Troubles in Paradise (Paradise #3)(78)

“Yes,” Irene says. “This is exactly the way Russ explained the job to me.”

“They planned to ease into the black money so gradually that Russ would become acclimated to it bit by bit.” Marilyn shakes her head. “Like the old frog-in-a-pot-of-water myth where supposedly if you raise the temperature a few degrees at a time, the frog won’t realize it’s boiling.”

Irene understands the simile—it’s apt—but she hates thinking about Russ that way.

“The marijuana farmer was already on the books, and next might be someone who moved cocaine, heroin, oxycodone. So…on that first trip down here, they set Russ up.”

“Set him up?”

“Oscar Cobb was in the restaurant at Caneel on their first night. He’d told Todd that his former girlfriend, Rosie Small, would be working as a cocktail waitress. He also told Todd that Rosie was single, vulnerable, and extremely beautiful. Oscar staged a situation where he followed Rosie out to her car and harassed her, allowing Russ to step in and save the day.”

Irene gasps. “You mean the part…I’m sorry, I read about this in Rosie’s diaries…Russ put Oscar in some kind of headlock. That was staged?”

“Yes,” Marilyn says. “Rosie left the restaurant, Oscar followed, and he knew Russ would be heading back to his room along the same path. He let Russ get the better of him. If you knew Oscar, you’d understand that a headlock from someone like Russ wasn’t going to stop him. Once Oscar told Todd that he’d been successful, Todd and Stephen took Bluebeard over to the BVIs, leaving Russ alone for the weekend. That was all by design.”

Russ had been set up. Irene felt almost embarrassed for him.

“But Rosie had no idea?”

“None.”

“Russ still could have acted like an upstanding and faithful husband,” Irene says. “But he didn’t.”

“That’s right,” Marilyn says. “Todd and Stephen saw Rosie in Russ’s hotel room and they knew he could be blackmailed. He certainly wouldn’t want the news getting back to you in Iowa City. And then Rosie reached out to Russ using Todd’s e-mail, and Todd suspected she was pregnant. Todd flew down to confirm this and saw with his own eyes that it was true. He told Russ, and Russ confirmed with Rosie that it was his baby. She said she didn’t want to see him again and he honored that, but he started sending money.”

Marilyn leans forward; her pretty nails gently scratch at the knees of her khaki capris. “Does this come as a surprise?”

“I’m aware he sent her money.”

Marilyn purses her lips, sighs, shakes her head. “Because both Todd and Stephen knew about Rosie and the baby, there was nothing they couldn’t ask Russ to do. They put all of the ‘sensitive’ business deals under Russ’s supervision, in a whole separate subdivision of the company. They made it seem like this offshoot was independent of Ascension. Russ’s name alone was on the paperwork as the principal for all of the money laundering, all of the tax fraud, even things that weren’t so bad, like hiding money for a European soccer star who owed alimony. He couldn’t object, and Todd paid Russ handsomely to keep him happy. You had plenty of money at home? For the renovation of the Victorian?”

“Yes,” Irene whispers.

“In 2014, Rosie’s mother died, and Russ and Rosie reunited. Because there had been no oversight on any of the company’s deals, Russ grew bolder. He wanted property down here, a villa. He couldn’t very well keep bringing Rosie to Caneel; someone would find out about them. Through a tip from Oscar Cobb, Todd approached a failing real estate concern, Welcome to Paradise, owned by Douglas and Paulette Vickers. They’d bought a hundred and forty acres in Little Cinnamon with the intention of developing the hillside, but they ran out of money. They were about to lose the whole thing to the bank when Todd paid a visit.” Marilyn shakes her head. “You want to talk about two people who are completely under my husband’s sway? It’s the Vickerses. Todd saved them from ruin just after their son was born. They allowed dozens of phony real estate deals to be run through their office. But officially, Paulette and Douglas worked for Russ and Russ alone.”

Marilyn pauses. “They could have turned Todd in. I wish they had. But they were too afraid.”

“Afraid of what?”

“Being killed,” Marilyn says.

Killed, Irene thinks. For turning in Todd, which is what Marilyn is going to do. Irene has no idea how Marilyn is remaining so composed, though Irene admits that she’s comforted by it. Marilyn reminds Irene a little of herself. She might not always have been strong, but she’s strong now.

“They’re both serving time instead,” Marilyn says.

Irene recalls her initial meeting with Paulette Vickers, which was during her very first hour on this island. Paulette had seemed flighty and completely insensitive to Irene’s emotional state, which was numb shock. She had prattled on about the hiking trails, about the landscapers. She had displayed nothing but calm acceptance that her employer was dead.

What else had Paulette told her?

“The villa was in Russ’s name,” Irene says.

“Everything is in Russ’s name,” Marilyn says. “That’s what I’m telling you.”

“Because of me,” Irene says. “He allowed himself to be blackmailed because of me. Because he didn’t want me to find out about Rosie and Maia.”