The Second Sister

by Dani Sinclair

  “I know.”

  THEY SAT at the kitchen table while the backyard and the maze filled with police and technicians.

  R.J. and his crew were questioned and sent home. Leigh and Hayley hugged him and told him how glad they were that Lucky had found the grave.

  Gavin called his office and let Susan know he wouldn’t be in after all. Then he called the Walken estate, relieved that it was George who answered the telephone. He let him know what had been found and suggested he turn off the house phone and rely on cell phones for a while. The media would be all over this news.

  The sorrow in the older man’s voice was deep and genuine. Gavin promised to keep him informed.

  He spotted Wyatt out back several times and was grateful that Chief Crossley didn’t put in an appearance. Gavin went to meet Wyatt when he finally headed for the back door.

  “How are Leigh and Hayley?”

  “Stoic,” Gavin replied. “They’ve been waiting for more than seven years to find their mother.”

  Wyatt grimaced “I know.”

  “Come in. Bram’s making coffee.”

  Wyatt shook his head. “I can’t just yet. Are they up to identifying some jewelry we found?”

  “I think so. Just keep your uncle away from them.”

  Wyatt muttered something derogatory under his breath. “Don’t worry, he knows how this makes him look. I’ll be back. You planning to stick around?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. I’ve got more bad news. I’ll let you decide when to tell them. I had a call from the Saratoga police department. They located Livia Walsh. She suffered a massive stroke while shopping several days ago. She’s been in the hospital unable to speak or move. They’ve been trying to locate her daughter.”

  Gavin swore softly. “I hope they have better luck than I’ve had.”

  “I’ll be back shortly.”

  Hayley was holding court when Gavin joined the group at the kitchen table.

  “You know what really galls me?” she asked. “Marcus actually told me Mom was buried there, but I was too dense to realize what he was saying.”

  “What are you talking about?” Bram asked.

  “When I first got here, Eden told me Marcus had dementia. I went out to the maze to talk to him and found him on his knees in that very bed of roses. I thought he was talking to himself. He patted the ground and said something like, ‘Your roses are doing well this year, Amy.’ I thought it was a manifestation of his illness, but it wasn’t. He knew she was under those roses because he put her there.”

  Leigh shuddered. Gavin touched her shoulder lightly. She gazed up at him, then leaned into his side.

  “We had the police digging in the wrong place,” she said.

  Gavin came around beside her and sat down, jarring the pile of books sitting near the edge of the tabletop.

  “Eden knew Mom was buried there,” Leigh told her sister. “That’s why she was so upset with Lucky. She was afraid he’d find the grave.”

  “She helped Marcus kill Mom?” Hayley demanded.

  “Easy,” Bram said. “We don’t even know for certain it’s your mother’s body yet.”

  Hayley rounded on him. “How many missing bodies do you think are buried around here?”

  “Bram’s right,” Gavin interjected. “We should be careful about what conclusions we go jumping to, Hayley.”

  “Eden knew—” Leigh began.

  “You can’t prove that.”

  “You saw her, Gavin.” Leigh said. “Everyone saw the way she acted. She chased Lucky with a knife! And I saw her face when she left. She was scared to death!”

  “Reactions aren’t proof. Not in a court of law.”

  “What do you need?” Hayley demanded scathingly. “Pictures of Eden standing over the body with a shovel in her hand?”

  “That would help,” he agreed mildly, understanding their anger and frustration. “The legal system needs tangible evidence, Hayley. And before you jump down my throat again, I’m on your side! I don’t know if Eden helped put the body there or not, but I’d stake my reputation that she knew it was buried out back. Unfortunately, knowing something and proving it are two different things entirely.”

  “That isn’t right,” Hayley complained.

  “Would you want to go to jail based on someone’s interpretation of your reaction to a situation? A lawyer will say she ran away because she was horrified, not because she had prior knowledge.”

  “You’re saying that she’s going to walk around free?”

  “Gavin’s not the enemy, Hayley,” Bram said gently.

  “It’s okay. I understand her frustration, Bram. It’s one of the reasons I decided not to go into criminal law. Innocent people go to jail. Guilty people go free. It stinks, but those are facts.”

  “How do we prove her guilt?” Leigh asked.

  Gavin covered her hand with his. “With hard evidence and patience. The police may find the evidence they need buried with the body.”

  Hayley snorted. “After all this time? I’m surprised there’s even bones to dig up!”

  “That’s where the patience comes in.”

  “It’s not my long suit,” Hayley told him.

  Bram clasped her hand. “We know.”

  In the silence that descended, Gavin told them about Livia Walsh. Leigh’s eyes brimmed with tears.

  “Someone broke into her house while she was lying there helpless in the hospital?”

  Gavin stroked her arm in sympathy. “Looks that way.”

  “We have to do something to help her,” Hayley said.

  Gavin spied Wyatt heading for the back door and rose to let him in. Bram rose as well. Gavin made introductions all around. Hayley eyed the bags in Wyatt’s hands.

  “Before you show us anything at all, I can tell you there are two pieces of jewelry our mother wore all the time. One was a plain gold wedding band, the other was a very distinctive, custom-made necklace with two large emeralds. Grandpa had it designed for her right after we were born.”

  “Grandpa had most of her jewelry custom made,” Leigh said. “She had pictures and appraisals on file with her insurance company for everything.”

  “That will help,” Wyatt said, walking to the kitchen table. “How did you know this was jewelry?”

  “Because I doubt if there’s much else left after all this time.”

  He didn’t answer that, pushing aside the pile of books Eden had left there. “I’ll have to ask you not to touch these until our people finish with them.”

  Using what looked like an elongated pair of tweezers, Wyatt removed a delicate object from the first bag. Mud and dirt covered the necklace, but there were two large stones that could have been green, set in a distinctive setting of gold.

  Leigh made a small, choked sound and closed her eyes. Gavin slid an arm around her shoulders. She was shaking.

  “That’s Mom’s necklace,” Hayley said. Her voice broke. She turned away and buried her face against Bram’s shoulder. Leigh inhaled deeply, opened her eyes and nodded. She looked at the remaining items and confirmed their ownership as well. “Mom always liked jewelry.”

  “I’m truly sorry,” Wyatt said.

  “No, it’s better this way,” Leigh said, wiping her eyes. “We always knew she was dead.”

  “How did she die?” Hayley choked out.

  Wyatt shook his head. “We don’t know yet. It will take time to determine, I’m afraid.”

  Hayley told him what Marcus had said while tending the roses. Leigh related Eden’s behavior.

  “Is she going to get away with whatever part she played in what happened to our mother?” Hayley asked flatly.

  Wyatt looked around the circle of faces. “Not if I can help it. I know my uncle never took your accusations seriously, but I’m not my uncle and this is my investigation.”

  “He’s still your boss,” Hayley pointed out.

  “The same way Marcus was your father.”

  For a second, there was absol
ute silence. Hayley looked at Leigh. Gavin wasn’t sure what passed between them in that look, but he felt some of the tension ebb from Leigh’s shoulders. Hayley turned back to Wyatt.

  “How can we help?”

  “We have to go over the case again. I’ll need you to think back to that time and try to remember everything you can that preceded your mother’s trip to New York City and everything that happened immediately afterward.”

  “We’ve gone over everything so many times we could do it in our sleep,” Hayley told him.

  Wyatt shook his head. “Not the way I’m going to do it. I want every detail—what you had for breakfast, what the weather was like, what you were thinking about when you left for school. It’s going to take time. I’m going to be thorough. I want you to start thinking back. We’ll look for patterns and inconsistencies. You think you remember everything clearly, but memory is never static. It would be best if the two of you don’t talk about what you remember between yourselves or with anyone else. I’ll give you each a call to set up an interview. I’m sorry. I know it’s a pointless thing to say, but I am.”

  “Thank you,” Leigh said.

  When Wyatt left, Hayley turned to Gavin.

  “I hope your friend is as good as he thinks he is.”

  He thought about that for a minute. “I think he may be.”

  “I like him,” Leigh told her.

  “So do I,” Bram agreed.

  He reached down to collect the empty coffee cups and jarred the table. One of the books Wyatt had nudged aside slid to the floor. A slip of paper fell out and skimmed across the floor to land nearly at Leigh’s feet. She bent to retrieve it and froze.

  “Gavin!”

  I know what you did. Leave twenty thousand dollars behind the left stone lion by nine o’clock Thursday evening.

  The note was typed across a sheet of blank, white paper, unsigned and undated. The large font made the message clearly legible to all of them.

  “Don’t touch it! Bram, see if you can catch Wyatt before he leaves,” Gavin ordered. “Don’t touch the book, either,” he advised Hayley when she would have retrieved it from the floor.

  “But there’s another note sticking out of one of the pages. More than one,” Hayley corrected.

  Gavin met Leigh’s gaze.

  “I think we just found out what happened to the missing six hundred fifty thousand,” he said.

  “Is this what Eden has been looking for?” Leigh asked.

  “I don’t know. Maybe. But I’m more inclined to think she was looking for the money itself, not the reason it was missing.”

  The back door opened and Bram and Wyatt stepped inside. After reading the note, Wyatt herded them all into the library. When he finally joined them there, he told them his people had recovered seven notes in all with various monetary demands. One was a demand for fifty thousand dollars.

  “No wonder Marcus died broke,” Hayley muttered.

  “It will be interesting to see if we can relate these demands to the money withdrawn from the bank accounts,” Gavin mused aloud.

  Wyatt nodded. “You and I will need to sit down and go over those accounts. Any thoughts on who might have been blackmailing your father?”

  “Take your pick,” Hayley said. “The field’s wide open. Marcus wasn’t exactly loved by anyone.”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  “What about Eden?” Leigh asked.

  “She married him,” her sister argued. “She didn’t need to blackmail him.”

  “I know,” Leigh agreed. “And Jacob said she was really upset that Marcus was broke, but that could have been an act. When I asked Jacob if she needed anything, he told me Eden had been putting money aside for years…remember, Gavin? If she was afraid Marcus had kept these notes, it would explain why she was so frantic to remove all his belongings from the house.”

  Gavin sought Wyatt’s gaze. “Not to make your job any harder than it already is, but what if the notes were typed by Marcus himself? They aren’t dated. He could have been the one who was doing the extorting. Maybe from Dennison Hart.”

  Into the shocked silence, Wyatt muttered something under his breath. “You’ve got a devious mind, Counselor.”

  “Just playing devil’s advocate.”

  “I don’t need that kind of help. I’ll keep an open mind. We’ll need access to the house, I’m afraid.”

  “Look anywhere you want,” Hayley invited. “But you’ll need to find Eden if you want to look at anything that belonged to Marcus. Those books and his furniture were all she left behind.”

  “I have people looking for her as we speak. Gavin, is there any way this could relate to last night’s explosion?”

  “What explosion?” Hayley demanded.

  “I’ll tell you later,” Leigh said. “It wasn’t an accident?”

  “I don’t know yet, but the way Gavin seems to be drawing trouble…”

  Gavin spread his hands. “Hey, I’m just the family attorney.”

  “So you keep telling me. You four have anything else you want to share with me?”

  Gavin looked at Leigh. She shook her head.

  “All right. I’ll be in touch.”

  “And you didn’t tell him about the room R.J. found because…?” Bram asked quietly after Wyatt strode off down the hall.

  “I asked him not to mention it,” Leigh said. “I want first look inside that file cabinet.”

  “Good thinking,” Hayley agreed. “Let’s go!”

  “Shouldn’t we wait until the police leave?” Leigh asked. “It might be a little difficult to explain what the four of us are doing in an empty bedroom closet.”

  “Sounds kinky,” Bram said in an effort to lighten the mood.

  Hayley nudged him in the ribs. “It’s getting late. Why don’t we go over and talk to Emily and George? We can come back here tonight after everyone is gone.”

  Bram raised his eyebrows. “You want to come back here after dark?”

  “We can’t. R.J. still has the power out on that side of the building,” Leigh reminded them.

  “We could use flashlights, or move the filing cabinet to one of our rooms,” Hayley suggested.

  Gavin shook his head. “The police will be here all night.”

  “It’s supposed to rain again tonight.”

  “That doesn’t matter. They’ll have tents and tarps. After seven years, the recovery will be along the lines of an archaeological dig. There are a lot of bones in the human body and they want to recover all of them if they can. They’ll be sifting that entire area for anything they can find. Besides, Hayley gave them blanket permission to search the house for evidence. If I know Wyatt, he’s going to make a thorough job of the search.”

  “Should I have said no?”

  “No, you did the right thing, Hayley,” Gavin told her. “He would have come back with a court order and made the search anyhow. This way, you’re cooperating with the investigation, which is always preferable.”

  “So the filing cabinet has to wait until tomorrow?” Hayley asked.

  Gavin nodded. “Or until the police are done with their search upstairs. We can’t remove anything from the house at this point that might contain potential evidence.”

  “Wyatt’s not going to be happy that we held back information, either,” Bram said mildly.

  “We won’t. We’re just going to delay telling him. If we find anything pertinent, we’ll let him know right away.”

  But he knew Wyatt would be annoyed, particularly if there were other rooms like the one R.J. had found still concealed in this dark barn of a place.

  Hayley and Bram stood to leave.

  “The press is probably camped outside the front gates,” Gavin reminded them. “R.J. disconnected the telephone line before he left so we wouldn’t be inundated with calls. We’ll have to rely on cell phones.”

  Hayley groaned. “I forgot about the media.”

  “We’ll use my truck and take the back road,” Bram suggested.

&nb
sp; “I’m not sure we can drive around to the barns from here anymore. The road’s overgrown. It hasn’t been used in years.”

  “My truck can handle it. You two want to ride with us?”

  Leigh looked at Gavin.

  “Go with them,” he told her. “I’ll use my unofficial status to hang around a while longer.”

  “I’ll stay with you.” She turned to her sister. “Before you go, I need to tell you something. Gavin and I are getting married.”

  “What!”

  Leigh didn’t look at him. “Emily and George know. So does Nan. We haven’t told anyone else.”

  “Including me!” Hayley didn’t bother to cover her hurt.

  “I know. I’m sorry. It only happened this morning—after I talked to you.”

  “It’s my fault, Hayley,” Gavin interjected. “I told Emily and George without consulting her. Sorry. I should have waited for Leigh to tell you first.”

  She eyed Gavin with suspicion before turning that suspicion on Leigh. “Do you know what you’re doing? No offense, but this is awful sudden.”

  “No, it isn’t,” Leigh said. “It’s taken more than seven years.”

  Hayley’s lips parted in surprise. Gavin went still.

  “Be happy for me, please?”

  “Oh, Leigh, of course I’m happy for you!” Hayley enfolded her in a tight hug. “It’s just that you caught me by surprise. I never expected an announcement like this.”

  “I know.”

  “I want details,” she said, pulling back.

  “Later,” Leigh promised. “I didn’t want you to hear about this from Emily or George.”

  “I would never have forgiven you.” She turned to Gavin, who was being congratulated by Bram. “Don’t hurt my sister.”

  Gavin looked her straight in the eye. “It’s the very last thing on earth I want to do, Hayley.”

  Leigh felt her throat constrict. Hayley looked suitably impressed. She tossed her head and returned his gaze. “I never had a big brother before. This should prove interesting. Welcome to the family.”

  “He’s a good guy,” Bram said at Leigh’s side.

  “I know. The two of you are very much alike.”