If Nola had killed Jane and then committed suicide out of guilt, that meant Liss was safe. If the killer was already dead, there was no threat to his fiancée. She could ask all the questions she liked and no harm would come to her.
But he intended to stick close, just in case he was wrong about that.
When Margaret stopped by their table with the news that Tandy was in the hotel, Dan felt relief rather than irritation. That made a nice change.
“Gordon talked to Yvonne Quinlan this morning,” Margaret reported, “and to Bill Stotz and Eleanor Ogilvie. I think he’s finally decided to take Liss’s theory seriously.”
More likely he was just being thorough, Dan thought. Once again, he kept his opinion to himself.
When Margaret had moved on, returning to the table where she’d been sitting with several other local residents, Liss turned to Dan. “I need to talk to Gordon.”
“Do you want to end up in jail?”
“He didn’t mean that.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure. Anyway, what can you tell him that he doesn’t already know?”
Liss smile looked forced. “He doesn’t know I searched Yvonne’s room.”
“And since he’s not likely to dust it for fingerprints, he never will. Leave well enough alone, Liss.”
“I suppose he’s already talked to Tricia and to Davy Kline.”
“I know he questioned Tricia. She told me he did.”
“But he came out here and talked to the people he knows I suspect. That means he’s keeping an open mind. I wonder why he didn’t arrest one of them?”
“Maybe because he was able to rule them out? I’m sure he has good reasons for theorizing that Nola killed Jane and then herself, probably more reasons than he’s shared with you.”
She leaned toward him across the table, her expression intent. “I agree, but I still don’t buy that explanation. I have a viable alternative, one that doesn’t involve Nola killing herself in the middle of the conference she spent most of a year planning. The Cozy Con meant too much to her, Dan. I know it did. No matter what—even if she did somehow manage to kill Jane—she’d have stuck it out until today. Until this tea and the closing ceremonies.”
“And exactly how are you going to convince him you’re right?”
“He doesn’t know Yvonne was once a stuntwoman. That information might make a difference.” She was already on her feet. “He’s probably in the hotel library.”
“If you’re determined to do this, I’ll come with—”
“No.” She put a hand on his shoulder and left it there until he resumed his seat. “I need to do this alone. There’s something else I want to say to Gordon, too. Something ... personal. I’ve had the feeling, the last couple of days, that he and I need ... closure.”
Dan had no argument to offer against the pleading look in her eyes. She’d interpret any further objections on his part as jealousy. As far as he was concerned, the rivalry between himself and the state police detective for Liss’s affections had ended the day she’d accepted his proposal of marriage, but if she felt she needed to make that clear to Tandy, so be it. Closure? Yeah, he was all for it if it meant she’d be finished, once and for all, with that chapter in her life.
“I’ll be waiting right here when you get back,” he promised.
Liss poked her head into the library and found it empty. “Damn,” she muttered under her breath. She’d wanted to get this over with, finish it for Nola and for herself.
Here she was, all psyched up to set the record straight with Gordon, and he wasn’t where he was supposed to be. She considered going straight back to the tea. The closing ceremonies were probably getting started about now. But maybe Gordon hadn’t gone far. She tried to think where else he would be. Somewhere in the hotel seemed likely, maybe Nola’s room, or Jane’s. Or he could be re-interviewing staff members. The gift shop was on her way back to the lobby, so she stopped in to ask Fran Pertwee if she’d seen Gordon.
“Not a single living soul has come in here since well before noon,” Fran told her. “I’m thinking of closing up and going home. There’s not much sense in Joe paying me overtime to stand around and twiddle my thumbs.”
Liss’s next stop was the check-in desk. Joe Ruskin hadn’t seen Gordon for at least an hour, but he did offer the information that the mobile crime-scene lab was still in the parking lot. “You could ask whoever’s in there where Gordon’s got to,” he suggested.
The state trooper who’d been taking notes when Gordon had interviewed her was alone in the police trailer, but he knew where Gordon had gone. “He was headed out to the crime scene,” the trooper said, “to take down the yellow tape.”
“I wouldn’t think that was Gordon’s job,” Liss said, surprised.
“Somebody’s got to do it, and he wanted one last walk through the site.”
Liss glanced at her watch. It would take at least ten minutes to hike out to Lover’s Leap, but she’d certainly be able to talk to Gordon in private out there. He’d have to listen to her long enough for her to tell him that Yvonne Quinlan knew how to snap someone’s neck with her bare hands. And, once she’d given him that information, she’d offer a long-overdue apology.
She’d taken the coward’s way out and had Gordon’s brother break the news of her engagement to him. She owed it to him to tell him straight out that she’d chosen Dan over him not only because she loved Dan, although that was the biggest part of it, but also because of the way she acted when she was around Gordon. He, or his profession, turned her into a daredevil. She took risks she shouldn’t. It was as if he brought out her competitive nature, and in the worst possible way. She’d almost gotten both of them killed the previous winter, and the killer they’d been chasing had ended up dead.
No more Nancy Drew, she vowed as she started across the grass toward the woods. Or Jessica Fletcher. Or Buffy. She’d turn in her deerstalker cap and her magnifying glass, set the record straight between herself and Gordon, marry Dan, and stop meddling.
Closer to fifteen minutes elapsed before she came out of the woods at Lover’s Leap. Gordon was nowhere to be seen. That the crime scene tape was gone told her he’d been there. She realized that she’d probably just missed him. Hands on her hips, a little out of breath from her trek through the trees, Liss fumed with frustration and disappointment as she crossed the clearing to the fence. She hadn’t bumped into Gordon on the trail on her way in, so he’d no doubt left by way of the path that came out on Spruce Avenue. In all likelihood, he was already back at the hotel. And Dan, concerned that she’d been gone so long, would be worrying and wondering what had happened to her. Oh, this day just got better and better!
She turned when she heard footsteps on the path behind her. Her first thought was that it was Gordon. He’d talked to his officer, heard she was looking for him out here, and come after her.
But it wasn’t Gordon who emerged from the trees.
It was Yvonne Quinlan. She strode into the clearing, her fists clenched at her sides and her face an ugly, mottled red. “You’ve been spreading your terrible lies about me,” she screeched. “I was questioned by the police this morning!”
Hands held out in front of her, palms out, Liss started to back away. After only a few steps, she came up against the fence. A quick glance over and down reminded her just how close to the edge she was.
“You’ll be sorry you lied about me!” Yvonne hissed.
There was something feral in the actress’s eyes as she came ever closer, stalking Liss like a leopard advancing on its prey.
“Nobody gets away with saying I didn’t write my own books,” Yvonne said with a snarl. “Not Jane Nedlinger. Not Nola Ventress. And not you!”
Chapter Fifteen
“ Dan, have you seen Liss?” Margaret Boyd had a worried look on her face.
“She’s off somewhere talking to Gordon Tandy.” Dan glanced at his watch. It wasn’t the first time he’d done so in the last half hour. She’d been gone longer than he’d expe
cted, but he didn’t want to rush her. He wanted her to be done with Tandy once and for all. Let them hash it out, he told himself again. Then it will be over.
“But Gordon’s right there,” Margaret said, pointing to the doorway.
The state police detective was obviously looking for someone. When he realized that Dan and Margaret were staring at him, he made his way across the room to them.
“Margaret. Dan. I expected Liss to be here with you.”
“She didn’t find you?” Dan asked, already halfway out of his chair.
“I didn’t know she was looking for me. I walked out to the Leap and came back the long way ’round.”
“I’m sure she wouldn’t have gone out there after you,” Margaret said.
Dan wasn’t so certain. If Liss hadn’t found Tandy, just where had she gotten to? It shouldn’t have taken her more than five minutes to walk from the hotel library to the ballroom where the tea was being held, even if she’d dawdled.
“What did she want, anyway?” Tandy asked.
“Maybe the better question is why were you looking for her?”
Tandy shrugged. “I talked to several people this morning. I thought she might like to know that I cleared up that little matter of the gum wrappers.”
“Really?” Margaret looked impressed.
“Some local kids were up at the Leap on Thursday evening around nine. Teenagers looking for privacy. Trust me when I say I’ve accounted for both the gum wrappers and at least one of the discarded condoms.”
“Well, it’s nice to know that our young people are practicing safe sex,” Margaret said.
Dan and Gordon both stared at her.
“Well, it is,” she insisted.
Gordon recovered his aplomb first. “Anyway,” he said, “I also wanted to assure Liss that I interviewed Bill Stotz, Eleanor Ogilvie, and Yvonne Quinlan. The Quinlan woman wasn’t pleased to be questioned about her connection to Nola.”
“I don’t suppose she admitted Nola was her ghostwriter?” Margaret asked.
“The very idea that she’d need one seemed to infuriate her. But, according to her agent, Liss was right on the money on that one. Nola did write the Toni Starling series.”
“Are you telling me that Yvonne Quinlan did have a motive to kill those two women?” Dan scanned the crowd, looking for the actress who’d claimed to be a mystery writer. With a growing sense of dread, he realized that she was no longer in the ballroom. In fact, he couldn’t remember seeing her since Liss left to hunt for Gordon Tandy.
Liss sidled along the fence, telling herself over and over again not to look down. Maybe fifty feet wasn’t that far by some standards, but when seen from this close to the edge of a cliff, it was more than enough to have her stomach knotting and her head swimming. She was hoping to put more distance between herself and Yvonne Quinlan before she turned and made a run for it, but Yvonne kept pace with her.
“Stop!” Liss shouted.
To her surprise, Yvonne did.
“This is nuts,” Liss said. “You may have gotten away with killing those two women, but if a third victim is found at the bottom of this cliff with a broken neck, Detective Tandy will figure out what happened.”
Yvonne’s jaw dropped. “I didn’t kill anyone! And I don’t want to kill you. I just want you to stop telling lies about me, before the press picks up the story.”
A wave of relief washed through Liss. For a minute there, she’d really thought she was doomed. A little verbal abuse? That she could handle.
“Look, Yvonne, I’ve only told a few people about Nola writing your books. I didn’t do so with any intent to hurt your career. It was only because that secret gave you a motive to kill both Jane and Nola.”
“Who?” Yvonne demanded. “Who did you tell? How many?”
Liss had to think about it. She’d told Sherri and Margaret, Dan and Gordon. Had there been anyone else? She didn’t think so. Angie had overheard her accusations when she made them in the bookstore, so she didn’t really count. “The state police detective, a Moosetookalook police officer, my fiancé, and my aunt,” she said aloud. “That’s it, Yvonne. And none of them are likely to blab to the tabloids. We want to keep Moosetookalook and the hotel and ourselves out of the spotlight as much as you want to go on being known as a best-selling author.”
The high color in Yvonne’s face began to dim and the look in her eyes became more bemused than ferocious. “You thought I was a cold-blooded murderer?” she asked.
“It made sense.”
Yvonne went up to the rail, leaned over to look at the drop, and gave a theatrical shudder. “And just how am I supposed to have managed to throw two women off this cliff?”
“You said you were a stuntwoman.” Liss was starting to feel foolish.
“That was years ago. What am I—superwoman? I didn’t even do my own stunts for Vamped.”
“Well, someone killed both of them.” Liss still resisted accepting Gordon’s murder/suicide solution. There had to be another explanation. “Jane may have arranged for someone to meet her out here in the middle of the night.”
Yvonne’s eyes widened. “Here? Why?”
“Maybe she just liked to jerk people around, make them jump through hoops. What did she want you to do, Yvonne? Did she ask for a payoff to keep the ugly rumor that you weren’t the real creator of Toni Starling and her friend Simon out of her blog?”
“I did create those characters,” Yvonne said through clenched teeth. “They were my idea.”
And that wasn’t quite the same, Liss thought, as writing novels that featured them. “Did Jane make such a threat or not?”
Yvonne affected indifference. “She may have been hinting around about something I wouldn’t want my fans to know, but I ignored her insinuations.”
“I thought you said your conversation with her at the opening reception was all about her review of the new Toni Starling novel. Or was that just the story you made up rather than admit that she’d just tried to blackmail you?”
“You just don’t quit, do you? Do I have to pay you off, too?”
Stunned, Liss stared at her. “Too? You mean I’m right? You paid her?”
Yvonne drummed her fingers on the top rail of the fence and stared out at the view. It was another clear, balmy, sunny day. The vista should have inspired a sense of calm. Instead, Liss tensed and tried to readjust her thinking yet again. Was Yvonne a threat to her or not? She couldn’t decide, but she thought it might be wise to stop baiting her.
“I don’t want anything from you,” Liss said after a moment, “except the truth.”
“Fine,” Yvonne snapped. “Nola Ventress assisted me in writing the books in the Toni Starling series. I’m a terrible speller.”
And I have a bridge in Brooklyn I’d like to sell you, Liss thought. She waited for Yvonne to continue. The silence stretched between them for a long moment before she did so.
“Jane Nedlinger was a nasty piece of work. She was intimidating, both physically and in the power she wielded in her blog, and she knew it. She liked making people dance to her tune. You’re probably right that she arranged for someone to meet her out here. But it wasn’t me. I had Bill write her a check. What’s the point of having a manager if he can’t handle petty annoyances for me?”
“Maybe Bill did more than write a check. Or maybe he decided to take steps to avoid writing one.”
Yvonne’s lips quirked into a smile. Then she laughed out loud. “Bill?”
“Nice way to talk about your lover.”
Yvonne shrugged. “Haven’t you ever heard of a business associate with benefits? The point is, I know him very well. He’s a dynamo in bed and a barracuda in contract negotiations, but turns into a wimp when he’s up against a force of nature like Jane Nedlinger.”
“Well, someone killed her,” Liss said.
“Not me.” Yvonne leaned against the railing, apparently relaxed.
“Not you,” Liss agreed, finally believing it. “And probably not Bill. Or t
he two of you together. But not Nola, either. Nola just wouldn’t have had the strength to toss a woman of Jane’s size off this cliff.”
“Maybe she had help,” Yvonne said. “That’s the logical scenario, isn’t it? Nola didn’t do it alone, and then her partner in crime turned on her and killed her to hide his part in Jane’s death.”
“Oh, no,” Liss murmured. “That couldn’t be.”
But even as she voiced the denial, she knew Yvonne was right.
Liss had overlooked the most obvious explanation of all, the one that answered every question, but produced one new one—who else had been out here at Lover’s Leap that night with Nola and Jane?
There were only two possibilities that Liss could see. One was Stu, but she’d already ruled him out because of his drunken confession. She didn’t believe he’d faked his grief or his misplaced guilt.
That left one other.
“Doug,” she said aloud. “It had to have been Nola’s ex-husband who helped her kill Jane Nedlinger.”
“I didn’t know she’d ever been married.”
Yvonne had been admiring the view and now turned her head to look at Liss as she spoke. A moment later, her gaze shifted and an annoyed expression crossed her face.
“If that’s a reporter,” she hissed, her narrow-eyed gaze on something behind Liss, “we need to give him the slip.”
Liss glanced over her shoulder toward the cliff path. A shadow moved among the trees. Someone was there. Someone who’d been watching them; listening to them. She squinted, trying to get a better look at the dark, sinister-looking figure. There was something familiar about that silhouette.
“That’s not a reporter.” She knew him now—both his identity and the reason he was skulking about in the woods, spying on them. She grabbed Yvonne’s arm. “We need to get out of here. Now.”
Before they’d taken two steps toward the section of the trail that would bring them out on Spruce Avenue, a cold, hard voice stopped them in their tracks. “Stay right where you are,” it ordered, “or I’ll shoot.”
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