The Arrangement

by Suzanne Forster

  She had an appointment with James Brainard first thing in the morning, but that would have to be rescheduled. Marnie had something else to do, and it couldn’t wait.

  Andrew stood in front of the grainy television screen, watching news footage of Marnie trying to avoid reporters outside the county courthouse. Surrounded by Fairmonts and her top gun attorney, she looked lost and bewildered and defiant. He’d seen that look before. It didn’t bode well for her—or anyone else.

  The local news media had broken the story, describing her as the mysterious, reclusive heiress who’d had a near-fatal boating accident and a miracle resurrection six months ago. They reported the multiple plastic surgeries to restore her face—and the pictures they flashed of Alison before the accident, looking artlessly blond and beautiful, were quite a contrast to the feral, dark-haired woman shown here.

  Andrew hit the mute button. Only he knew who the mysterious heiress really was—and only he could get her out of this unholy mess. But if he did, it was all over—for both of them. He and Marnie had invisible slipknots around their necks, at either end of the same rope. One wrong move now would be their last.

  He glanced at the well-stocked wet bar, and his throat tightened, burned. He wanted a drink. It would solve nothing, except to push away reality, but right now that didn’t sound half-bad.

  He was back in Mirage Bay, staying at the beach house rental he’d arranged before he left for Mexico. He’d hoped he wouldn’t need the hideaway, but had wanted to be prepared. His trip to Baja had been a trap to flush out the mastermind who’d tried to frame him, and who may have committed a string of murders, including pushing LaDonna off the cliff.

  Andrew still believed the trap would have worked, but he’d had to abandon the plan and return to the States when he got word that LaDonna had been murdered and Marnie was the chief suspect. The police were all over Sea Clouds by the time he got back, and Andrew couldn’t go near the place. If his cover was blown, whatever chance he had to help her was blown with it. He had to lay low, and unfortunately Diego Sanchez, Andrew’s eyes and ears while he was gone, had been kicked off the premises by Bret.

  Diego couldn’t even stake the place out without risking discovery by the local law or Tony Bogart. So Andrew was doing his own stakeout. The rental beach house was on a bluff behind Sea Clouds, and from his vantage point, he could watch the nightmare unfolding, but there was nothing he could do. And it was only going to get worse. She’d been charged with her own murder, and there was no way to prove her identity. Even he couldn’t do it. There were no records. There never had been.

  When she’d agreed to take on Alison’s identity, he’d searched for Marnie Hazelton’s records, but hadn’t found any. That’s when he’d discovered, through newspaper accounts of Butch’s murder investigation, that the sheriff’s office hadn’t found anything on her, either. Except for sporadic school records, Marnie Hazelton didn’t exist. She didn’t even have fingerprints.

  They’d questioned her grandmother, but she’d stuck to her story about finding a baby in a basket, even when they’d threatened to report her to Child Protective Services. She’d told them Marnie had been home-schooled off and on because her deformities had made her a target, which explained why her school records were sporadic. She’d also claimed to have provided Marnie’s medical care. The cops got nowhere with Josephine Hazelton, but apparently they’d decided not to prosecute a distraught elderly woman whose child was missing.

  Andrew hadn’t understood the lack of records, and still didn’t, but at the time it had made his work easier. Now it blocked his path at every turn. If he tried to convince the county prosecutor that she wasn’t Alison, he would expose them both to charges of murder and fraud—and the real killer would go free.

  Alison Fairmont might have a chance of beating the charges with Brainard as her attorney, but could Marnie Hazelton beat the charges against her? She’d admitted to killing Butch, but there was only her word that it was self-defense. Worse, she would lose all credibility when they found out what she’d done. She was the woman who’d conspired with Andrew Fairmont to defraud Julia. No one would believe their motives. It would look as if they were after the trust fund and had killed Alison to get it.

  Jesus. It just got worse and worse. Andrew felt like a car skidding on wet pavement, brakes locked. There was going to be a collision no matter what he did.

  He looked up to see his face plastered all over the screen. The mute button brought the sound blaring back—and Andrew winced. He’d had the volume up, trying to catch every word. The news was repetitive and sensationalized, but it was his main source of information right now.

  An insert popped onto the screen. A deputy from the sheriff’s office was addressing a reporter’s questions about the case.

  “The suspect’s husband is Andrew Villard,” the deputy said. “The family says he went on a business trip and hasn’t returned. Even the suspect doesn’t know how to contact him. Obviously, we’re very concerned about Mr. Villard’s whereabouts. He’s not a suspect yet, but he’s definitely a person of interest—”

  Andrew clicked off the TV. His task had just gotten monumentally more difficult. He was no longer anonymous. Every Joe Blow out there knew what he looked like and could turn him in.

  The bar called to him. It whispered and cajoled. He’d noticed a bottle of Dewars, which he could almost taste. He hadn’t had a serious problem with booze since he’d quit, but this craving was serious. It was bad.

  He turned away. Out of sight, out of mind.

  Marnie’s attorney might be able to get her out of this, but Andrew couldn’t take that chance. His only hope of getting her out of the frying pan without tossing her into the fire was to hunt down LaDonna’s killer. Unfortunately, his main suspect had no reason to have killed LaDonna and plenty of reasons not to. And if Andrew believed Bogart’s eyewitness testimony, Alison was the murderer.

  Andrew knew Marnie hadn’t done it, which left him with two possibilities: the real Alison wasn’t dead, or, more likely, someone wanted the police to believe she wasn’t and had turned to murder. Tony Bogart and his vendetta against Alison came to mind first. Payback seemed to be Bogart’s purpose in life, and with his knowledge of forensics, he was well equipped to set her up for a fall. But unfortunately, so did several other suspects, including Julia and her boy toy, Jack Furlinghetti.

  Andrew had learned about that relationship through Diego Sanchez, who’d been keeping an eye on the Fairmont family. Furlinghetti was trustee of the fund established by Eleanor Driscoll, and his clandestine relationship with Julia could mean the two of them were conspiring to keep Alison from getting the fifty million. What better way than to frame her for a murder and lock her up for life? But Diego hadn’t been able to come up with anything concrete, and now Andrew was hamstrung. Worse, he was out of time before he’d started.

  He walked out to the deck that had a view of the ocean and Sea Clouds just below him. The cover of trees allowed him to observe the place without being seen, and everything looked deceptively quiet right now. Even the press had taken a break. But he was just in time to catch the blood-red sun as it sank into the ocean, staining the water a deep crimson. If he’d been a believer in signs, he would have said that this was a bad one. Worse than bad. He would have said that someone else was going to die.

  29

  Marnie checked the rearview mirror again, making sure no one was following her. She’d slept very little last night. Her head was full of thoughts and desperate plans, but she’d had to wait until this morning to follow through on any of them.

  It was early, 6:00 a.m., and the traffic was light enough that spotting a tail shouldn’t be too difficult. She wasn’t as concerned about Bret or Tony Bogart as she was the sheriff’s office. The arraignment had been held yesterday afternoon, but evidently they still didn’t know she wasn’t Alison. She’d thought those fingerprint records were all computerized and could be accessed within minutes.

  It was hard to imagin
e what was causing the delay, but she had to act before they did. It was crucial that she get to the Springdale Convalescent Home before the police, or anyone else, got to her.

  She may have located her grandmother.

  Having had no luck locating Josephine Hazelton, Marnie had started over, this time using her grandmother’s maiden name, Clark. It was a fairly common name, and Marnie had located a Josephine Clark on the second call. She couldn’t be sure it was the right one, but that’s where she was headed now, praying that she could find the place. According to the directions she’d been given, it was a half hour inland, in a little town called Billingsly.

  Marnie had never had a driver’s license of her own, but Gramma Jo had let her drive their old station wagon into town, and Marnie had never been stopped. Now, she was using Alison’s license, of course, but Andrew had insisted she take driving lessons in Long Island before he’d let her out on the road. Marnie could remember begging Gramma Jo to let her get a license when she turned sixteen, but something had always come up, and Gramma Jo had never gotten around to taking her for the test. For some reason, she hadn’t wanted her to have that license, but Marnie had never figured out why.

  Marnie found the door to room 220B wide-open, but she couldn’t see beyond the short hallway. “Hello?” She spoke softly, not wanting to startle anyone, especially her grandmother, if this was her room.

  No one answered, but Marnie couldn’t leave without making sure. When she got beyond the hallway she was stopped by the sight of a silver-haired woman sitting at the window. She seemed to be absorbed by the hummingbirds visiting a hanging feeder.

  Her grandmother didn’t have silver hair, but something prompted Marnie to speak anyway. “Josephine Hazelton?”

  The woman turned, and Marnie was startled to see her grandmother’s iridescent blue eyes and rounded features. “Who is it?” she asked. “Come out of the shadows where I can see you.”

  Marnie was almost afraid to move into the room. She hadn’t expected it to be Gramma Jo. Her hair had always been long and naturally curly. She’d worn it tied back, and she’d been graying for years, but now she’d gone almost white.

  Marnie wondered if her disappearance could have caused it. She didn’t know how to explain what had happened, but she’d decided to confess everything—and hope to be forgiven. Maybe she should hope to be believed.

  “It’s me.” That was all Marnie managed to say as she walked into the room and hesitated by the bed, wondering if she would see any sign of recognition now that she was standing in natural light from the window.

  “You?” Josephine Hazelton peered at Marnie, fear in her expression. “What are you doing here?” Her eyes were so piercingly focused that Marnie could feel their heat. She had been recognized, but did her grandmother think she was looking at Alison or Marnie?

  “You get out of here,” Josephine whispered. “You have no business coming to this place.”

  “Please, let me tell you who I—”

  “Get out!”

  Marnie reached for her throat, for the ring that she’d worn every day since her grandmother had assured her it was good luck. The ring was gone. Andrew still had it. But the need to touch it was a reflex—and one that Gramma Jo well knew.

  The older woman saw the gesture and fell silent. Her brow furrowed and within moments her fierce expression began to crumble. Her hands came to her mouth, prayerlike, and slowly, agonizingly, her eyes filled with tears.

  She shook her head. “No, it can’t be. Marnie? What’s happened to you?”

  “God, so much.”

  She studied Marnie’s dark hair, her eyes and her anguished smile, and then pressed her fists to her chest. This was her child. Her shoulders sagged. “Come here,” she said. “Come to me.”

  Marnie crossed the small room and dropped to her knees beside her grandmother’s chair. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t tell you I was alive. I couldn’t tell anyone.”

  She took Gramma Jo’s hand, fighting to keep her voice under control as she went back through the events of the last six months. She started with Butch’s attack, sharing everything she could remember about that afternoon and what had happened afterward, including the way Andrew found her on the rocks, their arrangement, and the real reason they were in Mirage Bay. It was difficult, and she had to stop at times because silence seemed the only way to deal with the emotions that welled up, but her grandmother listened with a calm acceptance that felt like more than Marnie deserved.

  As Marnie told her about all the surgeries and her long recovery, she had the strangest feeling that Gramma Jo already knew about what she was describing. “Had you heard that I was alive?” she asked.

  “No, I knew nothing,” the elderly woman said. “They told me you’d jumped from the cliffs after you killed Butch. I think they were trying to get me to admit that I’d seen you kill him. I told them the truth. I wasn’t home. I was down at the flea market. I also told them that Butch deserved to die for making your life so miserable.”

  Marnie was reluctant to talk about what had happened in the last forty-eight hours, but she had little choice. Gramma Jo might be the only one who could help her now. But just as she feared, her grandmother reacted with horror when she told her about LaDonna’s murder and how the police had charged Marnie with two counts of homicide.

  It took Marnie some time to convince her that she would be all right. She had a plan. It could only be used as a last resort, but at least it was a plan.

  “What will you do?” Gramma Jo asked. “They can’t try you for your own murder.”

  “They can unless I prove who I am. Marnie Hazelton doesn’t exist, except for school records that prove nothing. There’s no birth certificate, no social security number, no driver’s license, no fingerprints on file, no paper trail of any kind.”

  Gramma Jo’s nod was tentative.

  “They fingerprinted me yesterday,” Marnie said, “but apparently they still haven’t figured out that my fingerprints and Alison’s don’t match.”

  “What about Butch’s murder? Won’t you be charged with that if they find out who you are?”

  “Yes, probably, but if it comes to that, I’ll say I was defending myself. Everyone knows how he stalked me.”

  Outside, the gray sky had grown dark. A storm was brewing, and the lack of light cast a pall over the small room. As Marnie got up to turn on a table lamp, she heard breakfast being announced over the PA system.

  “Would you like me to walk with you to breakfast?” she asked. She took a moment to look around the room, which was sparsely furnished with a bed, a television and a chair. It was more like a hotel room than a place where someone could make a life. And it was nothing like her grandmother’s ramshackle cottage where the two of them had lived such a crazy, and often wonderful, patchwork quilt existence.

  Concern for her grandmother washed over Marnie. “What are you doing here? Are you ill?”

  “No, I’m fine. I blacked out at home one day, and when I went to the doctor he said my blood pressure was too high. I was getting forgetful and confused, couldn’t remember to take my meds. I needed some help is all, and this seemed like a good place.”

  “So you came here on your own? Found it and arranged it? What are you doing with the cottage? LaDonna told me you asked her to keep an eye on it.”

  Gramma drew in a breath. “Marnie, never mind that right now. You came here to tell me what really happened, and to unburden yourself. And now I need to do the same.”

  Something in her grandmother’s tone caused Marnie’s heart to hesitate. “Why would you need to unburden yourself? You haven’t done anything.”

  “Please do your old grandmother a favor,” the other woman said, “and remember that you kept a secret from me that broke my heart. I’ve thought about you every day since you disappeared, and prayed that you were all right.”

  “I’m not likely to forget it. I hate what I had to do…but why are you asking that of me?”

  “Because I am abou
t to tell you a terrible secret, one that’s much worse than yours, and I pray to God you can understand and forgive me. Human beings aren’t noble, Marnie. We compromise, we do what we have to, and then we live with the guilt. And if we’re any good at all, we spend the rest of our lives trying to make up for what we did.”

  “What did you do?” Marnie asked.

  Gramma Jo looked out the window again. “You know that I’ve always worked with natural medicines. Years ago, before you came to me, I created a herbal brew that could bring on a woman’s period.”

  “You mean if she was late?”

  “Technically, it was more like a morning-after pill. It had to be taken before a period was missed. Anyway, word got out, and I had women flocking to me. I was nervous about the safety issues, but these women were all so desperate that I couldn’t refuse them.”

  “So you sold them this brew?”

  Marnie had become aware that her grandmother was worrying the button on her cuff, as if trying to get it fastened. But it already was buttoned, and Marnie wanted to plead with her to stop.

  “No, I gave it away,” Gramma Jo said. “No one had any problems, but I worried that harm might come of it, so I stopped. I quit altogether—and then I had a woman show up at my door, crying and hysterical, saying she’d made a terrible mistake. She was married, but she’d had a fling with some drifter. She offered to pay me any amount of money to give her a dose of the brew.”

  The button came undone. Marnie reached over and stilled Gramma Jo’s frantic fingers. “Let me,” she said.

  “I didn’t take her money,” Gramma said, “but I gave her what she wanted, and that was my terrible mistake. She’d lied to me. She was already pregnant, three months along. She came back the next day bleeding and in severe pain, but there was nothing I could do for her. We both thought she’d miscarried, but months later, she discovered she was still pregnant.”