No Place to Die

by Jaden Skye

  “Yes, we do,” Olivia murmured, feeling a strange relief at being with someone who had been such a close part of Todd’s life.

  “And we’re both also desperate to find out what happened,” Deanne continued.

  There was no denying anything Deanne said. Although Deanne had seemed in terrible disarray on the phone, Olivia was surprised to see how pulled together she was now. Olivia remembered Todd mention in passing that his sister was a powerhouse, though you’d never know it at first sight.

  Olivia looked around.

  “Don’t worry,” Deanne said. “My family’s not here right now. It’s just me.”

  Olivia felt a surge of relief. Maybe Deanne wouldn’t be so bad after all.

  Deanne led her over to a set of outdoor couches, and Olivia sat on the far side of the L from her.

  “Todd told me you were beautiful,” Deanne went on, “and I’ve been looking forward to meeting you for a while.”

  Tears stung Olivia’s eyes again. “Thank you,” she whispered. “I’m glad he mentioned me to someone.”

  “Todd was happy with you.” Deanne’s voice got lower too.

  That meant the world to Olivia. “What else did he say about our relationship?” She desperately needed to know.

  “Not much else.” Deanne grew quiet then.

  Olivia looked around. The villa was beautiful, soothing, lined with palm trees. Light reflected off of a small pool beside them.

  “I can see why Todd loved it here,” Olivia proclaimed.

  “Me, too,” said Deanne, “but you need a special taste for a place like this. Most of the family doesn’t like it. They used to think it was strange that Todd came here again and again. There was so much about him they didn’t understand. He was an unusual guy, nobody really understood him except me.”

  Olivia immediately wondered what Deanne meant. She decided to let her say more about it in her own time.

  “You’re close to your family?” Olivia asked.

  “At times I am, other times, not,” Deanne replied. “Why?”

  “Just curious,” said Olivia. “I’m curious about everything I never got the chance to know about Todd.”

  “Did Todd ever bring you here?” Deanne asked.

  “No, not yet,” said Olivia. “We didn’t have time.”

  The thought that time had run out on them hit Olivia painfully. She looked down at the pebbles that Todd had loved and ran her foot along them. It was good being near Todd’s sister, but unnerving as well. Obviously Deanne was also trying to recapture whatever she could of Todd’s life. Being near Olivia seemed to be important to her.

  “I’m sorry my family is on this spin,” Deanne said suddenly. “It’s just that Todd never mentioned you to them. I was the only one he really said anything to.”

  “It’s understandable,” Olivia mumbled.

  “No, it isn’t,” Deanne said, shaking her head. “None of this is understandable if we’re really being honest with ourselves.” Her face flushed brightly, startling Olivia. “And Todd wasn’t understandable. I’m sure you realized that.”

  “I always felt as though I knew him completely,” Olivia replied, as the water lapped against the smooth pebbles.

  Deanne threw her head back at that and smiled. “That’s how all the women Todd dated felt,” she quipped. “I’ve heard that over and over from his girlfriends. It’s actually amazing.”

  Olivia was startled. “Which girlfriends? What did you hear?” she asked. Was Deanne about to answer the questions about Todd that had been lingering in the back of her mind?

  “All his women fell in love with Todd immediately,” Deanne continued blithely, as the wind blew across their faces. “They all said they knew everything about him and felt destined to be together forever.”

  Olivia began to feel colder. This was frightening but she had to go onward. “Todd had lots of girlfriends?” she managed to ask.

  Deanne looked over at her directly. “That’s like asking if spiders have lots of legs,” she murmured, reaching into her bag and taking out a small photo.

  “What’s that?” asked Olivia, her heart now fluttering.

  Deanne held it out. “Do you know her? Have you ever seen her at all?” She handed the paper to Olivia with a quick flick of her wrist.

  On the paper was a blurry photo of a young woman with bluntly cut short dark hair and green eyes, holding a tennis racquet.

  “Who is she?” Olivia grew frightened.

  “Listen, I don’t mean to upset you, but this is important.” Deanne tossed her head back abruptly. “Look at her again, carefully.”

  “I never saw her before.” Now Olivia was becoming anxious. “Is she a suspect in the case?”

  “Not exactly, not yet,” Deanne replied. “Her name is Mina. She and Todd dated for over two years.”

  Olivia felt her heart sink.

  “She was the one he brought home to the family for all sorts of parties and occasions. She was the one he talked to me about all the time! Not you,” said Deanne.

  Olivia felt as though she were about to throw up. “No, I never saw her,” she repeated, “and Todd never mentioned her to me. We didn’t go over our past relationships.”

  “Mina was not a past relationship,” said Deanne.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  “What are you talking about?” Olivia felt a chill run up her arms. She suddenly wanted to get up and run as far away as she could. Was Deanne crazy? Was she just a part of Todd’s cruel family, trying to take Olivia down?

  Deanne’s eyes narrowed. “I have to be frank with you, Olivia, don’t I?” she said.

  “Yes, of course you do,” Olivia barely murmured. It was one thing to be frank, of course, and another thing cruel. Olivia wasn’t sure which one Deanne was being.

  “We have to check out everyone who could be involved with Todd’s death,” Deanne continued. “And I need your help.”

  “You have my help,” said Olivia, spellbound. “Todd has my help. I’m here to help him.”

  Deanne seemed glad to hear that. “Todd cared about you, for sure,” she went on, “I’m not minimizing that. But you weren’t the only one. There were others in Todd’s life. Todd and Mina were still dating when he died. He saw her every time he came down to Key West.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Olivia cried out, sharp tears suddenly stinging her eyes.

  “I’m sorry, but that’s the way he was.” Deanne was unmovable. “If anyone was going to get engaged to Todd, it should have been Mina, not you. Every single person is saying that.”

  “Why should I believe you?” Olivia flung her head back, determined to hold her ground.

  “Because we need all the help we can get in finding the truth.” Deanne’s eyes were now flashing.

  Olivia felt as though the ground were falling out beneath her. “You think Mina killed Todd?” she asked, her heart pounding.

  “Unlikely, but possible,” said Deanne. “Face it, it’s extremely odd that Todd would come down to Key West to get engaged to someone else. That’s cruelty.”

  “But he loved me,” Olivia said in a small voice. “He wanted to share his favorite place with me.”

  “It’s cruelty!” Deanne insisted. “Who even knows whether or not Mina heard about the upcoming engagement before it happened?”

  “Did she say she did?” Olivia tried her best to regain some semblance of calm and clarity.

  “No, but it’s a question I’m asking myself and so are the police!” Deanne went on avidly. “The police have spoken to Mina about it, but she has an airtight alibi for the night Todd died. And, except for possible motive, there’s nothing else linking her to his death.”

  Olivia was horrified. “Tomas doesn’t have a decent alibi so they’re holding him instead,” she mused.

  “Exactly,” said Deanne, staring at Mina’s photo again. “Actually, we’re all also wondering whether Todd told you about Mina before you got engaged.”

  “Not a word,” said Olivia in a t
hin voice, trying to put the pieces together.

  “That’s not like him, either,” Deanne mumbled. “Todd definitely had his own strange ways, but usually he told the truth.”

  Olivia was getting such a mixed picture of Todd. She was glad to hear that Todd usually told the truth, which meant that he had loved her. But she also wondered if this wasn’t all Deanne’s fantasy. Olivia needed facts and she needed them badly.

  “Todd and Mina had been dating for two years?” Olivia asked again.

  “Yes, and I tried to tell Mina he’d never marry her, over and over, but she wouldn’t listen.” Deanne threw Olivia a strange look. “I knew Todd would never marry her! Actually, we all knew it. And Todd wasn’t going to marry you, either. Ever!”

  “Wrong there.” Now Olivia was outraged. “He definitely was going to marry me,”

  she insisted. “We were engaged!” It was enough that she’d lost Todd. She refused to allow Deanne to destroy all her memories of him.

  “Your engagement was just an empty gesture,” Deanne said, brushing her moist hair off her face. “I don’t know how you got Todd to propose, though. Nobody does. Now that’s something worth investigating. There were plenty of women who tried over the years, but nothing worked. He always backed out. He had to, had no choice! It was a reflex action he had no control over.”

  “Maybe he backed out because he was waiting for me,” Olivia replied in a trembling voice. “It was different with us. Todd proposed because he loved me.”

  “It wasn’t different,” Deanne insisted. “You must have frightened him, big time. Did you threaten him, tell him you were leaving?”

  “I’ve heard enough of this junk.” Olivia was furious.

  “You must have frightened him.” Deanne’s eyes grew narrow. “You must have bullied him into giving you the ring. Everyone knows that you’re not as innocent as you seem!”

  Olivia lurched away from Deanne. “Go to hell,” she shot back at her. “You lured me down here under false pretenses! Who’s the one who’s not so innocent?”

  “What false pretenses?” Deanne was stung. “I told you I wanted to talk to you about Todd.”

  “You don’t want to talk to me, you want to crush me!” Olivia yelled back. “You’re all jealous of me and you hate me.”

  “I don’t hate anybody,” Deanne insisted.

  “You can’t stand that Todd finally had a real love, someone he wanted to be with forever.”

  “How dare you?” Deanne began trembling then. “Who are you anyway? A stray person, an intruder!”

  “No, I’m not an intruder.” Olivia felt a fierce strength surging through her. “I’m the woman your brother loved and decided to marry. You’re the one who refuses to accept it. You’re the one who’s rejecting me and also him.”

  Deanne became frozen and silent as Olivia spoke. “I never rejected Todd and I never will,” she replied. “I spent my entire life being good to him.”

  “But if you do this to me, you’re rejecting Todd also,” Olivia insisted. “I’m the woman he chose!”

  “He didn’t choose you.” Deanne could not bear it.

  “Of course he did,” Olivia insisted. “I wouldn’t be here now if he hadn’t. Look at me, Deanne.”

  Deanne’s eyes fluttered uneasily as Olivia spoke. She could not meet her glance.

  “Listen,” Deanne said finally, “I don’t want to hurt you. We just both have to look the truth in the eye. We have to do it for Todd’s sake. He’s gone, he needs us. He deserves it, doesn’t he?”

  At that moment Olivia wasn’t at all sure what Todd deserved, or his crazed family.

  “Todd was a ladies’ man, he couldn’t help himself,” Deanne went on fervently. “You can ask anyone, everyone knew. He always had a few girlfriends at the same time. He needed it, couldn’t bear the thought of being left alone, with no one waiting in the wings. The idea of that made him nuts.”

  Olivia had no idea who the person was that Deanne had been describing. It certainly wasn’t the man she’d known and loved. “That’s not the man I know.” Olivia could barely get the words out.

  “But that’s the man he was,” Deanne shot back. “No one thought Todd could ever willingly get engaged or marry. My family especially does not believe it. And whether you actually got engaged or not, believe me, Todd would never have walked you down the aisle.”

  “Oh yes he would have!” Olivia was beside herself. How dare this woman try to rip her dreams to shreds?

  “Never!” Deanne’s voice became garbled. “The relationship could not have ended well.” Deanne’s eyes grew wide then and filled with pain. “And it didn’t, did it?”

  Olivia knew she had to gather herself and she stood to leave. The rest of Todd’s family was nasty and crazy, why should Deanne be any different? Olivia understood now why Todd refused to include them in Todd and Olivia’s relationship.

  Deanne grabbed her wrist. “Here,” she said, handing her a piece of paper. “It’s Mina’s number.”

  Olivia was horrified. “And what do you want me to do with this?” she asked.

  “Call her,” Deanne demanded.

  Why would I ever do that?” Olivia asked.

  “Because she won’t talk to me. To any of us,” Deanne said. “We need to know the truth. And maybe she’ll talk to you.”

  Olivia turned and shook her arm free and walked quickly out of the villa.

  Deanne followed her.

  “Are you devastated?” Deanne called out behind her.

  “About what?” Olivia asked, not slowing down.

  “Are you devastated to find out that he was still seeing Mina when he was with you?”

  Olivia kept walking. Was Deanne getting some weird thrill out of this? She didn’t want to give Deanne the satisfaction of a response.

  Olivia walked out the gate and slammed it behind her, hurrying to get away. The last thing she needed now was to run into someone else from Todd’s family. She’d had enough of them all for a lifetime.

  Olivia felt the number in her hand burn like a living thing.

  Mina. It hurt too much.

  When she got down the block, Olivia curled herself up in a ball and wept.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Olivia lost track of time as she stared at the number in her hand, debating whether to call. She brushed away her tears, took a deep breath, and finally came to a decision.

  The truth. It was what she needed most of all.

  Her heart leapt into her throat as she dialed and held the phone to her ear. It rang and rang. She was about to hang up when finally a voice came on. It was a husky voice.

  “Hello?”

  Olivia stared at the phone for ten full seconds, unsure what to say, unsure whether to speak at all.

  “Mina?” she finally asked.

  “Yes?”

  Olivia pondered her words. “My name is Olivia,” she said. “I was engaged to Todd.”

  There came a long, endless silence on the other end.

  “I want to talk to you,” Olivia said. “Can we meet?”

  After another long silence: “No,” she said. “And don’t you ever call me again.”

  Olivia stared at the phone, stunned. Another dead end.

  And yet the venom and pain in the woman’s voice made Olivia feel as if all of this was true. As if she never even knew the man she loved.

  *

  Olivia stood in the lobby of Todd’s swank office building, feeling more nervous than before as she stared back at the receptionist, wondering what to say.

  “I am here to see Frank Brunel,” Olivia finally mustered the courage to ask. She recalled the name of Todd’s boss, the one Gabe had told her about. The one he had told her to avoid.

  The woman stared back suspiciously. “And who may I say is here to see him?”

  “Olivia Wells,” she said. “Todd’s fiancé.”

  The woman’s expression changed, hardening. She picked up her phone and spoke softly into it.

  Olivia’s
heart pounded as she waited. After her disastrous meeting with Deanne, after Mina hanging up on her, she knew she needed to circle back and follow up on Gabe’s lead. And this, Todd’s office, was the only place to do it.

  It was a low sleek building, with large smoky windows and a polished wooden door. Olivia looked around at the long, black slate marble corridor she was in. Along the far wall hung a huge, pure white modern painting with lightning streaks of red. The rest of the place was decorated in blacks, grays, and shades of beige and had an uncompromising feel about it. Somehow, it reminded her of Todd.

  Olivia stood straighter, feeling as though she were walking straight into the horse’s mouth. All the time she’d spent thinking about Todd’s family and hearing about his girlfriends could have just been a huge diversion, she thought. Precious time wasted. Gabe had told her there was trouble in the company and that Todd had found out more than he should have. Olivia had to find out what the trouble was. This was a powerful financial company and there were probably many reasons the police hesitated to probe.

  Finally, the receptionist hung up. She looked at her cautiously and nodded.

  “Fifteenth floor,” she said. “The elevator bank on the right.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Olivia nodded, took a moment to smooth her hair, then walked directly to the office and knocked on Frank’s door.

  “Come in,” a rough voice called out without hesitation.

  Olivia opened the door and took a step in. To her surprise, two men were there. One was slender and younger, with light brown hair and large, kind eyes. The other, an older man, was seated behind a large slate desk, his hands spread out on it. He was a big man, in his fifties, with a square face, small eyes, and dark, slick hair. His dark red shirt was open at the neck and he didn’t take his eyes off Olivia. Olivia assumed he was Frank Brunel.

  “I’m Frank Brunel,” he confirmed immediately, “and this is Marcus, Todd’s colleague.”

  Marcus stood up immediately to shake hands with Olivia, but Frank Brunel sat where he was, looking Olivia over.

  Olivia shook Marcus’s hand and then turned to Frank. “Thank you for seeing me,” she said as she walked to the chair across from the desk.