Pirate Gold and Murder Read online

  “So do I.” I hadn’t heard MC join us and neither, apparently, had Chantal, because she bounded to her feet again, backed away as if expecting the Tortuga leader to attack her physically. Instead, MC just stared, Anja coming to stand beside her boss, Liz joining us. “Did you, Chantal? Did you kill Gregg?”

  Chantal didn’t respond, so I did. “She had the necessary skills,” I said, and filled them all in on how he’d died. As I did, the utter disgust and revulsion on the women’s faces shocked me, but not for long.

  “How could you?” Anja pushed past MC whose dark expression spoke volumes the younger diver gave voice to. “Using what we love against him like that? You’re a diver.” She seemed most distressed by that fact. “To send him to his death underwater… Chantal, how could you?”

  Liz met my eyes, hers flat and furious. “Honor code broken,” she said.

  Okay then. Divers. Sheesh.

  “The thing is,” I said, interrupting and sending Anja back to retreat behind MC, tears trickling down her cheeks, “Chantal wasn’t the only person with a grudge against Gregg.” I looked pointedly at MC, even the weeping younger diver. “You three all had access to the equipment. So did Martin. And Hannah.” I had to track down Gregg’s widow. But first, a bit of research was pending.

  Chantal grasped onto my reasoning and held tight. “She’s right,” she said, words tumbling over one another. “It could have been anyone.” She jabbed a shaking finger at MC. “I saw you in the shed.”

  “I saw you in the shed,” the Tortuga leader bit back.

  “Well I didn’t do it,” Anja said, tears now dried up, while I wondered about her conversation with Martin. Happened right before he was in the shack poking around MC’s tanks. Maybe it hadn’t been hers he’d been fiddling with. Maybe he’d actually been checking Gregg’s. Or sabotaging them.

  Too many whys and too many furious expressions going around to get any clear insights.

  “Why don’t we have a chat, Chantal?” Liz gestured for her to join the FBI agent inside. She hesitated a moment, glanced at me, of all people.

  I nodded instantly. “Just tell her what you know,” I said, feeling zero guilt about acting like her supportive friend if it meant finding out who murdered my first dead body of the weekend.

  Chantal pushed through MC and Anja on her way to the house, the other two watching her go with sullen expressions. Liz paused at the top step, Chantal preceding her inside. “I expect both of you to make yourselves available for questioning.”

  MC spluttered but Liz waved that off.

  “I’ll be with you presently,” the cucumber cool agent said before disappearing inside.

  Leaving me out in the garden’s supposed peace with two very angry and now suspicious divers. Thankfully, a text message set me free and had me moving a moment later. You know what? Even if one of them had tried to stop me and confess they were the one who killed Gregg Brown? I would have left the collar to Liz.

  My husband was home and nothing was going to keep me from him.

  ***

  Chapter Twenty One

  “I would never,” Crew started the second I walked through the front door, silenced almost immediately thereafter when I threw myself at him, locked my arms around his neck and my mouth on his and shut him up already.

  Because, duh, Turner. Just duh.

  When I leaned back, catching my breath, he grinned like it was funny or something. Almost earned himself a smack for that attitude. Until he held out one hand, tight in a fist, with a bit of a flourish. I offered my own. Crew upended his over my empty palm, a small, warm bit of metal coming to rest there. I stared in shock and then delight down at the small butterfly clip, three gems missing from one wing, now in my possession.

  I looked up at him, caught his slow wink, and shook my head. “Crew Turner,” I said. “Where did you get this?”

  “Someone made the mistake of leaving it on her desk,” he said. “I figured I’d make sure it got back where it belonged.”

  I tsked. “Theft, my love? Really? Is that what your retirement from law enforcement has brought you to? A life of crime?”

  He reached for the clip. “I’ll just give it back if you’re going to be like that about it.”

  My hand closed reflexively over the clip, tucking it against my heart while my husband laughed at my possessive response.

  “Over my dead body,” I said.

  He sighed at my choice of words. “Too soon, Fee.”

  Whoops. “Sorry, sweetie.”

  Crew hugged me before heading for the kitchen and the beer he’d been enjoying before I walked in the door, Petunia sitting firmly on his feet as though expecting him to leave again. “Rough day?”

  Like he was one to talk. “You first.”

  Crew took a long drink of his beer, blue eyes tight. “I’d rather not,” he said. “Did you hear from the doc?”

  I filled him in on everything while he finished his drink and fetched another for himself, with one for me, too. I joined him behind the counter, helping him prep dinner like he wasn’t under investigation for the murder of Geoffrey Jenkins and I hadn’t found two dead bodies in two days. Right, because this was Reading and we didn’t exactly have a regular relationship.

  Frankly? As I sat down to my plate of spaghetti, the love of my life beside me, Grandmother Iris’s last butterfly clip safe in the music box (missing gems or not, it was nice to have the set) I wouldn’t have had things any other way. We’d faced adversity and death and murder investigations and worse before. We had each other and that was more than enough.

  The dishes rattled in the sink, my usual grumbling about the fact Crew didn’t have a dishwasher vanishing as my phone buzzed. My husband peeked over my shoulder when he heard me squeal in surprise, but he needn’t have bothered. I instantly turned the screen toward him, showed him the message, relief washing over me, more powerful than I expected.

  Meet me at the annex, Pamela Shard’s crisp text said. I have a lot to tell you.

  It didn’t take much convincing to leave the dishes undone, to harness Petunia for the walk, the pair of us hurrying as much as the pug’s meandering pace would allow. Crew finally hefted the weighty canine into his arms, rewarded with a loud fart of delightful vintage and the eager tongue swipes of the grateful girl.

  Hard not to laugh, to feel a bit lighter hearted. It had been ages since I’d heard from Pamela and though I knew she was alive and well, not vanished in the same manner as Fiona Doyle (I’d half expected to find the newspaperwoman’s body floating in the lake some morning), I still worried about her. Knowing she was back in town, that she’d likely only returned with information of note and use, definitely improved my mood.

  We found her talking with Mom and Daisy in the annex sitting room, the sun long set past the mountains though the sky remained blue. To my surprise, she wasn’t alone, the tall and willowy Fleur King rising from the sofa to smile at me, shake my hand, before I could cross to hug Pamela about as tight as I could without choking her.

  She patted my back, a bit awkward but genuine enough. “I missed you too, Fee,” she whispered in my ear, cleared her throat, voice thick. When Pamela pushed me back, her eyes glistened with a rim of moisture and I wasn’t too proud to admit I had to wipe at a pair of tears, knowing I was beaming at her.

  “I’m just glad you’re okay,” I said, glancing over my shoulder at Fleur. The investigative journalist hadn’t shown her face in Reading since my first encounter with mention of Blackstone. She’d worked with Pamela years ago at the Boston Globe, had assisted with the investigation of the death of Lewis Brown, while being a suspect herself, if briefly. I had always thought the two might have some kind of personal past that was unrelated to the job, but had no proof of a relationship that wasn’t simple friendship. Not that it mattered. Pamela had married the love of her life in Aundrea Wilkins, finally free to do so after years apart. Surely the appearance of Fleur meant nothing.

  Then again, I was quick to note the gold band
Pamela had accepted from her wife in this very annex during their wedding ceremony was missing from her left hand. And her absence from Reading, abandoning Aundrea—at least, I could only imagine she was forced to do so—to the Patterson family she was part of, could have meant a few things I wasn’t ready to face.

  Not yet, anyway. Not when my friend was tugging on my hand, pulling me down next to her on the couch, while Crew took the armchair and Mom and Daisy the loveseat. Fleur hovered instead of sitting, as though feeling out of place in our inner circle.

  Another sign of something I didn’t want to poke a stick at?

  “Let’s save the catching up for later,” Pamela said, all business as she leaned forward and pulled a thick file out of her attaché case, a thumb drive dropping on top with a soft thunk. “We’ve uncovered information on Blackstone we need to share.” She looked up at Daisy. “But we need Vivian here to make sense of it.”

  “I called her,” Mom said, hands folded in her lap but tense enough I could see it in the set of her shoulders. She still wore her apron, dusting of flour on her knuckles. She’d been interrupted mid-bake. “She didn’t answer but I left a cryptic enough message she should know it’s important.” The door to the sitting room swung open, Dad poking his head in. Another big gush of relief hit me and I waved him inside. He sat on the arm of the love seat next to Mom, one big hand settling on her back and she instantly relaxed, smiling up at him, her fingers cupping his knee. So adorable, my parents, and hard not to hope Crew and I had that kind of love to look forward to when we were their age.

  “In the meantime,” Pamela said, forging on, a second folder emerging from the well-worn black leather, “you might want to have a look at this.” Gregg Brown’s name was written in bold block letters in thick black marker across the top. “Take a guess as to the identity of his main financial backer.”

  A few names popped into my head while I flipped the cover open. Names like Marie Patterson, Greggory Jenkins. But I think I already knew, had suspected and now had confirmation, that it was not a who, but a what, that sent him to Reading.

  Blackstone Corporation owned Gregg Brown.

  I shared the file, but said it out loud so everyone would know the truth. “Is Blackstone after the treasure, then?” Dad whistled low under his breath, Crew scowling all over again. Pamela spoke as the folder made the rounds to Daisy, Mom and then the boys in turn. “Over my dead body.”

  Crew hissed at me. “Don’t say that.”

  Yikes. Right. Ouch.

  “Whatever their reason for interfering, yet again, in our town,” Pamela said, sounding like she was ready for that interference to be over with once and for all, “it’s clear they have motives we’re still at a loss to uncover. Until now.”

  Fleur barked a laugh, fast and brittle before falling quiet. But she and Pamela were smiling at Daisy who seemed stunned by the attention.

  “Why are you looking at me like that?” She met my eyes, her gray ones huge. “Fee?”

  Pamela reached around me and patted Daisy’s knee. “Your father passed away, leaving you in possession of stock in a company, is that correct?”

  My bestie shrugged, sad in response, while I struggled to figure out what Pamela was after stirring up Daisy’s hurt all over again. Hard not to feel protective of the sweet woman I’d always adored whose heartless dad left her nothing in the will aside from those useless shares.

  “He did,” Daisy said. “They aren’t worth anything, Pamela. I looked into the company. It’s just a shell. Emile helped,” she smiled at me, “but even he couldn’t find any real purpose for it.” She shrugged then, dainty, almost helpless. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand why they are important.”

  Pamela’s evil smile made my stomach clench, in a deliciously devilish way. She was up to no good and I was all in, all the time.

  “There’s a second shareholder, did you know that?” Pamela glanced up at the tall, pale woman she’d brought with her. “We only know thanks to Fleur.”

  She jerked her own shrug, almost like a puppet whose strings had been cut, suddenly awkward as if Pamela’s praise made her uncomfortable. “I went digging into Blackstone after the woodpecker incident,” she said like it was no big deal. “When Pamela came poking around, asking the same questions I did, it made sense to pool our resources.” That far-too familiar smile told me that even if Pamela wasn’t in love with Fleur? The younger journalist had feelings unrequited.

  Well, damn.

  Not my problem right now. “You wanted Vivian here,” I said, mind rushing to put two-and-two together.

  Pamela nodded while Dad looked up from the file about Gregg, his second pass after retrieving it from Crew. “She’s the other shareholder?” He frowned down at the photo of the treasure hunter. “Ranier French and Donald Bruce were old friends, yes. But they were never in business together.”

  “We’re still trying to figure things out,” Fleur said, shooting Pamela a look, a silencing look. “But from what we’ve uncovered, whatever they were up to? They left the results to their daughters.”

  ***

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Daisy’s shock didn’t dissipate in the least. If anything, it only grew. I reached across Pamela to grasp my bestie’s hand while she shook her head, that surprise turning to sorrowful rejection.

  “My father didn’t care what happened to me or my mother,” she said, without a trace of the bitterness she was entitled to as far as I was concerned. Daisy’s fingers grasped mine tightly while she held on.

  “I don’t think that’s true.” Pamela didn’t move, holding still. To prevent separating me from Daisy? If so, that kind of empathy was, to be honest, new for her. “If anything, I’m more inclined to believe that Donald was doing his best to protect you and your mother from his business dealings.”

  Daisy couldn’t have looked more lost, more vulnerable, and I wished Emile was there to hug her because I wasn’t sure one of mine was up for the job. Still, I finally rose, pulling her up beside me, and embraced her anyway. She clung to me a moment while Pamela stood as well, patting my bestie on the back just as awkwardly as she had me.

  “Whatever the case may be,” Fleur said, interrupting the moment, though I was grateful for it since Daisy was hanging on tight enough it was starting to cut off my oxygen, “we need to finish digging. And we need Vivian French’s permission—along with yours, Daisy—to do it.”

  Of course Day nodded, gulped, wiping at tears on her cheeks. “Anything,” she said. “I just want to help. To understand.” She met my eyes, her gray ones bright and shining with fresh tears. “Did I misjudge him all these years?’

  If she had, she wasn’t the only one.

  My phone rang, how opportune. I left the group to talk, Liz huddling over Crew’s shoulder, the two of them fighting Dad for the Blackstone folder, and answered Olivia Walker’s call after a short bout of hesitation. She’d done her best to warn me, hadn’t she? She had earned a conversation even if I wondered about her talk with Barry and the murder of Geoffrey Jenkins.

  “Fee.” She practically gasped my name as I thumbed the green button and answered. “Please, I need your help. He’s arrested me.”

  “Who?” Like I didn’t know who. I was already heading for the door, waving at my husband. But it was Liz I wanted and, when I motioned for her to come with me, she was on the move instantly.

  “Robert.” Olivia sounded desperate, voice a bit high-pitched and breathless. Not like her at all. “I’m at the sheriff’s office. Please, you’re my phone call. I need you.”

  She should have called a lawyer, but my lack of reticence to go running? Maybe her instincts were right. Considering I hadn’t been allowed to interfere in any way with Crew’s interrogation, I’d been itching to get my hands on details of Geoffrey’s death. Busybody or not, this was my opportunity to find out what happened.

  “On my way.” I hung up, whispered what was happening to Liz on the way through the lobby so the few guests mingling didn’t have t
o have their vacations disturbed. She drove, her rented SUV covering the few blocks quickly, while part of me—a guilty and regretful part—felt terribly I was relieved Olivia was under arrest.

  That meant Crew wasn’t a suspect anymore.

  Oh, Fee.

  Thing was, that truth cleared my head. No longer fogged by worry for my husband’s safety, I’d be able to focus, right? I could help Olivia better knowing Crew was no longer in the line of fire.

  Whatever it took to sleep at night.

  Jill looked pretty harried when we walked into the office, toe-to-toe with Robert while Rose stood off to one side, snide expression the kind you’d love to wipe off her face by rubbing it against pavement at fifty miles per hour. I ignored her sour expression in favor of catching Olivia’s eye where she sat, head in her hands, behind the bars of one of the holding cells. She looked up when I entered, hurried to rise, to grasp the metal in her shaking fingers, to wait for me with her brown eyes huge.

  I didn’t bother asking permission, pushing my way through the swinging half door in to the bullpen. Jill nodded welcome while Robert spun on me, gut stuck out as if the prow of a well-rounded ship had crested the buckle on his belt and threatened to beach itself.

  “You’re not welcome here,” he started.

  “I am a private investigator hired by Ms. Walker to look into her case,” I shot back. “Try and stop me.” I looked him up and down, making sure he took note of the disdain I carefully released at the sight of his slovenly appearance. Seriously, had he washed that shirt in the last week? And how many drips of whatever it was he’d eaten did his belly have to catch before he noticed he was a pig? “Deputy.”

  I might have been going to hell for enjoying it, but that felt really, really good.

  “She has the right to be here,” Jill said in her long-suffering tone. “Step aside, Robert. Now.”