by Diana Miller
“Then you went back to your room?” Jim asked.
“He spent the night with me,” Lexie said when Ben didn’t answer. After all the lies he’d told, she couldn’t believe he was going to be a gentleman about this. “He was there until just after five this morning, when he went to get the sailboat ready.”
“Was he with you the entire night?”
“I left for about fifteen minutes to shower,” Ben said. “Around twelve thirty.”
Jim returned his attention to Lexie. “Can you confirm how long he was gone? Or what time he got back?”
“I can’t because I fell asleep,” she said. “He woke me when he got back, but I never checked the clock.”
“I need to look around,” Jim said. “Okay if I search the house?”
“It’s okay with me, but I’m not the only owner,” Ben said.
Lexie cleared her throat. She’d failed to prevent Max’s murder, but she still had a job to do. “The trustee is currently the legal owner of Nevermore and won’t agree to a search without a warrant.”
“Things always go to hell whenever a lawyer gets involved, “ Jim muttered. “I’ll go call the county attorney. Then I’ll be back to question everyone, so stick around.”
# # #
Fifteen minutes later, Ben sat on the living room couch, the pain in his gut so intense he could barely breathe. Once again, he’d let Grandfather down. And this time Grandfather was dead.
He poured himself another cup of coffee from the pot Igor had brought into the living room. “Want a refill?” he asked Lexie, who was the only other person in the room. Everyone else was either upstairs dressing or in the dining room having breakfast.
“No, thanks.” Her voice and expression were so cold he wouldn’t have been surprised to see her breath. She was clearly furious. No surprise there.
He needed her help, which meant he had to make her understand why he’d kept her in the dark. “Did your aunt or maybe Grandfather tell you about when I came to live with him?” he asked.
When Lexie didn’t answer, he went on. “My dad was a real bastard. Still is, far as I know, although I haven’t seen him in years. He’s one of those driven corporate types, always too busy working to have time for his family. And he cheated on my mom all the time. I don’t know why she didn’t divorce him.
“My mom was terrific, though. Every summer she and I spent a month with Grandfather at Nevermore. It was the best time of my life. Grandfather was everything Dad wasn’t. He was way richer than Dad, but he didn’t care much about money. He was happiest when he was out on his sailboat or hiking through the woods identifying every tree and plant. Or writing, of course.”
Lexie was staring straight ahead. Her expressionless face gave no indication she was even listening, let alone understanding.
Despite the lack of encouragement, he forced himself to continue. “When I was twelve, my mom was killed in a car accident. A drunk driver hit her. Afterward my dad didn’t want a damn thing to do with me. I figured it was because he blamed me for my mom’s death since she’d been driving to pick me up after soccer practice. Hell, I blamed myself. Then two months after Mom died, Dad told me he was getting married. Andrea was only twenty-five and not up to having a twelve-year-old son, so he was sending me to boarding school out east.”
He closed his eyes. Even after all these years, remembering that time made him feel like he was engulfed in a black pit. “I was upset, to put it mildly. I mean, not only had I just lost my mom, but then I was torn away from my friends to go to school across the country. I’d always been a fairly good kid, but I started sneaking out after curfew and drinking beer. I thought if I was bad enough they’d kick me out of boarding school, and I’d get to go back to L.A. I didn’t know that if you’ve got enough money, when one school kicks you out, another will take you in, especially when your grandfather’s famous. So I went to another school, got kicked out, and then tried a third. By then I’d realized my dad would never let me move back to L.A. so I decided to run away. I stole a car. I’d figured out how to hot-wire it and decided to drive to Mexico. But I’d only gone fifty miles before I got caught and arrested. They called my dad. He said he couldn’t control me and thought a stint in juvenile detention would do me good, so I was on my own.”
Lexie got up and walked over to the front window, looking out at Nevermore’s front lawn. At least she hadn’t left the room.
“Then Grandfather stepped in. He hired a great attorney who made it all go away. I had to do community service and was on probation a couple of years, but then it got erased from my record. Grandfather also agreed to let me come live with him.”
Ben shook his head. “I figured Grandfather had only gotten involved because he’d never liked my dad and wanted to piss him off. I assumed Grandfather would soon get tired of me and kick me out, so I might as well speed up the process. But no matter what I did, he didn’t kick me out, just grounded me and made me do all sorts of chores as punishment. And unlike my dad, he loved me and made sure I knew it.”
He felt moisture on his cheeks, wiped it away with the back of his hand. “My point is that Grandfather saved me, and I know it. If it hadn’t been for him, I’d probably have turned into a career criminal, to spite my dad if nothing else. So I’d do anything for him. Including keep you in the dark when he asked, even though I wanted to tell you.”
Lexie finally turned away from the window and looked at him. “If you’d told me, he’d still be alive.” Then she walked out of the room.
And Ben realized that he hadn’t just been trying to convince Lexie that his silence had been justified. He’d been trying to convince himself. It hadn’t worked, and he felt worse than ever. Because he knew she was probably right.
# # #
Half an hour later, Jim came into the living room, waving a sheet of paper. “I’ve got my warrant. Lexie said it’s all in order.”
“Where is she?” Ben asked.
“I told her she could leave after she let us check out her car to make sure no one stashed something inside. We confirmed who she is, and she said she couldn’t advise anyone during questioning since that would be a conflict of interest,” Jim said. “Could you get everyone else down here, Ben? Have them leave their rooms unlocked and bring their car keys. My warrant covers the house, grounds, and all vehicles.”
The family members waited in the living room as the cops did their search. Ben shook his head. He’d been deceiving all his relatives both about Grandfather being alive and about Lexie’s identity, and none of them seemed upset with him. The only person upset was Lexie.
He looked up as Jim walked into the living room. He was carrying a plastic bag with a handgun inside. “Is this your gun, Ben?”
“Why do you think that?”
Jim stopped directly in front of Ben and handed him the bag. “Answer the question. Is this your gun?”
Ben examined the weapon. “It looks a lot like one I bought five years ago. Grandfather wanted to know how easy it was to buy a gun illegally in New York City, so I tried, and it was damn easy. I gave it to Grandfather right after I bought it and never saw it again.”
“Grandfather mentioned in several interviews that he’d had Ben do that,” Cecilia said.
“As I asked before, why do you think it’s the gun I bought?” Ben asked.
“Because we found it under the passenger seat of your truck. It’s been fired twice.”
Jim’s words stabbed Ben through the gut. One of his relatives had not only killed Grandfather but had also tried to frame him for it.
“I didn’t put it there,” he said. “I leave my truck unlocked, so anyone could have planted it. And anyone could have found the gun. Grandfather kept it out in the open in the basement, on some shelves where he stored most of the things he’d bought as research for his books.”
“We also found this.” Jim showed Ben a piece of paper stuck inside a smaller plastic bag. “I assume it’s from your grandfather.”
Ben looked at t
he note, recognizing his grandfather’s handwriting. It said, “Need to talk. One a.m. tonight at the dock. M.”
“Grandfather must have left it in his bedroom after I checked.”
“It wasn’t in Max’s bedroom. It was on your nightstand, where I presume you left it.”
“I’ve never seen it before,” Ben said. “Grandfather must have needed to talk to me and been afraid I’d already made my nightly check of his bedroom and wouldn’t find the note in time if he left it there. But I went into my room just long enough to take a quick shower and change. I never went over by the bed.” The knife already stabbing his gut twisted, and he rubbed his face with his hands. “Jesus, I wish I had. Grandfather must have discovered something important, maybe even who was trying to kill him. If I’d have met Grandfather, he’d still be alive.”
“Or maybe you found the note, met him, and killed him.”
Ben dropped his hands from his face and stared at Jim. “You’re crazy. If I’d killed him, wouldn’t I have gotten rid of the note? And the gun?”
“Maybe you planned to later, but the cops showed up too soon.”
“Because Lexie found me moving the body and called them. Why would I have invited her to go sailing, knowing she could very well stumble over Grandfather’s body?”
“Because for some reason you couldn’t move the body last night after you killed Max. Going sailing gave you an excuse to do it this morning, which is why you decided to go when the sun was barely up. You figured you’d have time to hide the body, maybe dump it into the water before Lexie got there,” Jim said. “Ben, I need to ask you a few questions at the station.”
“Am I under arrest?”
“I’d like you to come voluntarily. If you won’t, I’ll have to arrest you.”
Ben got to his feet. “Then I guess I’ll go voluntarily.”
# # #
Lexie sat on the bed in her room at the Lakeview Inn, trying to watch an old rerun of Oprah on the TV in the plastic wood armoire. Even twenty minutes into the show, she didn’t have the faintest idea what topic Oprah had decided should be important to the women of America that day. But she couldn’t turn it off. That would leave her alone with her thoughts, thoughts that were painful even with a TV audience for company.
Max was dead. She’d grieved when she’d originally thought he’d died, but Cecilia was right. It became more real when you actually saw the body, especially with that bloody bullet hole. It was even worse because he’d been killed while she’d been enjoying herself with Ben.
Ben, the man who was supposed to be her partner in finding Max’s murderer. She’d have been a lot more help if she’d had all the facts—like the little one about Max still being alive.
That hadn’t been Ben’s only lie. He’d also pretended to be a small-town mechanic, but a call to Trey had established that he’d not only worked on Wall Street until three years ago but also had his undergrad degree and MBA from Harvard. He was the kind of guy people could have understood having an intelligent girlfriend, no matter what type of women he’d preferred in his recent past. Yet he’d convinced her she needed to pretend to be an undereducated cocktail waitress, either because he found it entertaining or to prove he could manipulate her. Probably both.
None of that mattered, though, since she was officially off the case. Tomorrow she’d be heading back to Philadelphia on her rebooked flight. The local cops seemed a lot more competent than Ben had led her to believe. Even if they weren’t, the trustee could pressure them to call in the FBI or state police. This was Max Windsor, after all.
A crawler announcing breaking news rolled under Oprah and her guest. Lexie read it, and then walked up to the TV, squatting so the crawler was at eye level as it repeated. She read it again. Okay, so her first impression of the local cops had been wrong. They were not only incompetent, they were idiots.
Because they’d just arrested Ben for Max’s murder.
# # #
Ben flipped his phone off as he paced the jail cell they were keeping him in until he posted bail. The cop in charge of the jail today was Mike Hamilton, who’d been a friend since they’d played high school football together.
Mike had let him keep his cell phone and hadn’t limited him to one call, thank God, since trying to raise his bail had proven more difficult than he’d anticipated. The judge had set it at two million, meaning he needed two hundred thousand in cash. He had more than enough investments, but nothing he could liquidate before tomorrow. Right now he was working on convincing one of the local banks to give him a quick mortgage on his house and garage, both of which were fully paid for and worth far more than $200,000. Everyone was pretending to need days if not weeks to process a loan, although he’d bet their real reason for stalling was they didn’t want to be seen aiding the man who’d possibly killed Lakeview’s beloved Max Windsor.
“I got here as soon as I could, Ben.”
Ben turned toward the woman standing outside his jail cell, dressed in a designer suit and thousand-dollar shoes and holding an even more expensive purse. The absolute last person he’d expected to ever see in Lakeview again.
“Olivia. What the hell are you doing here?”
CHAPTER 15
“I know you didn’t want me to come before,” Olivia said. “But when I heard Max had been murdered and you’d been trying to prevent it, I knew you’d be devastated. I booked the first flight I could get to Duluth, and then drove to Lakeview. I can’t believe they arrested you.”
His ex-wife looked the same as the last time Ben had seen her, nearly three years ago—chin-length platinum hair framing enormous violet eyes and the face of an angel, with a Victoria’s Secret model-worthy body under that stylishly conservative suit. Just looking at her used to turn him hot and hard, but today his body didn’t even twitch. Maybe being in jail had something to do with it. “I should be able to raise bail by mortgaging the garage and my house,” he said.
Olivia looked down her nose at him. “You should never have paid cash for those. Think of the investment opportunities you missed.”
Or maybe his body’s lack of reaction had more to do with their history. “I didn’t want any debts, and I’m tired of investments.” And of rehashing these old arguments.
“You’re wasting your talent.”
Her echoing his grandfather’s words triggered a flash of pain. “I really don’t feel like talking about that right now, Olivia.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, her tone switching to conciliatory. “You don’t have to worry about mortgaging anything. I’ll pay your bail. I’ve got more than enough available cash.”
“Don’t bother. I’ll get the money tomorrow at the latest.”
“If you’re stuck in jail overnight, won’t you lose your share of the trust?”
He hadn’t even thought about that. “That’s the least of my concerns,” Ben said honestly. “Proving I didn’t kill Grandfather and finding out who did is a lot more important.”
“Of course you didn’t kill Max,” Olivia said. “Once you’re found innocent, getting your share of the trust will be important. Besides, I owe you. I should never have cheated on you, and certainly not with Jeremy.”
“I told you I’ve forgiven you for that.”
“I can’t forgive myself. Let me do this for you, Ben.”
He didn’t want Olivia doing him any favors. But for a lot of reasons he didn’t want to spend tonight in jail, and she was looking like his only ticket out. “I’ll pay you back tomorrow.”
# # #
Lexie smoothed both the skirt of her navy silk suit and her French twist, and then strode into the police station. “I’m here to see Ben Gallagher,” she told the police officer manning the desk.
“Who are you?”
“I’m Catherine Barrington, the attorney for the trustee of Max Windsor’s trust. I’m here to make sure Ben can arrange bail.” She needed to make sure he didn’t lose his share of the trust because of the cops’ stupidity—she’d stake her reputation h
e wasn’t guilty.
The door behind the desk opened, and a stunning blonde stepped into the reception area. “I’ve already taken care of Ben’s bail,” she said. “I’ve also hired an attorney from New York to represent him.”
“And you are?” Lexie asked.
“Olivia Gallagher. I’m Ben’s wife.”
“I thought Ben was divorced,” Lexie said.
“That was only because we thought we wanted different things, and I stupidly wouldn’t compromise,” Olivia said. “Things have changed. I’ve changed.”
“I see.” At least Ben hadn’t also lied about his marital status. “As long as his bail is taken care of, I don’t need to see him.”
Olivia smiled. “Don’t worry about Ben. I’ll take very good care of more than just his bail.”
At least one good thing had come of this whole fiasco, Lexie thought as she walked out of the police station and toward her car. Ben and his ex-wife had been reunited. She should be happy for him. It had nothing to do with her, since their affair had ended the minute she’d seen Ben with Max’s body, and not just because he’d lied. But because at that instant vacation time had ended, and she’d turned back into Catherine, no matter what people were calling her. The twinge of pain she felt was just hurt pride.
She had no time for hurt pride, though. She might be mad at Ben for lying, but no way had he’d killed Max. Unfortunately Ben’s arrest had changed her plan to have the trustee hire a P.I. or call in the FBI. She couldn’t advise the trustee to do that unless there was tangible evidence casting doubt on Ben’s guilt. Otherwise the trustee could appear to be trying to clear Ben and therefore favoring one beneficiary over the others.
But she certainly wasn’t about to leave the investigation to the local cops. What she needed to do was convince the trustee that she should stick around and monitor things. That would also give her time and opportunity to find Max’s real killer—or at least uncover enough evidence that Ben might not be guilty to justify having the trustee hire outside help.
