by Sara Blaedel
Ilka carried a chair over to the bed for him to sit down, then she sat in an easy chair by the balcony door.
Her father kept swiping at his tears as Amber told him about being injured out at the stables. Ilka didn’t listen. All the hours behind the wheel were catching up to her, and their voices were a murmur in the background until she heard something that made her sit up.
“I’m pregnant,” her half sister said. “And I felt so bad I couldn’t share my joy with you. At first, I spent some time sitting outside the funeral home, on the bench under the big tree, pretending you could see me and feel how happy I was. That’s how you were there for me.”
“Oh sweetheart!” Her father was so moved that Ilka couldn’t breathe for a moment. She rose and stood by the balcony door.
The father was Tom, the stable manager, Amber said. They had kept their relationship a secret because they didn’t want anyone interfering. Soon Ilka understood that Amber’s pregnancy was why she hadn’t been released. The doctors wanted her to stay in bed until they were sure she could carry the baby to full term, after all that had happened.
“Mom doesn’t know yet. I don’t know how she’s going to take it, but I’ve decided to go away. To move. It just felt so lonesome, starting a new life you were never going to be a part of.”
“What does Leslie think?” he said. “You told her, right?”
Amber shook her head. “I haven’t talked to Leslie since all this happened. I can’t get hold of her.”
“What do you mean?” Ilka said. “She hasn’t visited you?”
Ilka frowned. Just before the police took her away, Mary Ann had told Leslie to come in and tell her sister what had happened, so she wouldn’t hear about it from someone else.
“No, I haven’t seen her at all. Tom told me Grandpa was dead. And of course, it was in the paper, even though there was only an obituary.”
“But they must have written that he’d been shot,” Ilka said, thinking that the murder of a wealthy man, one of the city’s most public figures, had to be a major story.
“No. Even dead he’s somehow above being dragged into that sort of scandal.”
Ilka hadn’t heard her half sister speak contemptuously about her grandfather before. She’d thought the two of them were very close.
“Is Leslie staying out at the ranch?” Ilka hadn’t given a single thought to Amber’s older sister since leaving Fletcher’s ranch four days ago.
“I don’t know where she is,” Amber said. “Mom called from jail, but she only mentioned that the practical stuff with my stay in the hospital was taken care of. Insurance covers my rehab and R-and-R at a place in California somebody recommended to her. But I’m not going anywhere without Tom, and, like I said, Mom doesn’t know about the baby.”
“Your mother hasn’t heard from Leslie either?” Ilka already had picked her bag up off the floor.
Amber shook her head. “Nobody’s been able to get hold of her.”
“I’m going out to the ranch,” Ilka said. She turned to her father. “Can you take a taxi home? I have to find her. The last time I saw her, she was in no shape to be alone.”
10
Leslie wasn’t Ilka’s cup of tea, and as she neared the ranch, she realized this was the first time she’d been the least bit concerned about her. She felt a bond, a family tie. Not that that made her think any better of Leslie, but she felt obligated to do something. Also, there was no one else she could ask to step in.
Leslie had looked and sounded apathetic when she promised to go to the hospital and tell Amber about their grandfather’s death. She’d buried herself up in her room when she was told she’d been lied to, that Paul Jensen wasn’t her biological father.
An endless row of pastures lined both sides of the twisting road as she neared the ranch. The gate at the end of the driveway was open, just as it had been when she’d left. She noticed a car in front of one of the stables, so she drove over and parked beside it.
“Hello,” she called out. A few horses stomped around when she stepped inside the stable. “Hello!”
She noticed a man’s back at the end of the stable, and she called out again.
“Need some help?” he said as he walked toward her.
Ilka introduced herself and said she was Amber’s and Leslie’s half sister.
“You’re the one from Denmark.” He looked her over.
This had to be Tom, she thought. “Have you seen Leslie?”
He shook his head. “When are you talking about, though? I mean, I saw her when she and Mary Ann moved out here.”
“After that. Now. Or recently. The last few days. Do you know where she is?”
She noticed a glint of annoyance in his eyes. “They’d barely hauled Raymond Fletcher’s body away when everybody disappeared. There’s no one left to take care of the horses or run the place. Twenty-four valuable trotters we have here, and every one of them needs special attention, then there’s Amber’s prized horses I had to track down and bring home again. I haven’t slept more than four hours straight since Fletcher died. So no, I haven’t been keeping an eye on Leslie’s whereabouts.”
His voice was flinty, but Ilka knew his frustration wasn’t with her. The stable was filled to overflowing with horses, and he was clearly exhausted.
“But she still lives out here, right?”
The look in his eyes shifted again; it was as if Ilka had accused him of not taking care of Amber’s sister. “I have no idea.”
Ilka trotted over to the front door, which to her surprise was unlocked. There were signs all over the cavernous hallway that the police had been there. Muddy footprints on the wooden floor, strips of barrier tape. She headed for the office where Raymond Fletcher had been shot.
The rug where Fletcher had died still lay there; his body had been traced, and his blood had dried. The room was pin-drop quiet, and Ilka shivered and slowly retreated. It was the only room in the spacious house she’d been in, but now she walked over to the door on the other side of the hallway. The walls looked thick and massive to her, thanks to the high, dark-stained wood paneling and framed paintings. She stepped out into a small side hall, then into an enormous kitchen with a rectangular table that could easily seat twelve people. Ilka doubted it was ever used, but there were cupboards from floor to ceiling, and the tableware was neatly stacked in large display cabinets.
She walked back to the hallway and glanced inside the rooms flanking the office. Mary Ann had slept in one of them. Two heavy sofas had been pushed to the side to make room for her, and her belongings were still there—toiletries, underwear, things too personal to just be lying around. Ilka closed the door.
The dining room was taken up by a long, polished table with high-backed upholstered chairs. A double door opened into a room with an elegant sofa group and heavy curtains. Ilka quickly moved on to the last door next to the staircase, the den, but no luck there either. A fireplace, but no sign of Leslie.
She stood for a moment listening to the silence before venturing a few steps up the stairs and calling out Leslie’s name. Her voice sounded loud and distant, though she might only have whispered, she couldn’t tell. She continued up and stopped on the landing for a look at the framed family photographs. The largest one was of Fletcher. Ilka recognized Leslie and Amber together with a woman who resembled Mary Ann—obviously their grandmother. But there were no photographs of Mary Ann in her wheelchair, and no pictures of Ilka’s father.
She climbed the steps reluctantly, unsure of what she would find. Leslie had practically been petrified with shock when Ilka had seen her last, and since no one had been helping her, Ilka feared the worst.
On the second floor, she called out again and stared down the hall. All the doors appeared to be closed.
“Hello?” she said. She noticed she was holding her phone; she must have grabbed it without thinking.
The first door she opened was a bathroom the size of the den below. The next room was obviously Raymond Fletcher’s bedroom. Th
e bed had been made with military precision. Quickly Ilka closed the door and moved on to an unoccupied guest room with two folded towels on the bed. The door to the last room was open a crack, and from the hall Ilka noticed the unmade bed. She called out Leslie’s name again, but no one answered. She inched over to the door and pushed it open.
Leslie lay fully clothed on the bed. The pillows were mashed together, and her blond hair lay in a tangled mess. The blanket had slid off onto the floor. Her back was turned to Ilka, and she was staring straight into the wall.
“Leslie,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.
Was her half sister breathing? She wasn’t moving, anyway. A sweater covered her shoulders, and she’d put on a bulky jogging set that looked all too big on her.
“Leslie.” She walked over to the bed.
Leslie’s eyes were wide open. Her face looked pale against the pillows, and her cheeks were sunken. Ilka had never seen her like this; her usual meticulously groomed, perfectionist look was long gone. But at least she was alive.
She blinked slowly, but her eyes were focused straight ahead. Ilka wasn’t at all sure what they saw.
“Leslie.” Carefully she sat down on the bed, then reached over and laid a hand on her half sister’s shoulder.
“Go away.” Leslie’s voice was hoarse.
“No.”
“Go away.”
“Absolutely not!”
“I don’t want to talk to you.”
“You don’t have to,” Ilka said. “Are you thirsty?”
Leslie pressed her lips together, but after a moment she nodded.
“Have you had anything at all to eat?”
Again a few moments passed before she shook her head.
Four days had passed since the killing, and it looked as if her half sister had been lying there all that time. Alone. An empty water glass stood on the night table, along with an empty cracker package. Parts of a sandwich lay on a table over by the window; the bread was dry and curled up at the corners.
Ilka filled the water glass up in the bathroom. She lifted Leslie’s head and held it up to her lips. After she’d taken several small sips, Ilka went out into the kitchen to look for something her half sister could eat.
“I don’t want anything,” Leslie whispered, her voice still hoarse, when Ilka handed her a plate of crackers with butter and jelly. She’d also made a cup of tea, and now she lifted the tea bag out. “Just go away.”
“Stop acting so stupid! No one’s heard from you for several days, and your mother and sister are upset and worried, they think you’ve killed yourself! They think you’re lying around dead somewhere and they didn’t even have a chance to help you.”
Ilka was startled by her own outburst of anger. “I don’t know if you even realize it, but they’re not here because they can’t be, not because they don’t want to be.”
She took hold of Leslie and sat her up. Her little speech had gone in one ear and out the other, it looked like. As if Leslie wasn’t even listening.
She held out a cracker, and her half sister took it reluctantly. She also drank a bit of the tea. She was weak, and she seemed distracted, so much so that Ilka feared she was affected mentally as well as physically. She hadn’t had anyone to talk to since the dramatic events several days earlier, and she seemed unable to deal with them on her own.
Ilka knew all about what loneliness could do to you. After Flemming’s death she had buried herself in their apartment and refused to speak to anyone, even though her mother showed up every day to check on her. Her thoughts spiraled down into darkness. Then came the day her mother and Jette marched in and went through the entire apartment, cleaning every last inch of it. They stuck tulips into vases and dragged Ilka out of bed, gave her a bath, dressed her in clothes she normally wore. They simply took over. And it had helped. Now Ilka had to try to do the same for Leslie.
She opened the window and let the cold air stream in. She glanced around the room, then began packing Leslie’s clothes in the suitcase on the floor. “Are your toothbrush and toothpaste and toiletry things out in the bathroom?”
Leslie nodded listlessly. Her eyes seemed way too large, foreign in her sunken face. But she obeyed when Ilka ordered her out of bed and said she was taking her back to the funeral home. An iPad and phone lay on the night table, and Ilka stuck them in her bag before texting Amber.
“Is there anything else we need to take along?” she asked.
Leslie shook her head. Ilka packed her into a large coat hanging from a hook behind the door, then stuck her bare feet in a pair of winter boots. She held her half sister’s arm as they walked down the steps. Ilka felt ashamed; she should have taken her back to the funeral home the day of the shooting, but she’d completely forgotten about her. It was bad enough that she’d been lying there all alone, but that no one had even thought about looking in on her seemed even worse to Ilka.
On the way back Ilka told her their father was alive and back in town. Leslie was in shock to begin with, and Ilka wasn’t sure how to help her deal with the news, but her half sister simply gazed out the window and nodded and said, “Hmm!”
11
Ilka wondered how many times Leslie had set foot inside their father’s funeral home. Amber had told her that Leslie didn’t want anything to do with the dead, that she preferred to stay away. Now she looked unhappy as they approached the back door. Ilka was relieved to see that all the windows were dark, because it meant their father was still at the hospital.
It was almost eight o’clock, and Ilka was practically starving. Why hadn’t she brought along the package of crackers she’d found in Fletcher’s kitchen! She was nearly nauseous from exhaustion as she unlocked the door and punched in the code on the alarm. She turned on the lights, dragged Leslie’s suitcase over the doorstep, and held the door for her.
“This way.” She pointed toward the arrangement room; she planned on parking Leslie on the sofa until she’d gotten her half sister back to the land of the living. Or at least close enough to talk about her future.
She was about to follow Leslie when the door behind her opened. She whirled; to her horror, Miguel Rodriguez stepped inside, followed by his younger brother. Before she could react, he grabbed her arm and jerked her back, then sneered and said they’d come to have a little talk with her. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Leslie slowly turn her head and stare at the two men.
Ilka struggled noisily and finally broke loose from his grip, but she straightened herself and kept her wits about her. “What can I do for you two this time?”
She stepped in front of her half sister, who then backed up against the doorframe.
“Lydia Rogers,” Miguel said.
Ilka nodded. “What about her?”
She told them to follow her into the reception, but once more he grabbed her arm.
“You’re not pulling that stunt on us again!” It hurt when his fingers dug into her skin.
“I can’t help you.” Finally, he let go, and she stepped back. “I don’t know where she is.”
The diamond in his left ear glinted, and he made a fist, squeezing so hard that the skin on the back of his hand turned white.
“Lydia Rogers stole our money,” the younger brother said. “Four million dollars. We’re here to get it back.”
Ilka was totally exhausted, and on some level she simply didn’t care. She stared right back at him. So what if they were mad at her for outsmarting them, escaping with Lydia? If they planned on beating her up as they had Artie and her father, so be it. It surprised her that nothing in their manner scared her, even though she knew what they were capable of. She just wanted to get this over with before her father showed up.
“And we want to know what happened to our brother,” Miguel said. He was still in charge. His younger brother with the tattoos stayed in the background, but Ilka had noticed the butt of a gun sticking up from the waist of his pants. She kept an eye on him.
“We know Javi found the Rogers woman
, and nobody’s seen or heard from him since. And we found out she was the nun who worked here. Like my brother said, she’s got something that belongs to us, and we’re here to get it back. And to find out about our brother.”
“It’s true, he came here looking for her.”
She retreated a step and glanced back and forth between the two men. “She told me your brother showed up late one night. He broke into her apartment and threatened her and made her give him a bag. And if there was so much money involved, like you say, then it makes sense.”
It was her exhaustion talking, she thought. The way she was handling this situation. “Think about it. Why would he share the money with you two?”
She shook her head at them. “Like they say here, he headed for the hills. With the money.”
She sat down and looked up at them. “But then you came along, and that was dumb. You should have left Lydia alone, because really, I don’t think she’d have made anything more of it.”
Leslie was still standing in the doorway, staring silently at all of them. Ilka ignored her.
“There were documents in the bag too,” Ilka said. “Were, until Lydia took them out. Her brother wrote down all the details of your smuggling ring. Names and dates. Messages, addresses. More than enough to convince the police that they’d been wrong back then.”
She spoke quietly, and they leaned forward to catch everything she said. “The papers are on the way to Texas now, she’ll hand them over to the police and give her statement. Nobody will accuse her anymore of being behind what happened back then. But you could try to catch up to her and see if you can make a deal.”
“When did she leave?” Miguel asked.
He believed her! She’d won. She flashed back to the day the older brother had showed up during a memorial service and asked for her father. Lydia had been out in the reception when he pushed his way inside, and later she’d seemed terrified. Ilka should have known something was very wrong. If she’d been on her toes, she would have sent Lydia away. Everyone would have been okay.
