Grave Danger

by Rachel Grant

  “James took Laura’s precious dog and trapped him in the blackberries behind the house. Laura cried and cried and hero Jason dug the damn dog out.”

  Before she could ask another question, her cell phone rang again.

  “AN OFFICER FROM THE RICHLAND PD will come by your house this afternoon to collect the papers you and Angela went through,” Mark said to Enid Simms.

  “Oh, I almost forgot. Miss Maitland wanted me to tell you something. Although I didn’t really understand...she said she’s ten-something. Ten-thirty? Does that sound right?”

  Mark’s heart stopped. “Ten-thirty-four?”

  “That’s it!”

  “Did she tell you where she was when you spoke?”

  “No, she didn’t.”

  “How long ago did you talk?”

  “Just before I called you.”

  They’d been on the phone a few minutes. “Thank you. I have to find Libby now.” He hung up and then dialed Libby’s cell phone. No answer. He glanced at his watch. Four twenty. Shit. She was scheduled to interview Earl Montgomery at four.

  The beat of his pounding heart could be felt all the way to the fingers that gripped the phone. He dialed the site. A crew member answered. Without preamble, he demanded to know whether Libby had gone to see Earl alone.

  “Alex was supposed to go with her, but he’s still here, we had a problem—”

  “She’s alone? At the Montgomery mansion?”

  “Is something wrong?” the young woman asked.

  “Yes.” He hung up and tried her cell again as he ran down the corridor. He called for backup to the officers in the squad room. Outside, in his police car, he hit the sirens and tore out of the station.

  WITH EARL DISTRACTED by her ringing cell phone, Libby seized her chance. She braced her back against the couch and then kicked the wooden coffee table into Earl’s knees. He let out a yell as he dropped to the floor.

  She grabbed her gun.

  He scrambled to his back and pointed the barrel of his weapon at her. She kicked it away and stepped on his hand. His scream was loud and full of pain.

  She pulled back the hammer on her gun and aimed at his face as she placed all the weight of her body on his hand. “Move and you’re dead. I’d love an excuse to shoot you.”

  Hard angry eyes stared up at her, but he said nothing.

  “You fucked up again, didn’t you, Earl?” James asked in a cold voice. He stood in the doorway, the gun in his hand aimed at Libby’s chest. “I’m not as stupid as my brother, Libby. So now you have to decide which one of us you want to shoot. Your gun is aimed at him. And I’ll shoot you in the time it takes for you to shift your aim to me.”

  “You were the brains, weren’t you, James? Earl was just your tool. Were you the one who Tasered me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Were you going to kill me?”

  “The plan was to frame you, not kill you. That dumb fuck on the ground there wanted to just kill you. But then there would have been another homicide investigation. With you alive and framed, the investigation would have ended with you. Colby messed with my plans when he showed up that night. But I’d planned carefully, so it still worked. He believed you set it up.”

  “You started this the day we found the burial. How did you know we’d found Angela?”

  “Jack kept me informed on all developments for the Cultural Center because I was the biggest investor.”

  “Our find could have been a real burial.”

  “Earl is the moron who buried her; he knew where she was. If you’d handed her over to the tribe like you were supposed to, I would’ve left you alone after that.”

  “How did you steal my truck?”

  “Easy. I took your spare key from the Shelby house.”

  “You have keys to every TL&L house, don’t you?”

  “Of course.”

  “How did you cool the engine?”

  “I drove your truck a block away and hid it in one of our garages. The engine hadn’t heated much but to speed things along I set a fan on it. Then I waited for you to notice the truck was missing.”

  “And you returned it after I entered the police station.”

  “You are stalling, Ms. Maitland.”

  “If I shoot your brother, even if you shoot me, you’ll have a hell of a time explaining the mess.”

  “I don’t particularly care. Earl’s the fuckup who got us in this situation. He killed Angela without finding out where the damn will was. Then I gave him a simple job—move Angela’s body before the land she was buried on was sold. So he moved her to Jack’s property. Do me a favor. Kill him. The papers were signed an hour ago. I’ll get his share, you’ll both be dead, and I’ll be a hero for shooting the psycho woman who killed my brother.”

  Earl’s eyes hardened. He was now angrier with James than at her. In a swift motion, she switched her aim to James.

  James pulled the trigger. His gun clicked, but there was no bang.

  Libby fired.

  James collapsed.

  In that split second, Earl hit her across the back of her legs with the vase, knocking her to her knees.

  She pushed his gun out of reach. Earl swung at her. The vase hit her in the back. She fell forward, trapping her own gun between her body and the floor.

  Before she could move, the vase hit her head. Nausea rose. She heard sirens. Enid Simms must have talked to Mark.

  Libby rolled to her side and rammed her elbow into Earl’s face. He shoved her forward. With his weight on her back, he buried her face in the rug, keeping her arm and gun trapped. Hands wrapped around her throat. Earl squeezed.

  She struggled for breath and bucked beneath him. His hold didn’t loosen. She needed air.

  A crashing sound came from the front hall.

  His grip tightened.

  She released the gun and clawed at the fingers on her neck. She screamed without sound as pain burned her throat. Her lungs ached and her head throbbed with the need to breathe.

  Earl’s weight lifted from her back. The fingers that gripped her neck released. She took a shuddering breath and twisted to see Mark with Earl in a chokehold.

  Libby coughed. Pain shot down her windpipe.

  The room filled with officers. Luke Roth handcuffed Earl.

  She needed to speak. Mark pulled her to her feet and whispered her name. She took a slow breath and found her voice. She looked at Mark and rasped, “I told Earl you believed me.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  MARK STOOD ON LIBBY’S DOORSTEP, holding a dozen roses and an envelope. His heart pounded in time with his knock. He hadn’t seen her for three days.

  Simone answered, swinging the door wide. “Libby will be down in a second.”

  He stepped into the living room. “How is she doing?”

  “I don’t really know. I’m just trying to give her space.”

  He frowned. “Should I leave?”

  “Stay,” said the voice he’d longed to hear for days. Libby stood on the stairs, wearing a wool sweater over flannel shirt and sweatpants. The heat was on in the house, even though it was over seventy degrees outside—a perfect Pacific Northwest summer day.

  His heart slowed, but the beat became more pronounced when her lips curved in a slow, warm smile as she descended the last of the steps. He dropped the roses, crossed the room, and took her in his arms. He had to touch her, hold her, warm her.

  He’d spent the last days wrapping up the Caruthers and Banks murders, and the investigation of James Montgomery’s death. Libby had been interviewed several times by the assistant district attorney. Mark had informed the ADA of their relationship and removed himself from the interview process beyond what was strictly necessary.

  She rested her forehead on his shoulder and relaxed against him. Mark closed his eyes and breathed in her sweet scent. The soft click of the front door told him Simone had left.

  He had no idea how long he held her before he finally said, “I brought you something.”


  She chuckled against his chest. “I saw. They’re all over the floor.”

  “Not the roses. This.” He loosened his hold and handed her the envelope.

  She stepped back and studied the envelope warily. “Is this a copy?”

  “Yes.”

  She dropped to the couch, and he sat beside her to read over her shoulder.

  November 16, 1946

  Enclosed within the attached envelope is the will entrusted to me by Millicent Thorpe Montgomery on October 28, 1940. I am writing this letter to explain why I have it and to confirm that to the best of my knowledge it is indeed a legal and binding document. It is my understanding that Eli Banks, the lawyer who drafted it, witnessed the will signing. I have not read the will, as Mrs. Montgomery presented it to me in a sealed notarized envelope and I wanted to be sure that the contents remained intact. The date of the notary seal is the same date mentioned above, October 28, 1940.

  Millicent Montgomery came to my home and gave me this envelope. She told me inside was a new will in which she’d named the Kalahwamish tribe as her heirs. Upon her death, the tribe would gain everything she owned, all of Thorpe Log & Lumber and its properties and assets. If anything happened to her, I was to present this will to a judge or other legal authority outside the jurisdiction of the sheriff’s office, who was on Lyle’s payroll.

  Millie trusted me because she knew I was trying to organize a union for the sawmill workers. I was not loyal to her husband, Lyle Montgomery. I was the only person in Coho she could trust.

  I never saw or spoke with her again. She died a few hours later in a car accident.

  I wanted to abide by Millie’s wishes but I couldn’t let the mill go to the Indians. I know Millie meant well in leaving the mill to them, but it would be just plain wrong to entrust good white folks’ jobs to heathens.

  I figured Millie would be just as pleased to know I used the will to leverage Lyle into accepting the union. Lyle hates the idea of a union as much as he hates Indians. Millie will have her revenge against him, and the mill workers will get better wages and better working conditions.

  This letter contains a fair and accurate accounting of events.

  Sincerely,

  Nathan Simms

  When Libby finished reading she said, “His wife might be the sweetest thing since cotton candy, but I’m glad I never met him. If he’d done what Millie trusted him to do back in 1940, Angela would never have been murdered.”

  “It seems Millie had a knack for trusting the wrong man.”

  Libby studied the page again. “The date of the letter—that’s the day before the union’s first strike.”

  “Yes. It looks like he planned to go public with the will if the union didn’t go through. He had his envelope notarized and it said ‘Millie Thorpe Montgomery’ on the front. Angela must have known she found Millie’s will when she saw that and the notary seal date. But she couldn’t open it. She needed to wait, like we did, and open the envelope in the presence of an authority from a court. We’re looking up the notary records now, for both Simms’s seal and Millie’s. If we can find them, then there’s no doubt the will is authentic.”

  “Is it still valid, sixty-two years later?”

  “That’s for a court to decide.”

  “The corporation that bought TL&L last week will fight this.”

  “It’s a tangled mess. It looks like Laura plans to fight the will, but her case is weak. We’re tracking down evidence to confirm Earl’s statement she helped him move Angela’s car to the North Cascades in 1979.”

  “But Earl won’t get anything, even if the will is declared invalid?”

  “He can’t profit from a crime. He may have been only twelve in 1940, but he was an accessory after the fact to his own mother’s murder. We have your tape for evidence of that.” He reached for her hand. “And I love the fact that the tape is completely admissible. He gave you verbal permission to record your conversation at the beginning of the tape.”

  “Standard operating procedure,” she responded.

  “Archaeological methods and police methods blend very well.” He brought her hand to his lips.

  She didn’t pull away, but she said, “I need time, Mark.”

  “I’ll wait.” He stood. He could give her space. He could give her time. He’d give her whatever the hell she wanted. “I love you, Libby. You can have as much time as you need. I’ll do whatever I can to help you get through this.”

  She smiled. She’d lost her anger around the time she squared off with James with a loaded gun. Now he saw only remorse in her haunted eyes.

  The tape had provided the exact number of seconds between the gunshots and his arrival. If he’d arrived seventy-eight seconds sooner, he could have prevented Libby from having to kill.

  “We have more evidence linking Earl to Angela’s murder. He’s talking, trying to get a deal. Earl said you recognized a point base he forgot to remove from his collection. He thought he was busted when you started questioning him about it.”

  “The caramel-colored point base. I did think it looked familiar, but I didn’t realize why until this morning when I was looking at artifacts from the site and came across the other half. We’d found it in the burial pit.”

  “He found the artifact when he dug the pit. He broke the stone with his shovel and couldn’t find the tip. The artifact gave him the idea of including an arrowhead in Angela’s hands, to make her look like an Indian burial if she were ever found. But he couldn’t use the broken one—not without both pieces. He’d bought the Helenite one at a tourist shop on one of his trips to Pasco and still had the fake point in the car. He knew it was a replica, but didn’t know the Helenite was manufactured and easily identifiable.

  “Earl is doing his best to lay the blame on James. He said James found your Taser in your purse the night he smashed the mask. He purchased his own the next day. James was an opportunist. He spent his time looking for ways to exploit what you could provide—from gas cans, to car keys, to Tasers.”

  “Tell me something. Why didn’t James’ gun fire?”

  “His revolver was old. Older revolvers are carried and stored with the firing chamber in the cylinder empty—this prevents people from shooting themselves if they drop the gun—James must have forgotten the firing chamber was empty.”

  “And if he’d had a chance to fire again?”

  “He’d have shot you.” The click of the hammer hitting the empty chamber had been audible on the tape. The sound would fill Mark’s nightmares for years to come. Just as he’d never forget how she looked now, sitting before him, her neck bruised from Earl’s attack. “Shooting him was one hundred percent justified.” He didn’t say he had convinced the DA to ignore the fact she was carrying concealed without a permit.

  “I wish I could forget the look on his face when I shot him.”

  “He doesn’t deserve your remorse, Libby. If he’d loaded that first chamber, I could have arrived at the scene to find you dead on the floor. Then I would have killed him, but my actions might not have been justified.”

  That empty chamber had saved him as much as Libby.

  He pulled her to her feet. She didn’t resist the embrace but stood stiff for a moment before her body melted into his again. Relief spread through him as he accepted her surrender. He would give her all the time she needed.

  LIBBY STOOD ALONE BY MILLIE’S grave, clutching a bouquet of flowers she’d picked from the Shelby house garden. She stared at the weathered headstone and wondered what she was doing here. Millie’s grave couldn’t answer her questions, couldn’t take away the cold that had seeped into her bones the moment she pulled the trigger and killed Millie’s youngest child.

  Was she here seeking forgiveness? She didn’t know.

  She heard a car door slam and turned to see Jason’s gold Lexus parked next to her Suburban.

  Crap. Jason was the last person she wanted to see right now. He was also the one person she most needed to talk to. He approached slowly. The smile
he usually greeted her with was absent. He stopped in front of her and stood silent. Waiting.

  The chill she’d felt for days intensified. She shivered. Did the frigid feeling come from Jason, or from herself?

  “Hell,” he said at last, and he reached out and hugged her, crushing the flowers she held between them. Finally, he stepped back and looked her in the eye. “You’re avoiding me.”

  “I’m avoiding everyone.”

  “Except Simone.”

  “Truth is, I’m not even talking to her.”

  “I owe you an apology,” he said.

  Libby looked away. The last thing she wanted or expected from Jason was an apology. One of the reasons she hadn’t wanted to see him was because she felt guilty for having been suspicious of him, and for not telling him about his mother’s quest to find Millie’s will.

  “You don’t owe me an apology,” she said. “I owe you one. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the will.”

  He shrugged. “I understand. A hundred million is a lot of money. You didn’t know if I could walk away from that. And I do owe you an apology. When I kissed you at lunch that day, I spotted Mark in his parked car. I knew he saw us.”

  “You saw Mark. That’s why you kissed me.”

  “Remember, I didn’t know you were seeing him,” Jason said in a rush. “But I knew he was interested in you. So was I. I figured if I had any hope of getting you to go out with me, I needed to act.”

  “Admit you suspected. I’m not stupid, Jason, and neither are you.”

  “Okay. I admit I suspected there was something between you, which is why I’m sorry.” He paused. “It would have been easier if there’d been any real chemistry between us. Then you’d have known you could trust me. You could have told me about the will. I would have known James was your stalker. He asked me a lot of questions about you, under the guise of interest in your dig.” Jason’s laugh was sharp, bitter. “I realize now he was pumping me for information he could use against you.”

  “I’m sorry, Jason.”

  “James was not the man I thought he was.” He was quiet for a moment and then said, “I heard you finished your report.”