by Leslie Kelly
He inserted the first tape into a VCR hooked up to a state-of-the-art television. Logan appeared on screen. Everyone leaned forward, watching, hanging on every word as Logan detailed a convincing-sounding scenario. Even Mick bought it and thought they might be listening to tonight’s winner. Then Logan fingered the killer: James.
Mick looked at Caroline, trying to gauge her expression. Damn, she had her poker face on. She revealed nothing. Beside her, though, the camerawoman, Jacey, was practically bouncing on her toes.
“Now we’ll hear James’s solution,” Charmagne continued.
In went the second tape. James looked a little less prepared, a little more frantic and fumbling. He rambled and had no real motives for the murders of the first three victims, the ones who “died” back at Sophie’s house.
When James named the killer, he did it with a glimmer of spite in his eye. Logan.
Next to him, he heard a tiny gasp. Mick glanced over, knowing Caroline hadn’t made the sound, though a tiny grin played on her lips. Beside her, though, Jacey was trying unsuccessfully to hide a joyful look. He had the feeling the noise of elation had come from her.
Then Mick glanced at the final contestant. The fireman. Digg.
“Son of a bitch,” Mick whispered under his breath, realizing the implications of what had just happened.
James had accused Logan. Logan had accused James. Neither had claimed responsibility as the killer.
And he suddenly knew the outcome.
“The final accusation,” announced Charmagne with his well-known melodramatic flair.
The third tape was put on. Diego Martinez looked at the camera. Then he began to explain in minute, intricate detail every step of the killing. It was an incredible story of greed and extortion, revenge and rage. The plot all tied together so perfectly, so delightfully that Mick felt as if he’d just read a brilliant mystery novel. Maybe one as good as his own sister could have written.
At the end of his monologue, Digg looked at the screen. Smiled. And delivered the death blow.
“The Derryville Demon is…me.”
Everyone in the room remained quiet, not bursting out in reaction until the last scene was shot. But the players reacted. James groaned. Logan chuckled a little, looking admiringly at the man who’d just beaten him out of a million bucks.
Neither of them had realized the implication of whose tape would be played last. Of course it had to be the killer’s, otherwise the suspense wouldn’t have lasted so long or been maintained at such an edge-of-the-seat level.
“Congratulations, Diego, you have successfully eliminated every one of your competitors,” Joshua Charmagne said in his smoothest, commercial talk-over voice. “You have won one million dollars by killing time in a small town.”
Renauld called cut. And everyone in the room erupted.
THE CELEBRATION lasted for several minutes. Then Daniel, Caro and Mick exchanged one long, knowing look. Caro knew the time had come. The show was over. The fictional murder case solved. Now it was time to resolve the real one.
“You have the tape?” Daniel asked Mick. Mick nodded, taking Caroline’s hand. They’d agreed before that she, as the one who knew everyone in the cast and crew, should be the one to approach their suspect.
“You have backup in the kitchen?” Mick asked Daniel, not for the first time. He hadn’t liked the idea of Caro spending a moment with a murder suspect, but even he’d agreed it was the best way.
No one wanted to accuse the killer in a room full of people—potential hostages. They needed to get him alone in another part of the house.
Taking a deep breath, Caro made her way through the crowd. She schooled herself to keep the genuine shock and disappointment from her voice as she smiled at the person she believed was responsible for the death of Hester Devane.
“Charlie?”
The old man, the friendly, grizzled tech director who’d been the first to offer a smile on this production, looked up. “Caro! Congratulations!” He threw his arms around her and gave her an exuberant hug. “You did it, kid. You are really on your way. A hit under your belt and the sky’s the limit.”
Caro’s heart broke a little. God, how it hurt to think this man could be a murderer. But it made sense. More than any other possibility, this one made sense.
“Can I talk to you in the kitchen?”
Charlie nodded his gray head, taking her arm and leading her out of the packed room. “I was so glad the fireman took the loot. Logan seemed like a nice enough fellow, but if that James had won it, I think I would have lost all faith in reality TV.”
Caro couldn’t prevent a tiny chuckle. There was an interesting place to put one’s faith.
“What’d you want to see me about?” Charlie asked. But as they entered the kitchen, closing the door behind them, he saw Daniel at the table and his two police officers moving to block both entrances of the room.
His face fell.
“Charlie, the chief would like to speak to you,” Caro said softly.
He nodded, suddenly looking older than his years. “Do you mind if I sit? It’s been a long couple of weeks.”
Daniel held out a chair, remaining silent, assessing the suspect. “As long as you don’t mind if I check your pockets.”
The man lifted his arms and spread his legs without demur. One of the officers—not the one who’d thrown up on Miss Hester’s corpse—patted him down quickly and efficiently. He’d probably learned the technique by watching cop shows. Caro wasn’t one to criticize. She’d learned a bunch of useful things from television.
The officer stepped away with a nod at the chief, and Daniel gestured toward the chair. “You do know you don’t have to talk to us. I’m not arresting you, but I do have a warrant to search your room and belongings.”
“I know my rights,” the old man replied, sounding more resigned than afraid. “I’m tired and just want this over with. I’m ready to tell you what happened.”
Once Charlie sat down, Daniel said, “Are you aware that a suspect is in custody for the murder of Hester Tomlinson?”
To give him credit, Charlie’s eyes widened and his mouth dropped open in shock. “No. Who?”
“My sister,” Mick bit out from between clenched teeth.
Daniel shot him a glance telling him to stay out of it, as he and Caro had both agreed to do. That was the only way Daniel would let them stay. Silenced, at least for the moment, Mick crossed his arms and leaned against the wall.
Charlie looked around the room at them all, finally resting his gaze on Caro. He looked defeated, sad, even apologetic. Then he spoke to Mick. “Your sister didn’t kill the woman…Miss Hester, you say? I didn’t know her by that name.”
“You knew her as Esmerelda Devane,” Daniel said.
Charlie nodded. “I did.”
“And you killed her.”
“I did not.” Charlie’s spine stiffened. “She killed herself. It was an accident, but as God is my witness, she was the one who pulled that trigger.”
Caro gasped, unable to help it. The junior officers stared at each other, bug-eyed as two cartoon characters.
“Explain. Start with the blackmail,” Daniel ordered.
Caro held her breath, waiting to see if Miss Hester had been blackmailer or blackmailed. An innocent or a victim of her own greed.
Charlie set that to rest immediately. “She recognized me from the old days. She thought she had something on me. Something ugly and awful. So she started sending me notes. They came to the Snorkle house, where I’ve been rooming. Never saw who slid them under the door.”
“And they mentioned Victoria Lynn?”
Charlie nodded. “They did.”
“Hester’s former colleague in the, er, movie business.”
Charlie started to rise from his seat. For the first time he looked angry, rather than forlorn.
“Victoria Lynn is my wife.”
That silenced them all. And they remained silent while Charlie told them his whole sorry story.<
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THAT NIGHT and the next day, Mick spent a lot of time with his parents and sister. Sophie had been released from jail once Charlie had come forward with the truth of Hester Devane’s death. They’d all been a little shocked by the story, but Mick, at least, had no doubt it was true. It wouldn’t surprise him at all that Miss Hester would try to blackmail someone who she thought had murdered her best friend and former roommate.
Apparently Hester, as Esmerelda, had fallen in with a serious drug and porn crowd in California in the early ’70s. She and her roommate, Victoria, had starred in a few bad movies.
Then Victoria had disappeared. And Hester had believed that Charlie, a cameraman and Victoria’s sometime lover, had been involved in her death.
“She’d heard talk of snuff films and believed that’s what happened to Victoria,” Mick explained to Jared and Gwen Monday night as they sat on the front porch of his house. His parents had gone home, and Sophie and Daniel had decided to leave town for a few days to get over what had happened. Sophie was already plotting to work in a false murder charge in her next book. “That’s what scared her away from California and her secret identity.” He shifted on the porch swing. “In reality, Charlie had spirited Vicki away to get her in rehab. He has the pictures and marriage certificate to prove he and Victoria have been married for nearly three decades.”
“Why didn’t he just tell Miss Hester about his wife?” Gwen asked.
Caroline came out of the house in time to overhear. “He was protecting Victoria. He had no idea who was blackmailing him. At first, he didn’t even recognize Miss Hester once he saw her. He wanted more than anything to keep his wife’s past a secret from their children and grandchildren.”
“Sad,” Gwen murmured.
Beside her, Jared appeared unconvinced. “And when he appeared at the drop-off spot, the third-floor suite, he claims Hester was the one with the gun?”
Caroline sat down with Mick on the porch swing, curling up against him for warmth in the cool evening air. Dropping his arm over her shoulders felt as natural as breathing.
“She was,” Mick said. “Hester had the gun all along. She’d taken it from Louise.”
“Plausible,” Jared said, conceding the point as he thought it over. “A blackmailer would want a weapon for defense.”
Mick continued to relate the story. “Once he figured out who Hester was, Charlie tried to convince her that Victoria was alive and well, and begged her to leave them alone.”
Caroline stepped in. “But she didn’t believe him and thought he was trying to distract her and take the gun.”
“The old ‘they both reached for the gun’ defense?” Jared asked.
Mick nodded. “It went off.”
“Miss Hester hit the tub,” Caro added.
“Charlie panicked, picked up the gun with one of the blackmail notes to keep his fingerprints off, and stuck it in his back pocket.”
Jared rolled his eyes. “For someone in a panic, he had the presence of mind to try to avoid prints.”
Mick didn’t try to convince Jared that his suspicions were wrong. Jared hadn’t been there to hear the older man break down. But his words had convinced everyone in that kitchen that he’d been telling the truth. Every one of them would be willing to testify to the emotion of the moment when it came time for trial—if there was one.
“How’d the gun end up in our attic?” Gwen asked with a little shiver.
“It fell out of his pocket, along with the notes, when he climbed through the access door to get away,” Mick said. “He’d been spending his days at the inn—he knew the ins and outs, so to speak.”
Gwen and Jared exchanged an intimate look and a smile. Mick, remembering that the two of them had first fallen in love at the inn, didn’t question it.
“The thing that really damaged Sophie was admitting that she’d gone up the back stairs,” Caro said, shaking her head as she thought it over.
Mick squeezed her closer, liking the way she felt against his side. Liking having her here, on his porch, with his family, in his world. “They found her footprints, and Miss Hester’s, and read too much into it. Plus Sophie, being the good girl she is, picked up what she thought was a piece of trash off that back stairwell and threw it away in one of the upstairs bedrooms.”
“Let me guess,” Jared said, “a note Miss Hester had dropped earlier.”
“Bingo,” Caro and Mick said in unison.
They talked for another hour, discussing Charlie’s future, the manslaughter arrest, the pending investigation and trial. Mick felt certain that the man would be okay, as long as the justice system worked. He hoped, in this case, that it would.
Eventually, Gwen and Jared left, leaving Mick and Caro alone on the porch swing.
“You okay?” he asked her softly. They’d had no real alone time since the previous day. God, things had been such a whirlwind, he hadn’t even asked her what had happened on the set today.
“I’m fine. Really.” Then she laughed softly. “It’s amazing how quickly a studio can change its tune when it’s one of their own employees involved in a murder investigation, rather than a celebrity.”
Mick knew without asking what she meant. The studio was no longer going to be exploiting the real murder, not when they might very well get hit with a lawsuit or something by Miss Hester’s next of kin. But he doubted that. Pastor Bob seemed the type who would want to move on and forget the ugliness as soon as possible. Putting it out there for public consumption would mean exposing his sister’s past, something no brother would want to do. He seemed content to move on with his life—with Louise Flanagan, who hadn’t left his side in days.
“I have to tell you something,” she said softly.
His spine straightened. The tone in her voice told him he wasn’t going to like what she had to say.
“Yes?”
She drew in a deep breath, then released it. Her warm exhalations caressed his neck and he tightened his embrace.
“I have to leave tomorrow.”
Christ. Tomorrow. “So soon? I thought you had until the end of the week.”
She dropped her head, looking away. “Things changed because of the case. Now that Charlie’s gone, and Jacey quit to take off with Digg, there’s nothing left to do here.”
“Of course.”
They fell silent. Now nothing lay between them—no murders or TV shows. Now there was only their past and their desires, their feelings and their geography.
And one more thing.
“Why did you leave me, Caroline?” he asked, needing to know that before he decided what he was going to do.
Everything hinged on her answer. He’d realized that days ago, back when he’d been torturing himself by trying to stay away from her when with her was the only place he wanted to be.
Because if her distrust of him hadn’t changed, then nothing ever would.
“Did you really believe I betrayed you one week after asking you to marry me?” he asked, trying to sound merely curious, and not hurt, though he’d been nursing that wound for a very, very long time. Through other women and relationships. And tattoos.
She didn’t answer for a long moment. Then, finally, she tilted her head back and stared at him, her face lit by soft moonlight and her eyes glistening with emotion. “I did.”
A part of him died at her answer.
“I don’t now.”
He nodded, waiting for her to go on.
“Mick, I know now that what I interpreted as your inability to commit, to ever settle down and be faithful, was really my own out clause from our relationship.”
“Out clause?”
“I’d built in an easy escape. Deep down I never, ever thought I’d be able to hold you. Any more than my mother could hold my father. Or any woman with a lousy outlook on love could hold a man who seemed to love everybody—” she rolled her eyes “—as often as possible.”
He laughed, unable to help it, amused by her droll tone. “We’ve been over that. And for th
e record, I’ve only ever loved one woman. As I believe I told you one night many years ago.”
She sucked her bottom lip between her teeth, but didn’t press for more details. There were still words to be said before they could go down that road.
“The point is, I convinced myself you wouldn’t change. That I wasn’t enough to make you want to change.”
“That implies I was really in need of change. Was I that bad?”
She frowned. “Baby, the big bad wolf could have taken lessons from you.”
He winced. “Point taken.”
She curled tighter against him. “So I prepared myself for the inevitable and when the first opportunity occurred, I convinced myself it was true and hightailed it west.”
He couldn’t keep the pain from his voice. It was eight years old, miles wide and unvoiced until this moment. “You didn’t even give me a chance to explain.”
She sniffed a little, raising her face to the sky so that he could see the tears on her cheeks. “I know. And I’m sorry. That’s the biggest regret of my life. That I didn’t have the courage or the self-confidence to get in your face and demand an explanation.”
If she had, how different might their lives have been? He had no idea, and it was a waste of time thinking about the past, now, when the future stretched out in front of them. At least, he hoped it did.
They fell silent again, just rocking in the moonlight, listening to the bark of the neighbor’s dog and the creak of the swing’s chain. And then, just when he’d thought she’d say no more, she added, “I’m sorry for doubting you. I know you’d never hurt me.”
That was enough for him, the moment he’d been waiting for.
And the moment he knew his future.
CARO WOKE the next morning and slipped from Mick’s bed after a night of lovemaking like none she’d ever known. She’d expected frenzy, a hungry grasping of something that was slipping away and might very well be over when she boarded the plane the next day.
But there was none of that. There was long, slow, languorous loving that went on for hours, until she lost sight of who she was and who he was, where her body ended and his began. She moaned and she sighed. She came and she gave. She cried out and she sobbed. And over and over she whispered—if only in her mind—I love you, Mick.
