Murder Takes the High Road(76)

But Daya...

Even when she had hugged Vanessa when we’d arrived at the island. Had that been guilt about what she was planning to do—or an effort to keep Vanessa from recognizing her?

Either way, her weird semi-hysterical behavior from the time we’d reached the island made more sense now. A lot of it probably came down to fear. Fear she would be discovered before she could carry out her plan. Fear she would be caught after carrying out her plan.

Sure, it was all circumstantial, but if I wasn’t on the right track, Daya’s presence on the island was sure one whopping coincidence.

And what a relief because—I could admit it to myself now—I had been afraid that somehow Ben and Yvonne might be involved. Yvonne was such an odd bird, and Ben had seemed so shaken by Vanessa’s death.

But it was okay. Daya was the one we needed to look at.

Daya, who had a strong, solid motive for wanting revenge on Vanessa.

I glanced down at the cover of There Grows an Oak.

My heart paused mid-beat.

I opened the book and flipped back to the photo of Evie.

“Where do you fit in?” I muttered.

The fierce-eyed girl in the photo stared back in challenge.

Evie. Yvonne.

No.

No way.

It was possible though. Whether I liked it or not.

But that raw-boned girl with the wild, dark hair did not look like any woman on this tour. If she looked like anyone... I stared at her photo. Closed my eyes.

I did not want this to be the answer.

But if it was true, we were talking about murder. About cold-blooded, pre-meditated murder.

I picked up the final book, The Good Girl, and began to read.

*

The wind died down, and the ghostly voice whispering down the fireplace chimney fell silent. I turned the final pages.

The rain had stopped and the darkness outside the windows was starting to fade when I put The Good Girl down. Wyecliff had a taste for the sensational, even the lurid, but I had to give her her due. She had caught what nearly everyone else had missed.

Sixteen-year-old Donald Kresley had had two girlfriends. Claire Sims had been fifteen. Evie Waters had been fourteen, and her age had been the main reason her existence had been largely covered up by both the prosecution and the defense. Because long before Claire had been brought to trial, it was painfully, embarrassingly obvious that Evie was pregnant with Donald’s baby.

Wyecliff had been unable to trace what ultimately became of Evie Waters. The family had shipped her off to Australia, but when Evie came of age, she had migrated again—and successfully taken herself off the grid.

From there it was guesswork, but I had a pretty good idea of what had happened next. Evie had come to the States with her baby. She had trained as a veterinarian and had eventually married.

That was as far as I could get without aid of the internet, and frankly, it was as far as I wanted to go. This was something for the authorities.

I closed the final book, tossed it onto the stack, and shoved the stack to the edge of the table. For a time, I stared out the window as the skies grew lighter. Finally, I blew out my guttering candle, put my head on my folded arms and closed my eyes.

*

I came awake to the chime of texts flying in, one after another.

I yawned, sat up, stretched, and opening my eyes, found Ben sitting across the table from me.

I sat up so fast, I nearly tipped my chair over. I’d have been startled to find anyone in there with me, but finding Ben was definitely an unpleasant shock.

“Ben,” I said. My voice sounded old and creaky.

His gaze was pinned on the stack of books I’d pushed aside so that I could rest my eyes. After a moment, he turned his red-rimmed gaze to mine. He had looked exhausted the night before. This morning, he looked worse. Hollowed out.

“I didn’t know,” he said.

That could have meant anything, of course, up to and including, I didn’t know you were sleeping in here. I said cautiously, “No?”

“My dad was diagnosed with brain cancer two years ago. I didn’t even know he wasn’t my real father until then. But that’s when everything changed.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. I truly was.

My phone chimed again as another text arrived.

Ben said, “She loved him. She took care of him until the day he died. She never complained. Not one word.”

I swallowed. My throat was very dry and made a squeaky sound, like a nervous cartoon character. Neither of us smiled.

“She changed. The minute he closed his eyes, she changed. She was obsessed with—” he looked around the beautiful, strange room “—this. With her. Vanessa.”

I nodded. But I knew Yvonne had booked this trip two years ago. She’d mentioned it a couple of times. We had all booked years ago. She had planned and plotted.

Maybe Ben read my thoughts. “She said she wanted to confront her. Vanessa. Wanted to tell her to her face what she had done, the harm she had caused. Wanted her to know that she could forget it, and go on, but the rest of us had to live with it.

“I believed her. I still believe that’s what she intended.”

I unstuck my tongue to ask, “How did your aunt come into it?”

Ben said with quiet venom, “That bitch.”

I didn’t move a muscle. Ben was in a dangerous state of mind. The blackness in his eyes scared me. He had never struck me as the violent type, but he had changed. As long as he was talking, I was okay, but I was afraid to say the wrong thing.