Hunter’s hand at the small of my back propelled me inside. “I have things to tell you.”
The envelopes. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what was in the envelopes. One look at the grim expression on Hunter’s face told me I didn’t have a choice.
Hunter settled onto one of the stools at the kitchen island. He opened a briefcase he’d carried in from his car and withdrew two stacks of documents—one of too familiar envelopes, the other of file folders.
“Iced tea?” Aggie asked.
Hunter nodded.
I shook my head. “Tab. I’ll get it.” I opened the refrigerator and closed my fingers around a pink can.
With drinks in front of us, there was no avoiding discussing the envelopes. I still tried. “I really ought to head up to the farm.”
Hunter shook his head. No way was he letting me off the hook so easily. “Do you know Rand Hamilton?”
We belonged to different country clubs. Our children went to different schools. I’d seen his envelope in Henry’s safe and wondered how their paths had crossed. “Not well. I knew Rebecca a bit from the tennis league. She was nice.”
“She died.”
I nodded. I hadn’t known her well enough to take Rand a Bundt cake. Instead, I’d sent a note and a check in her memory to a local charity. “She’d been drinking and she went swimming alone. She drowned.” Almost like Madeline. My mouth went dry and my heart beat faster.
Hunter picked up the envelope with Rand Hamilton’s name on it. “What if I told you Rand killed her?”
My stomach dropped to my skinned knees. Rand had murdered Rebecca? What the hell was in that envelope? “I’d tell you my husband was a bigger idiot than I thought.” I’d thought Henry had limited his blackmail to upstanding citizens eager to keep their sexual exploits quiet. Instead, he’d blackmailed a murderer. No wonder he was dead.
Hunter’s lip twitched. Once. Twice. Then it curled into something resembling a sneer. “Idiot isn’t the word I’d use to describe your husband.”
“Maybe not,” I ceded. But calling him a moron in front of Aggie seemed harsh. Almost as harsh as adding that if he wasn’t already dead, I’d kill him for endangering Grace. What had he been thinking? It wasn’t like we needed the money. I took a slow sip of Tab to relieve the dryness in my mouth. There was nothing I could do about the racing of my heart. Maybe it hadn’t been about money. Maybe Henry had blackmailed his peers to feel powerful.
Rand Hamilton.
Respected stockbroker.
Perennial runner-up at the Worm Burner Tournament as a guest player at the club.
Murderer.
“What’s Hamilton’s middle name?” I asked.
Hunter opened a slim file folder. “Butler.”
“What about his wife?” I asked. “What was her maiden name?”
Hunter lifted a brow. “Why do you ask?”
“The golf club,” Aggie said. “The one that killed Mr. Russell. It was engraved with initials. R.A.H.” She shrugged and offered me an apologetic smile. “The police were talking about it.”
No flies on Aggie.
Hunter opened the file folder then pulled out a news clipping. “Rebecca Hamilton née Alling.”
R.A.H. No one moved. We watched the condensation run down the sides of Hunter’s glass and considered the possibility that Rand Hamilton had killed Henry with his dead wife’s golf club.
I broke the silence. “It looked like a man’s club.”
Hunter nodded as if he agreed but said, “Plenty of women play with men’s clubs.”
Maybe, but I was having a hard time imagining Rand Hamilton with his paunch and his comb-over and his stick legs whacking Henry over the head with a golf club. Then again, by all accounts he had a nice backswing. I shook my head. It didn’t feel right. “I’m not sure Henry’s victims knew he was the blackmailer.”
Hunter’s eyes narrowed. I’d asked him to put in an unconscionable amount of work researching a potential murderer, he’d seen things in those envelopes he could never unsee, and now I wasn’t sure the murderer was one of Henry’s blackmail victims.
It was Aggie who spoke. “Why do you say that?”
I took another sip of Tab, ignored Hunter’s dire expression and said, “Barb Evans.”
“Barb Evans?” Hunter repeated.
Aggie went digging through the pile of envelopes. “She’s the one who embezzled from the Junior League.”
I choked on my soda. Barb Evans had embezzled? From the League? Was she insane? No more so than Randall Hamilton, and according to the information Henry had collected he’d killed his wife. And to think, I’d assumed all the envelopes contained pictures of sex acts.
“How much?”
Aggie pulled the papers out of the envelope and looked. “Ten thousand. She put it back, but borrowing without permission is still stealing.”
Borrowing without permission versus allowing someone to spank you until your ass was the color of a brick sidewalk. All things being equal, I was more willing to accept embezzlement. Other league members might not be as forgiving. I put my elbows on the counter then dropped my face to my hands so the heels of my palms pressed into my eyes. Embezzlement. Kinky sex. Murder. What else did the envelopes hold?
I took a deep breath then raised my head to gaze at Hunter. His expression was serious and lawyerly. He looked smart and competent and utterly sure of himself.
He’d decided Rand’s guilt. Rand might have access to a golf club engraved with R.A.H. If Rand knew Madeleine and Henry were the blackmailers, he had an excellent reason to kill them. Even if Rand hadn’t killed Madeline and Henry or tried to kill Roger, he’d still killed his wife. How in the hell was I going to turn Rand in without revealing Henry’s blackmailing?
“Why did he kill Rebecca?” I asked.
“Insurance money,” said Aggie. “You always got to look at the insurance policies. Tell us about Barb Evans.”
“She brought a Bundt cake to Mother’s.”
They both stared at me as they were still waiting for an explanation.
“I’d swear she didn’t know Henry was the one who was blackmailing her.”
Aggie reached across the counter and pulled the remaining stack of neatly labeled file folders toward her. She opened one and shuffled through a stack of papers. “Barbara Evans was the president of the thespian club her junior and senior year of college.”
“You think she was acting?”
My ersatz housekeeper nodded.
I shook my head. “I don’t think so.”
Hunter frowned at me. “No one thinks Barb Evans murdered your husband.”
“If Barb didn’t know Henry was the blackmailer maybe Rand didn’t either.”
“Or maybe he did,” said Aggie.
I rubbed the back of my neck. “Or maybe it was someone else.”
“You offered us twenty potential killers.” Hunter’s frown darkened to a scowl. “Are there more?”
“I think maybe it could be Kitty Ballew or Prudence Davies.”
“Who?” Aggie asked.
Hunter held up his hand to stop us from following the tangent I’d introduced any further. His right hand.
I stared at his fingers. There was an easy way to settle this. “Was Rebecca Hamilton right-handed or left-handed?”
My question required more searching of papers in the file. After a moment, Hunter gathered all the sheets in his hands then tapped them against the counter until they were in perfect alignment. “I don’t know.”
Neither did I, but I could figure it out. “I played tennis with her once or twice. Doubles matches. She wasn’t very good. I remember Rebecca and her partner tripping over each other for balls in the center court. They both favored their forehands.”
Aggie grinned
at me like I was a precocious child. “The golf club they found was left-handed. Was Mrs. Hamilton?”
“I don’t remember. I just remember her running into Lilly Greyson.” Who’d been the left-handed player? For the life of me, I couldn’t remember.
“Call her and ask.” Hunter’s voice brooked no dissent.
I held out my hands with fingers spread then shrugged. “I can’t. Now that her kids are grown, she’s summering in France. I have no idea how to get a hold of her.”
Hunter’s jaw, always square and firm, tightened as if he was gritting his teeth. The expression in his eyes was as hard as granite. “Aggie, would you give us a moment please?”
Aggie took one look at Hunter’s jaw and hurried out of the kitchen in a swirl of purple muumuu.
“Someone has killed two people and tried to kill a third.” He stood, circled the counter then stood behind me to rest his hands on my shoulders. “You have to take this seriously.”
I twisted on my stool to look at him. “I am.”
He shook his silver head, the expression in his eyes softened, and he squeezed my shoulders gently. “Not seriously enough. I’m worried you’ll be next.”
Twenty-Six
Hunter Tafft’s hands were warm on my shoulders, his lips were parted, and his eyes, normally flinty, lawyerly chips, had heated to the approximate temperature of lava. Also, he’d just told me he cared what happened to me. For one insane moment, I was tempted to reach my fingers to the back of his neck and pull him close enough to kiss me.
He released one of my shoulders and used his free hand to brush a strand of hair away from my face, and I caught the scent of expensive ink and leather and privilege. I felt as frozen as a deer caught in headlights.
Then he sighed and drew away and my ability to move returned.
Hunter moved back to the other side of the island. “You don’t think Barb Evans knew it was Henry blackmailing her?”
Really? He wanted to talk about Barb Evans? I could hardly catch my breath. I took a surreptitious gulp of air and tried to focus on blackmail. “I didn’t know she was an actress.”
“Your first instinct—did you think she was lying or telling the truth?”
“Telling the truth.”
He offered me a tight smile. “Trust your instincts.”
I blinked. Trust your instincts? Just a moment ago, my instincts had told me to kiss Hunter Tafft.
Hunter rested his forearms on the counter. Crisp white cotton cuffs peeked out from the arms of his navy suit. He was back to being the perfect lawyer, our moment of closeness forgotten. Maybe he hadn’t felt what I had. Maybe he’d been comforting a client and missed the instant when I’d wanted to kiss him and melt into his arms.
“Your instincts tell you it’s not Rand Hamilton,” he said.
They did. I shrugged, unable to form more than the most basic sentences, my tongue still tied in knots by the thought of it tangling with Hunter’s.
Maybe it was Rand. Maybe it wasn’t. If I knew who’d killed my husband I wouldn’t be sitting in the kitchen with a tempting man, I’d be with Grace.
“You said something about Prudence Davies and Kitty Ballew. Why?”
My cheeks prickled with heat. “One of them could have killed him.”
“Why?”
“You know about Henry and Madeline?” It wasn’t really a question and Hunter didn’t really answer. He jerked his chin once then waited.
“They spent a lot of time at Club K.” My voice barely rose above a whisper.
He jerked his chin again. “That woman at Roger’s runs the place.”
“Yes.” I studied a vein in the marble island top. Shaded somewhere between Mars yellow and yellow ochre, it wove its way through at least five feet of counter. I traced a section with my finger. “Prudence and Kitty go there too.”
He didn’t say anything, and I was unwilling to give up my study of marble to see his reaction. We sat in silence.
He finally spoke. “They were there together? The four of them?”
I nodded without looking up.
He exhaled loud enough for me to hear it. “Why did you stay married to him?”
“I didn’t know about Prudence and Kitty until after Madeline was dead.”
“You knew about Madeline.” His voice was kind. I hated kind. It too closely resembled pity.
“I stayed for Grace.”
“What an asshole.”
I jerked my gaze up in time to see his scowl.
“He had you and he fooled around with Madeline? He was an idiot.”
Hunter thought I could inspire monogamy? I didn’t know how to respond so I said, “I think both Kitty and Prudence wanted to replace Madeline.”
The scowl disappeared and his face took on its usual unreadable, lawyer’s mask. “That explains Madeline’s death not Henry’s.”
“I think they were each disappointed he didn’t contact them when he got back. Maybe one of them was upset enough to kill him.”
Hunter chewed on that for a moment. “Where was he?”
The laugh that escaped my lips sounded bitter. “You were there when he told me. Duluth. Maybe Toledo. Failing that, he went to Provo.”
“I assumed he was lying.”
“That’s the thing, I don’t think he was.” I dropped my gaze back to the marble slab. “Henry usually didn’t bother to lie.”
Hunter mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like asshole.
My husband had cheated on me with multiple women, and he hadn’t cared enough about me to try to hide it. In fact, he’d taken a perverse pleasure in making sure I knew about it. He was an asshole. At least he hadn’t tried to murder me.
Unlike Rand.
The marble lost its ability to fascinate. “Rebecca Hamilton drowned.”
Hunter reached for the envelope with Rand’s name on it. “Yes.”
“Where was Rand when it happened?”
“Having dinner with her parents.”
“Her parents? Without her? I assume he took the kids.”
Hunter consulted his notes. “They were at summer camp.”
“You’ve been married,” I said.
Hunter’s eyes rolled—just a little bit. “Three times.”
“Did you ever have dinner with any of your in-laws without your wife?”
He thought for a moment. “Never.”
“No man goes to dinner with his in-laws alone unless he has a damn good reason. Like creating an alibi.”
He scanned the file. “Says here she came down with something but insisted he go without her.”
“I don’t believe it. That’s a dinner you reschedule. What parent wants to think their son-in-law is out while their daughter is home sick? Rand killed Rebecca and used her parents for his alibi.” Despicable man.
“How did he kill her if he was with her parents?”
“How big was the insurance policy?”
“A million dollars.”
“He could have given her something to help her sleep. Only he gave her a lot of it. Then he paid someone to dump her in their pool while he was with her parents.” I rubbed the bridge of my nose. “He did it. I just don’t know if he killed Madeline and Henry.”
“Madeline and Rebecca’s deaths are very similar.”
“I know but I can’t see Madeline agreeing to meet a paunchy stockbroker at the club in the middle of the night. If she did, she definitely wouldn’t bother with her favorite dress.” I used my fingers to smooth the wrinkles in my brow. “May I see the envelope?”
Hunter slid it across the counter and I perused its contents. My guesses were spot on. Rand killed his wife but how had Henry figured it out?
I flipped through more pages and saw that Rand had withdraw
n large amounts of cash from Henry’s bank prior to Rebecca’s death. Had Rand used it to pay the hit man? Was that how Henry found the grounds for blackmail?
Rand was a murderer. Rebecca deserved justice. Maybe I could send Henry’s proof to the police anonymously. That way, no one need ever know that Grace’s father was a blackmailer.
The jangle of the telephone interrupted my thoughts.
“Are you going to answer that?” Hunter asked when I made no move to pick up the receiver.
“It could be Mother. Or the police.”
He grinned at me. “It could be Grace.”
The ringing stopped and seconds later Aggie knocked on the kitchen door. “Mr. Tafft, it’s your office. They said they were sorry to interrupt but—”
“They don’t call unless it’s urgent. Do you mind if I take this?”
“Go ahead. I have to pack for Grace.” Aggie and I left him to his call.
She stopped me at the bottom of the front stairs. “Your daughter phoned while you were out. She gave me a list of everything she needed. I hope you don’t mind but I went ahead and packed it for her.”
Aggie truly was worth her weight in gold.
“I packed a bag for you too.”
Maybe platinum.
“Thank you, Aggie.” I looked around for something to do and lit upon the ever-growing stack of mail on the bombé chest. I scooped it up and headed to the family room to go through it.
Catalogues went directly into the trash. I wasn’t in the mood to shop—not even from the comfort of home. Then I opened envelopes. I dropped the electric, phone, and gas bills into the sterling toast rack that did double duty as my filing system, wrote a quick formal regret to an afternoon tea and sent a solicitation into the waste bin with the catalogues.
Finally, only one letter remained, one addressed to Henry, the dusty one that had spent a few days under the chest.
I opened it and withdrew a single handwritten sheet. Three names with addresses. Nothing more. No signature. No explanation. No return address. I almost threw it in the trash. Almost. Then I realized the addresses were in Duluth, Toledo, and Provo and my hand shook.
THE DEEP END Page 20
