by Diana Miller
It was $10,000 too low.
The mutual fund statement she’d found in Max’s secret room showed that May investment income had been credited. The only other mutual fund transaction was a $10,000 withdrawal identified only as a “Moneyline payment,” whatever that was. She checked the April accounting Trey had prepared for a similar transaction, but couldn’t find one. However, she did find something else interesting. Her law firm had been paid the last day of April for work done during the first quarter of the year. She remembered the amount because she’d prepared the bill. According to the payment shown on the accounting, she’d billed Max a thousand dollars more than she actually had.
It wasn’t much, but it supported what she was convinced Max had been trying to tell her. He’d discovered that Trey had been embezzling from him.
God knows how long it had been going on—she’d need an accountant to figure that out. Max was so rich, unconcerned, and trusting of Trey that he probably hadn’t even noticed until boredom had driven him to read all of his mail, including his royalty and financial statements. And he’d discovered what his old friend Trey had been doing.
Max had obviously realized what was going on before he’d appeared to her, but he’d tried to be clever and give her a clue instead of telling her outright. Knowing Max, he’d arranged to confront Trey later that night, assuming Ben would also be there. When Ben hadn’t shown, Max had no doubt confronted Trey anyway. And she’d bet anything Trey had killed him.
Lexie still didn’t know who’d made the prior attempts on Max’s life—back then, Max hadn’t been aware of Trey’s embezzling, so Trey had no reason to want him dead. At the moment, the only thing that mattered was proving Trey was Max’s murderer.
Her next step was to get a locksmith to open the other file cabinet, the one that contained all the original financial statements. After comparing them to the amounts shown on Trey’s accountings and hopefully confirming she was right, she’d turn everything over to an accountant. Gathering up the mutual fund and royalty statements and Trey’s April accounting, Lexie got to her feet.
A key turned, the office door opened, and Trey walked in.
“I thought you were in the hospital until tomorrow,” Lexie said.
Trey closed the door, and then parked himself in front of it. “I hate hospitals. I couldn’t stand another day, so I left against medical advice. What are you doing in here?”
“Checking a couple of things for the trust, since I didn’t think you’d be back until tomorrow. I’m done now.” She stepped around him and reached for the door handle.
Trey grabbed her arm, stopping her. “Are those new statements?” He was looking at the papers Lexie held in her free hand.
“I forgot about those,” Lexie said. “I checked Max’s secret room to make sure nothing important had been left there. I found these and knew you’d need them to prepare the final accounting for the trustees.”
“I see you also have an accounting.” Trey was still looking at her papers. “I woke up this morning with the awful feeling I’d forgotten to lock that cabinet after I’d gotten Igor’s résumé for you. Apparently I was right. Although as an excuse, I had a lot going on that night.”
His voice was level, conversational. But something in his eyes had Lexie’s heart hammering again. “I was trying to get a handle on the money part of the trust, since Max never gave me specifics.” The coffee she’d drunk with Jeremy was etching away at her stomach wall, but she managed a faint smile. “He just said it was worth enough that the estate taxes on it would make a big dent in the federal deficit.”
Trey shook his head. “Those accountings were the only things Max ever looked at. He just left his royalty and financial statements on the desk unopened for me. But apparently Ben gave him his mail while he was pretending to be dead, and he looked at all of it. He noticed some things that made him suspicious enough that he picked the lock on my desk so he could get the keys to open the file cabinets. Then he compared the accountings I’d prepared to the actual statements.” Trey dug a key out of the pocket of his suit coat, then moved to his desk and unlocked it.
She needed to get out of here. Lexie reached for the door handle again. “I’ll let you—”
“Stop!” Trey spun around, the gun he’d pulled out of the top desk drawer aimed at her. “I assumed Max had brought all the statements to our meeting, but I should have guessed he’d be sloppy and overlook a couple. And because of that, now you’ve also discovered my secret. Which means you have to die, too.”
Between the gun and Trey’s words, Lexie felt as though she’d taken a mid-January dip in Lake Superior. “What secret? I don’t know anything.” Her words sounded breathy.
“That I was embezzling from Max, and of course you know that. Why else would you have lied about why you were checking the accountings? I sent Stan Hansen at First Trust an asset list two days after we thought Max had died in that car accident, and he confirmed he’d e-mailed a copy to you. He said you were both shocked by how much Max was worth.”
She could keep lying, but Trey wasn’t buying it—and unfortunately he’d also just admitted the truth. “Max actually told me when he came into my room and pretended to be a ghost. I realized he didn’t say to remember the money is the key, but the money in The Key, his book where the accountant is embezzling from someone and ends up killing him.”
Trey’s benign smile was at odds with the gun he still held. “Max wrote that book before he knew me. Who’d have guessed how prophetic it was?”
“I told Ben all about it when I talked to him this morning,” Lexie said.
“I very much doubt that,” Trey said.
“You can check my cell phone,” she said. “It will prove I talked to Ben this morning.”
“I’m sure you did,” Trey said. “But you couldn’t be positive what Max had said or that you understood what he meant. You’d want to check such a tenuous theory out first and make sure you were right before you mentioned it to anyone, even Ben. That’s why you were in here.”
As if on cue her phone rang. “I’ll bet that’s Ben,” Lexie said, reaching for her purse. “He knows I’m checking into this and will worry if I don’t answer.”
“Don’t touch it,” Trey said. The phone rang three more times before switching to voice mail.
“Why did you steal from Max?” Lexie’s heart was pummeling her chest, making her voice shaky. “You have so much family money that you refused a bequest.”
“I went through what my family left me years ago,” Trey said. “It was damn tough to pass up that bequest, let me tell you. Max owed me even more than I’d managed to take, for all those years I put up with him and his ego and being at his beck and call. But if I’d gotten too much when he died, some other beneficiary might have been upset enough that we’d have ended up in court or have the trust audited.”
“Why did someone try to kill you?” Lexie asked.
Trey chuckled. “I fooled you all, didn’t I? I took the poison myself. I figured that would make Ben look even guiltier of killing Max, and I was right.”
Lexie’s eyes widened. “You risked your life to frame Ben?”
“It wasn’t much of a risk. It’s nearly impossible to drink enough turpentine that it kills you. I also knew the doctor who treated me would think of poison since Max had been poisoned, and as added insurance, I put the almost empty vial where I knew the cops would find it.”
Her phone rang again.
“Let’s go,” Trey said, gesturing with his gun. “We’ll take my car. Then people will think you’re still here.”
Lexie reached for her purse, the phone still ringing inside.
“Leave it,” Trey said. “Now start walking.”
“Where are we going?”
“You’re distraught because you just found a note Max left you the night he was killed. He said he’d discovered Ben was trying to kill him, planned to meet with him, and wanted you there, too. I’ll leave the note in your purse. When people notice
your car and purse are still here but you aren’t, someone will find the note. Everyone will assume you went walking around Max’s land and either killed yourself or were so distracted you met with an unfortunate accident. Since you’d realized you’d not only let Max down but also slept with his murderer.”
“Someone will see me leave with you,” Lexie said with more conviction than she felt.
“Nope,” Trey said. “I dodged Igor, and the rest of the staff has the day off. I also came around the back way, so no one saw me. Now walk.”
Lexie managed to make her legs move, although her entire body felt numb. She couldn’t feel anything besides the hard nose of the gun Trey was jabbing into her side. She looked around, frantically searching for someone, anyone, as they walked from his office to Nevermore’s back door and then to Trey’s Lexus SUV. They didn’t see a soul, with the only sounds their footfalls over grass and dirt in an otherwise ominously silent world.
Trey opened the driver’s side door of his vehicle, gestured with his gun. “Get in, and slide into the passenger seat. Don’t do anything to attract attention. Because if anyone tries to rescue you, you’ll die with another death besides Max’s on your conscience.”
CHAPTER 27
Now he understood what a caged tiger felt like, Ben thought as he paced back and forth between the walls of the prison cell, his eyes on the bars that covered one side. Although tigers weren’t pacing because they were too worried to sit still.
He called Lexie’s cell phone for the fifth time, once again got her voice mail. No big deal. She probably wasn’t answering because she was in the middle of something and assumed he was calling to tell her Cecilia was on her way home. Or maybe Lexie’s phone had lost service. That occasionally happened at Nevermore. Nothing was wrong.
But he couldn’t sit still, couldn’t quiet the worry buzzing under his skin, jazzing his nerves.
Maybe he was being paranoid, but he’d feel better once he talked to Lexie. Ben stopped pacing and called the main phone at Nevermore.
Igor answered and informed him that he hadn’t seen Lexie. Ben had him check out back for her car. It was still there, so she must be around, although Igor had no idea where she could be. Cecilia hadn’t returned. However, Jeremy was there if Ben wanted to talk to him.
Not his top choice, but he was desperate.
“Have you seen Lexie?” Ben asked when Jeremy came on the line.
“Are you sure you should be talking to her?” Jeremy asked. “It’s probably a conflict of interest since you’re in jail for killing her client.”
The smirk in his voice had Ben swallowing a cutting response. That would only make Jeremy hang up. “Have you seen Lexie?” he repeated, emphasizing each word.
“She’s in Trey’s office,” Jeremy said. “She was having coffee with me when she suddenly remembered something she had to check.”
Thank God. Ben’s hand loosened on the phone, only to immediately retighten. Why wasn’t she answering her phone then? “Will you make sure she’s still there?”
“What am I, your servant? Cecilia might be willing to run errands for you, but I’ve got more important things to do.”
“Check whether she’s in Trey’s office. Please.”
Jeremy let out a sound of annoyance. “Okay, but only because I’m bored. I want to ask her to finish up and come back and talk to me.”
Ben heard footsteps, a knock on the door, Jeremy’s voice calling Lexie’s name, a door opening. “She isn’t here,” Jeremy finally said. “Although she left her purse by the desk, so I doubt she went far. Good morning, Aunt Muriel.”
“It’s such a beautiful morning,” Muriel trilled. “I’ve just finished an hour of meditation and yoga. You should try it. It’s very calming.”
“Jeremy, ask Aunt Muriel about Lexie,” Ben yelled into the phone, trying to get both Jeremy’s and his aunt’s attention.
“I think it’s Ben who needs calming,” Jeremy said.
“We have to make allowances, as he’s in jail,” Muriel said. “That’s bound to be upsetting.”
“Ask her, damn it!”
“Why are you so worried about Lexie?” Jeremy asked Ben.
“Because she’s looking for Grandfather’s killer and doesn’t answer her cell phone.”
“Maybe she’s ignoring you,” Jeremy said. “Have you seen Lexie, Aunt Muriel?”
“I think she went somewhere with Trey,” Muriel said.
“He’s still in the hospital,” Ben said.
“Ben said he’s still in the hospital,” Jeremy told Muriel.
“He must be out, because he was here this morning,” Muriel said. “I saw him park his car and come into Nevermore.”
“I didn’t see him,” Jeremy said.
“That’s because he came around back, which you can only see from the entertainment room,” Muriel said. “I decided to do yoga in there because my knees are a little sore, and I thought the thick carpet would be good for them. As an added bonus, the acoustics make it easy to concentrate on your breathing. I may just have to use that room every day.”
“And you saw Trey leave with Lexie,” Jeremy said.
“I didn’t see Lexie at all, and I didn’t see Trey leave,” Muriel said. “But his car’s gone now, so he must have left after I switched to meditating. If Lexie’s no longer here, she may have gone with him.”
“Aunt Muriel says Trey’s car is gone—”
“I heard,” Ben said. Why would Lexie have gone with Trey? “You said she suddenly left to check something. What?”
“I have no idea,” Jeremy said.
Jeremy was being his normal uncooperative self. Ben managed to keep the last threads of his temper from fraying. “Did she say anything? Aren’t you always bragging that you have a nearly photographic memory?”
“Okay, I’ll tell you exactly what she said,” Jeremy said. “Lexie and I were talking about one of Grandfather’s books. Water over the Bridge. Aunt Muriel had left a copy on the dining room table.”
“I’m not actually reading it,” Muriel said. “I have too many other things to do before I die to waste time rereading one of Maxwell’s books. But Seth wanted to take a picture of me pretending to read it.”
“Lexie said that you two had talked about Grandfather’s early books, including this one where the lawyer was killed by a shark. She thought Grandfather had probably chosen that fate as a play on all the jokes about sharks not hurting lawyers out of professional courtesy.” Jeremy was talking again. “Then she said, and I quote, ‘It was in, not is.’ I asked what she was talking about, but she just said she had to check something in the trust accountings and left.”
“Thanks,” Ben said, hanging up. Lexie had no doubt thought of some issue related to the trust. She’d been in Trey’s office checking it out when he’d arrived. She’d wanted to talk to him about it, so they’d gone somewhere they wouldn’t be overheard by one of the beneficiaries. She’d left her phone in her purse, which is why she hadn’t answered. It made perfect sense. Being caged up was making him paranoid.
He plopped down on the bed. Lexie was fine.
# # #
She had to focus, to figure out some way to convince Trey not to kill her. But Lexie was having trouble focusing on anything other than the gun he was pointing at her with his right hand as he drove away from Nevermore. The cold panic her heart was pumping through her veins had now numbed her brain in addition to her body. This man had killed Max. If she didn’t stop him, he was going to do the same to her.
Surely Ben would worry when she didn’t answer her phone. Then what? Ben was stuck in jail. He’d also never suspect she was with Trey, let alone in trouble because of it. No one had seen them leave Nevermore together. And she’d never mentioned her suspicions about Trey to anyone.
After a couple of minutes, Trey turned off the road and drove onto the grass, then into the pines and birch trees. He had barely enough room, and branches and needles brushed and scraped the vehicle. After several seconds he st
opped and shut off the engine.
“This seems an appropriate place, where we thought Max died. Get out.” He gestured with the gun.
“Where are we going?” Lexie asked as she exited. They weren’t very far from the road, but the trees were so thick she couldn’t see the blacktop.
Which meant no passerby would notice the dull gray SUV, let alone wonder if something was wrong.
“This way.” Trey pointed his gun toward more pines and birches. Lexie stepped through them, then onto a leaf- and needle-strewn dirt path. “Stay in front of me. If you try to run, I’ll shoot you.
“I’ll bet you didn’t know this path was even here,” he said as they trekked the gradual uphill. “Max had paths cut all over his land so he could walk and cross-country ski everywhere. Overseeing his land like he’s some kind of lord of it all. This will be a bit of a hike, but it’s worth it. The path goes to a cliff a couple of hundred feet above Forest Lake. It’s a gorgeous view, and I’m sure you’ll appreciate it. Since it will be the last thing you ever see.”
The air was warm and muggy, but Trey’s words turned Lexie’s chest into a chunk of ice, making it hard to breathe. She was going to die unless she could talk her way out of this. “Why don’t you just leave me tied up here? That will give you time to disappear. You don’t have to kill me.”
“Tie you up with what?” Trey asked.
“With my belt,” she said. “And your belt, and—”
“I really don’t want to disappear, and with you dead, there’s a good chance I won’t have to,” Trey said. “You know, this is all Max’s fault for getting you involved in the first place. And for living so damn long. The rate he was going, he could have made it to a hundred. I wanted to retire, especially after having triple bypass surgery. But I couldn’t until Max died.”
“Why not?”
“Because my replacement might have needed to check out something from a prior month or year and noticed the accountings I prepared for Max every month don’t match the actual financial statements. Or that the income shown on Max’s tax returns doesn’t match the accountings, since I didn’t dare cheat the IRS. Now that Max is dead, I’ll prepare a final accounting for the trustee with date-of-death values and the actual post-death transactions. No one will look at past accountings, because the trustee doesn’t have to get court approval of them, and no beneficiary is going to check out and second-guess anything Max did while he was in charge. The beneficiaries only care how much they get.”
