t know if there is still anything of my dad’s or not. We can look. Do you want to come up to their bathroom with me? Then you can pick out what you think will work best.”

  “Yeah. And with your permission, I would like to take a DNA sample from you,” he added. “It’s easiest to rule out those whom we know have been in the house first. I will need a sample from your housekeeper, too. Lena, you said?”

  “I understand. I’ll be glad to give you my DNA. And yes, Lena. Do you want to visit her in the hospital, or do you want me to let you into her apartment and take something from there?”

  “I’ll see if I can find something suitable from her apartment first. Then if not, I’ll have to go see her in the hospital.”

  The two of them went upstairs and into the master suite. In the bathroom, Victoria pointed out Marian’s toothbrush and where she kept her make-up. She looked around for anything left of her dad’s that might help. She knew that he had a drawer in the sink vanity where he kept his razors and combs and stuff like that. Detective Nash used the tweezers to pick up a comb that still had a few hairs in it. He placed it in another plastic bag. He also chose a well-used tube of lipstick, and put it into yet another bag.

  “That’s probably enough,” he said.

  They went back downstairs and into the office where Lieutenant Mobry was examining the walls.

  “Just checking the walls to see if there were any other bullets. The one bullet that killed Mr. Thornton—sorry, Victoria—was recovered at the time. But I am just double checking to make sure there are no others.”

  “Find anything?” Detective Nash asked.

  “No. But I didn’t really expect to,” Lieutenant Mobry replied. “The report says right here that only one bullet was fired from the gun found in Mr. Thornton’s hand. But you never know.”

  “Can you tell what made this ring here on the desk?” Victoria wanted to know. “Do you have a test for that?”

  “Yeah. I’ve got a swab kit here that I can remove a small bit of the ring and then take it back to the lab for testing. It won’t hurt the wood,” Detective Nash said.

  He performed the small task, then inserted the swab back into its sterile case for transport to the lab.

  “Can you make the bank tell you things that they won’t tell me?” Victoria asked.

  “Sometimes,” Lieutenant Mobry said. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, see here on Daddy’s bank statements, these two regular cash withdrawals? I’ve looked at three or four years of them and these two withdrawals are as regular as clockwork. I went to the bank and asked about them. I talked directly to the bank manager, and she said she couldn’t tell me. She did tell me something that makes the withdrawals even more curious, though.

  “She said that both cash withdrawals always were redeposited into other accounts at the same bank. She said that there was always someone else with Daddy when he took out the large sum, but that he withdrew and redeposited the smaller amount himself. I asked if he looked like he was under duress when the other person was with him, but she said no, in fact he looked happy. But, she said, he did look unhappy at doing
the other transaction.”

  “Now why would he withdraw cash and then just redeposit it into other accounts?” the lieutenant asked.

  “That’s what I’d like to know,” Victoria said. “The only thing I can figure out, is the paper trail is much harder to follow this way.”

  “Yeah, that’s true,” the detective said. “What do you want us to do?”

  “I want you to find out whose accounts that money went into. Will they tell you guys that?” Victoria asked.

  “Most likely,” Nash said. “Especially when we mention that we’re conducting a murder investigation.”

  “Will you tell me when you find out?” she asked.

  “Yes, we can tell you. However, it would be wise of you to keep the information to yourself until we get this thing resolved,” Nash told her.

  “OK, sure, whatever you say,” Victoria said.

  “Before we forget, will you take me to Lena’s room so I can get something there with her DNA?” Nash asked.

  “Oh, yeah, I almost forgot,” Victoria said. “This way.”

  She led the way through the garage to another door that went up a flight of stairs to Lena’s apartment that was built over the garage. It was completely separate from the house, with an outside entrance and the entrance from the garage. This little apartment had been a haven of refuge for Victoria many times through the years.

  The detective looked in the kitchenette first for a drinking glass, but everything in the kitchen was clean. Then he looked in her bathroom. He found a small paper cup that looked like it had been used.

  “This will do, I think,” he said.

  He put it into a plastic bag, too. Then they went back into the house where Lieutenant Mobry was finishing up his notes.

  “I think we’re through here for now,” Mobry said. “If we need anything more, we’ll let you know.”

  “OK,” she said. “Please let me know what you come up with. I’m so anxious to find out what all this is about, and what really happened to Daddy.”

  “We will,” Nash assured her. “We will try to talk to your mother at some point, too. She may decide to give us some new information now. “

  Victoria saw the two men to the door and repeated her request that they keep her in the loop. She thanked them, and they left. The gate opened automatically for them, as it always did for a car leaving the driveway.

  As soon as the police officers were gone, Victoria pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and called Rafael. When he answered, she asked him if they could meet somewhere for lunch around noon. He said, sure, and named a place that was near his office building. She knew the place, so she said she would meet him there and tell him what she had learned so far that morning.

  Next, she called her dad’s lawyer. The one who had drawn up his will. She asked the receptionist to make her an appointment for as soon as possible. The receptionist told her that he had an opening that afternoon at three o’clock. She took it.

  After that call, she sat staring at her phone for a long moment, debating on whether to call her employer in Seattle, or just wait and try to get up there as soon as possible and talk to her in person. She finally decided that if she could get away and go up there within the next several days, she’d wait and tell her face-to-face.

  After everything was taken care of, she put all the papers back into the folder, went and got her purse, and left to go visit Lena. When she got there, she found Dr. Stevens in the room, too.

  “How’s she doing, Dr. Stevens,” Victoria asked after greeting the both of them.

  “Much better today, I think,” he answered. “I’d like to keep her for a couple more days just to be sure, but I think she can go home on Thursday. Can you be here to take her home?”

  “Of course, I will be,” Victoria said. “So, no double vision or amnesia, or anything else wrong?”

  “No, she’s just fine, except for a monster headache,” he said. “Still, I just want her here where I can keep an eye on her for a little longer.”

  “That’s fine, Doctor. She needs a vacation,” Victoria said.

  She winked at Lena.

  “You just lay in bed and enjoy getting waited on for a change. You’ve always done all the serving, now it’s your turn to be served. Enjoy it. It won’t last long,” she said with a grin.

  “I have to admit, it’s kind of nice getting my meals brought to me and not having to do any cleanup. I could get real used to this kind of life,” Lena said, laughing.

  Then she winced, as the laughter made her head hurt.

  “I’ll see you two ladies later,” Dr. Stevens said. “I’ve got sick people to check on.”

  “See you later,” Victoria said.

  “Thanks, Dr. Stevens,” Lena said.

  When the two women were alone, Lena got right down to business.

  “Why were you asking me about those men? And where did you come up with all those names?” she asked.

  Victoria sighed, and then said, “I found a yellow legal pad in Daddy’s desk drawer. The so-called suicide note was written on yellow legal paper, you know. So I found the pad and looked at it. The top page had a bunch of numbers scribbled all over it like he was doodling while thinking about something. The second page had the name Marian written in all caps at the top of the page. Then the names of all of those men were written randomly all over the page. Rafael’s name was on that page, too, only his had a question mark after it. None of the others had a question mark after them. And—this is the clincher—the scrap of paper on which the suicide note was written was torn off of that page.

  “So my idea is that what Daddy said he couldn’t do any longer, and what he wanted out of, was their marriage. It wasn’t a suicide note at all. He was planning on leaving Mother. At least that’s my theory.”

  “It’s a very logical theory, too, honey,” Lena said. “I had my suspicions that he was thinking of leaving her. I had been noticing little things that indicated he was considering divorce for a couple of weeks before he died.”

  “Really? What kinds of things?” Victoria wanted to know.

  “One day when Marian was gone to one of her club meetings, he had a real estate appraiser come and appraise the house. I couldn’t figure that one out at all, until the next day I accidentally overheard him on the phone making an appointment with his lawyer. House appraisal? Lawyer? I was still mystified, until later that day when again, I overheard him on the phone calling about an apartment for rent.

  “That really baffled me until I started putting everything together. He was planning to divorce Marian, and he needed to know the value of the house to put in the divorce settlement, and he needed a place to live. A couple of days later, I noticed that a few of his most treasured possessions had disappeared from his office and bedroom. I figured that he had taken them to his new apartment. I also know that he had moved out of their bedroom and was sleeping in the guest room.”

  “Where is this new apartment,” Victoria asked. “Why didn’t you say something before now? I need to go there and get his things.”

  “I don’t know, honey,” Lena said.

  This new information was extremely surprising to her. Her dad had never once mentioned that he was planning on divorcing Marian. In fact, he had never once mentioned selling the business, the divorce, Rafael, or anything else that was unraveling before her eyes. In retrospect, he hadn’t lied about anything, he just hadn’t said anything period.

  “So when Marian found out that he had sold the business and was leaving her, she went into a rage and killed him.”

  Victoria made the statement as if it were already a proven fact. It all made perfect sense to her now. David may have confronted Marian with the names of all the men she had cheated on him with. She saw the note he had written and realized it could be considered a suicide note. But how did she make it look like David had used the gun on himself?

  “I wonder when he was planning to tell me all of this?” she mused. “He never gave me a single clue that a
nything was going on around here. He always asked me how my day had gone and what the weather was like in Seattle, and then would teasingly tell me how sunny and warm it was down here. He’d ask if I’d heard about important news items and what my take on them was, and then give me his thoughts. I guess, looking back on it, he never really talked about home life. Of course, I always asked about Mother, and he always said she was just the same. Flitting here and there to all her clubs and luncheons and meetings and stuff. He never said a bad word about her to me. Ever.”

  “No, he wouldn’t. He didn’t believe in doing that,” Lena said.

  “Did he ever confide in you, Lena? About anything that was going on?”

  Lena looked away and out the window for a moment. Then she looked back into Victoria’s eyes. How she loved this child, this young woman who had grown up before her very eyes. How could she ever tell her what she had longed to tell her for years?

  “Some,” she said. “But not much. Mostly when we talked, it was about you. He always kept me up to date on your activities and how you were doing after you moved to Seattle. He didn’t say anything to me about leaving Marian, though. Nor about selling his business.

  “He did talk a little bit about Rafael, and how he was such a bright young man and what a good assistant he was. He also told me that he thought that you and Rafael would make a splendid couple. He just couldn’t figure out how to get you two together.”

  “Oh, yeah? Well, he could've mentioned him to me,” Victoria said dryly. “I was dating this perfectly boring man up there. In fact, I had just made up my mind to dump him when I had to come down here.”

  The two continued talking for a while until a nurse came in to take Lena’s vitals. Then Victoria excused herself, promising to come back again. As she was walking through the hospital, the thought came to her—is this where Marian is? She had intended to ask Lieutenant Mobry that morning where her mother had been taken, but she had forgotten. There were so many things to think about. So many puzzling things.